Barriers to sustainable and circular product design – A theoretical and empirical prioritisation in the European automotive industry

Abstract

Despite the increasing availability of tools and methods for sustainable and circular product design (DfS), their uptake in practice is slow. This is also true in the automotive industry, where DfS is an important measure for addressing the industry's negative environmental and social impacts. To facilitate DfS implementation, this paper uses an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and offers, for the first time, a classification and prioritisation of the barriers that need to be overcome when implementing DfS into vehicle development processes. Based on a systematic literature review and on an expert workshop, the top 15 DfS barrier factors were derived and divided equally into five groups, following a multi-level structure. These factors and groups formed the input for a survey-based analytic hierarchy process with 38 European industry experts. The results show that strategic issues are the most important barriers, followed by the group of operational, personal, external, and tool-related barriers. Among the 15 barrier factors identified, the top five were (1) an unclear link to profitability, (2) lack of top management support, (3) difficulties in handling trade-offs, (4) high operational costs, and (5) a lack of integration of DfS into corporate strategy. The results indicate that while external constraints already exert pressure on automotive companies, they still face particular challenges when attempting to integrate sustainability into corporate strategies and in transferring such strategies to DfS activities at the operational level. The study results may be used to inform managerial policy and further research.