NEARLY HALF OF BUSINESSES ‘ ARE NOT DESIGNING SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS ’
Sustainable product design has helped 67 % of organisations reduce carbon emissions , yet 41 % of currently have no plans to implement sustainable product design , or do not plan to do so at all , new research from Capgemini reveals .
The study explores the importance of thinking beyond isolated design problems , and instead looking at the early stages of product design through to the selection of materials and end-of-life management .
Sustainable design is often held to be too expensive , but Capgemini ’ s study found that 23 % of businesses have seen a decrease in costs since implementing new sustainable strategies , while 37 % of organisations found that costs remained the same .
Other key findings include :
• Regulatory pressure overrides sustainability goals , with 61 % of organisations fearing regulatory non-compliance .
• Businesses don ’ t understand sustainability strategies . Just 16 % of product designers say they have an accurate understanding of the useful life of their products .
• Sustainable design practices provide a multitude of long-term benefits : organisations have experienced increased revenue growth ( 73 %), improved customer satisfaction ( 70 %), and improved employee engagement ( 79 %) alongside carbon emissions reduction ( 67 %).
reusable , compostable , whether they ’ re sourced from fossil-based sources , and what the CO2 content is .”
Complex packing poses problem for circular economy Packaging , he says , is notoriously complex when it comes to sourcing , interpreting and acting upon the data required to measure environmental impact .
“ Take a chocolate box ,” he says . “ You have the tray containing the chocolate that sits within the primary packaging and then the secondary packaging around that . Then there ’ s the tertiary packaging , used for transportation .
“ Being able to understand what materials are used at what point in time in the production of your products is an unbelievably complicated task , and the
90 November 2022