Product Sustainability Index (ProdSI)

Abstract

SummaryAs a result of the rapidly depleting global resources, continuing climate change and increasing environmental pollution, and the associated growth in customer awareness, improving product sustainability has become a global trend. Comprehensive sustainability assessment techniques are needed to assess a product's sustainability performance throughout its entire life cycle. This article presents the Product Sustainability Index (ProdSI) methodology and its application. This methodology is metrics based and provides a comprehensive assessment of the overall product sustainability throughout its total life cycle, covering the four life cycle stages: pre‐manufacturing; manufacturing; use; and postuse. In this article, first the fundamentals of sustainable manufacturing and product sustainability assessment (PSA) are presented, followed by a review of existing PSA methodologies. Major product sustainability elements that are used to define product sustainability clusters and individual sustainability metrics are then presented. Finally, theProdSImethodology for PSA, which follows a hierarchical approach for sustainability metrics identification and overall PSA, is introduced. The application of the methodology is demonstrated in a numerical example ofProdSIevaluation for two generations of a consumer electronics component.