Abstract
Design for sustainability approach in product development – a case study using innovative nail polishes developed by a small enterprise
Highlights
INTRODUCTION *Design for Sustainability (D4S) is an emerging trend in product development and has grown as a response to the environmental and social problems caused by production and consumption of products
This article presents a study on Design for Sustainability (D4S) that we conducted in a small company assessing three innovative formulas of nail polish: conventional nail polish, hybrid polish, and gel polish
We demonstrated that decision-making is assisted by the use of a simple multi-criterion matrix in the form of a star diagram that integrates environmental and social aspects during the product design phase in a systematic and transparent way
Summary
Design for Sustainability (D4S) is an emerging trend in product development and has grown as a response to the environmental and social problems caused by production and consumption of products. The nail polishes have a specific requirement: the coating has to be stable during the period of use but destroyable at the end of life This demand makes development of a suitable coating system challenging (Grigale-Sorocina et al, 2015). Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) play an essential role in European economies and product turnover: 99.8% of all European-28 enterprises in the non-financial business sector are SMEs, account for 67% of the total employment, and generate 58% of the sector’s value added (Muller et al, 2015) Are they able to implement D4S and do they have tools for it?. It was adjusted to meet the company’s needs by incorporating life cycle thinking and by screening hazardous substances in order to demonstrate the performance of three nail polish systems to illustrate the suitability of such tool for decision-making considering design for sustainability. Knight and Jenkins (2009) conclude that practitioners prefer simple ecodesign tools such as guidelines, matrices, and the LiDS wheel rather than complicated analytical methods such as life cycle assessment, which demands more time and resources, being in contradiction
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