Integrating Sustainability Requirements into Product Development Based on Sustainability Reporting Frameworks

Abstract

Setting quantifiable requirements for the sustainability of a product is a challenge that companies, policymakers, and the scientific community are facing. Integrating and considering sustainability in product development requires the definition and review of appropriate metrics. However, there are no standardized approaches to formulating technical requirements based on standards and guidelines for developing sustainable products. The key question is therefore how sustainability can be projected from the high-level of abstract guidelines to the granular component level to achieve data-based improvement with targeted measures. This paper presents a novel method that employs use-case specific metrics to select existing sustainable development frameworks and to translate them into technical requirements on the product level. The result is a computer-aided method to formulate sustainability requirements based on standardized guidelines. With the help of a discrete manufacturing use case, the concept is validated and discussed. This method enables the identification of potentials and the use of targeted measures to design more sustainable products in the iterations of the development process.