Design for sustainability

Eco-designed products can contribute to sustainable development if consumers choose them rather than the less environmentally friendly alternatives and if they are used properly. How-ever, eco-design methods have so far failed to address the issue of unsustainable behaviors, whose sources have not been recognized. In light of this deficiency, the authors have analyzed a large number of eco-designed products with the aim to capture the possible unsustainable behaviors arising from their use and consumption. The subsequent characterization of unsustainable behaviors has led to the creation of a framework of unsustainable behaviors, which has been subjected to the evaluation of a pool of experts in the field. In its final version, the framework includes nine classes of unsustainable behaviors, which are categorized into the corresponding product lifecycle phases (purchase, use, end of life), and different kinds of undesired effects (harmful, insufficient, excessive) based on the TRIZ-oriented functional analysis. The classes, whose significance has been checked in the literature, include frequent causes of unsustainable behaviors and corresponding examples. Through the framework, designers can take into due account the possible circumstances that would prevent their developed products from being prone to unsustainable behaviors. In a future step, the classes of unsustainable behaviors are to be linked with indications arising from Design for Sustainable Behavior.

Keywords: Design for sustainable behavior , Design requirements , Design strategies , Eco-design , Product development , Product lifecycle , TRIZ , Unsustainable behaviors

Shortcomings in manufacturing companies' capabilities to execute circular economy business modelling have delayed a broader dissemination of circular business models beyond the stage of pilot projects in niche markets. Circular economy poses additional uncertainties for innovation that are not common for manufacturing companies' traditional activities and business as usual. To cope with such challenges, they lack systematised practices and proactive advice, which are scant in available literature and approaches. The paper presents the development of the tool Circular Economy Business Modelling Expert System within manufacturing companies, intended to address these limitations. Based on systematised business modelling practices for circular economy and proactive advice on potential circular business model configurations, the expert system enhances strategic thinking for circular economy, supporting companies to come up with varied alternative business models with reasonable and viable value propositions to deploy circular benefits accordingly. The expert system was streamlined based on literature review, development, testing and evaluation with 12 practitioners from 10 companies. The paper discusses the main functionalities of the expert system and the results of its application into varied manufacturing companies. The application of the expert system has demonstrated to benefit companies with: inspiration for best practices on circular business modelling, a structured framework for confirming assumptions and a logic structure that prompts decision-making and reduces uncertainties.

Keywords: business model , circular economy , innovation , sustainability , tool

Although the circular economy (CE) concept is gaining traction and methods to assess companies' CE-related aspects exist, there is no established CE assessment tool. In many cases, it is not clear how metrics or indicators included in extant CE assessment methods have been selected. To fill this gap, this paper presents a new instrument named Circularity and Maturity Firm-Level Assessment tool (CM-FLAT). The CM-FLAT has been developed starting from a transparent scientific basis, i.e., a recent systematic literature review and comprehensive collection of CE metrics. In addition, it targets the separate assessment of CE maturity, i.e., the presence of documented activities and practices laying the foundations for CE introduction, and circularity, i.e., attained CE-related performances. The development of the CM-FLAT has foreseen its formal evaluation by experts in the field of CE and sustainability, and its testing by a pilot group of companies from South Tyrol, Italy. The multiple verification activities have confirmed its usefulness and usability. Therefore, companies can now benefit from a tool capable of providing a comprehensive framework of factors and organizational areas affecting the introduction of the CE. This will be fostered by a computersupported tool implementing the CM-FLAT, which represents the authors' future work.

Keywords: Circular economy assessment , Circular economy metrics , Circular value chain , Circularity , CM-FLAT , Maturity , Micro-level assessment

With reference to assessing Circular Economy (CE) at the firm level, available literature reviews do not clarify what and how has to be actually assessed, while many assessment methods do not take into account the latest developments in the field. Furthermore, CE indicators are not explicitly linked to the firm's organizational functions involved in CE assessment. In order to address these issues and to favor practice-oriented CE assessments at the firm level, the present paper collects and analyses CE assessment indicators at their finest level of granularity, i.e. the CE metrics. By means of a systematic literature review, the work gathers insights from 130 documents belonging to scientific and practitioners' literature, reviews existing CE metrics, and organizes them according to a new circular Value Chain framework. More in details, 365 different firm-level metrics have been identified and classified through said circular Value Chain framework, articulated into 23 categories. The vast majority of CE metrics are sufficiently general and applicable in assessment procedures irrespective of the firm size, the geographic location, the industrial domain and the selling strategy of the company. This aspect facilitates the fine-tuning of comprehensive CE assessment methods, which, as a result, can largely neglect contingency factors of the investigated firms. The framework and its categories help match CE metrics and organizational functions, thus facilitating the individuation of firms' players involved in CE assessment. As the review highlights a remarkable fragmentation of current CE assessment models and diverging interpretations of CE's scopes, further implications on research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: Assessment , Circular Economy , Ecodesign , Metrics , Value Chain

