The things we make create environmental impacts throughout their lifecycles, from manufacturing to disposal. The best opportunities for saving resources like materials and energy can often be uncovered early in the design process by identifying the most important problems to solve.
Whole systems thinking allows you to see the big-picture of the social, environmental, and technical systems that a product is a part of. This can help you identify new possibilities for innovation.
Lifecycle thinking allows you to quantify environmental impacts so that you can prioritize, set metrics around, and most effectively reduce them. This process is not just about making things “less bad.” It can help unlock your creativity and lead to game-changing innovations.
Throughout the design process, there are many sustainable design tools and strategies you can draw from.
Download the lesson plan, quick reference guide, and script that accompanies this video below!
Dive Deeper
Lifecycle Assessment
Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) quantifies the environmental impact of your designs so that you and your customers can make more informed decisions.
10xE Design Principles
The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)'s “Factor Ten” initiative has the goal of teaching engineers how to design for tenfold- higher resource productivity. These 17 practical principles summarize the integrative design techniques that RMI uses in its work.