The paper investigates to what extent the knowledge accumulated in the field of Bio-Inspired Design might benefit the process of biologicalisation in manufacturing. According to visions making inroads in the manufacturing field, the latter will not be limited to the consideration and the analysis of biological principles as a source of inspiration for solving technical and organizational problems. In fact, the process of biologicalisation in manufacturing foresees the development of bio-integrated and bio-intelligent systems. In light of these expected developments, Bio-Inspired Design's might fail to support the whole transition to take place in the manufacturing field. Methodological limitations still to overcome represent an important barrier in this perspective too. While a transfer of knowledge from the design to the manufacturing domain seems unlikely, the authors individuate aspects that encourage cross-fertilization between Bio-Inspired Design and biologicalisation in manufacturing. These include the need to include biologists in engineering teams, the objective of sustainable development, and a shared attention to the evolution of (Design for) Additive Manufacturing.

Keywords: Bio-inspired design , Biomimetics, Industry 4.0, Additive Manufacturing, biologicalisation, Multi- , Cross- , Trans-disciplinary processes

The terms that constitute Ideality in TRIZ are extremely appropriate to characterize the conflicting prerogatives of value/functionality, and environmental sustainability and human wellbeing. In a system perspective, the latter are mostly ascribable to harmful functions and consumption of resources. The paper introduces a classification of sustainable design initiatives based on the variations of the factors that contribute to Ideality. The classification urges designers to think of possible win-win solutions in which functionalities are not jeopardized by the search for more environmental-friendly solutions. Combining ideality and sustainability is a trigger towards making sustainable solutions more accepted, and, consequently, more effective in preserving the environment. In particular, the individuation of classes of sustainable design endeavors lay bare that the potential reduction of harmful effects is not a sufficient precondition to create sustainable products. Overall, TRIZ, along with its underlying theory and constructs, has proven to provide an effective key of reading for approaching the eco-design field in terms of the extent to which new products and solutions are promising.

Keywords: Eco-design , Ideality , Super-sustainability , TRIZ , Value

To support the transition to sustainable development, eco-design must lead to the development of products that provide additional value when compared to traditional products, ultimately resulting in market success. In this study, creativity principles are explored as leverage points for eco-design implementation, enhancing customer acceptance and market success. The authors have inferred ten eco-design guidelines, which aim to enhance success chances in the development of new products. The proposed guidelines were verified through eco-ideation session and experts' evaluation. Results support the congruence of objectives between creativity, sustainability, success, and value creation in design. The guidelines represent a promising design tool to be further developed to pursue the objective of making eco-designed products more valuable and successful.

Keywords: design creativity , eco-design , Ideation , success , value perception

The relationships between the creation of value for both the environment and consumers have been insightfully investigated by the authors in previous studies. The results achieved in these studies have allowed the authors to deduce some design recommendations and represent the basis for further analyses of the perception of eco-designed products through quantitative data. In this paper, a sample of indications intended to support designers in developing sustainable and successful products was fine-tuned. These indications, embodied in eco-design guidelines, have been partially deducted from the evidence that emerged in previous works and partially inferred through a specific elaboration of data regarding the value perception of eco-design strategies. The guidelines have been evaluated by (eco-)design practitioners, whose evaluation shows the high perceived relevance of the guidelines.

Keywords: Eco-design guidelines , Success , Value perception

This Special Issue of Applied Sciences provides a collection of original papers on smart manufacturing technology with the aim of: examining emerging aspects of digitalization in the industrial and biomedical fields, as well as in business management and sustainability; proposing and developing a new approach useful for companies, factories, and organizations to achieve greater innovation and productivity—as well as sustainability—by applying smart manufacturing technologies; and exploring new ideas and encouraging research directions so as to obtain autonomous and semiautonomous processes, high-quality products, and services with a greater integration and interconnection of resources while reducing costs. The advantages of new methods and experimental results obtained in the collected contributions are discussed promoting further design, implementation, and application in the various fields.

Keywords: Assessment of digitalization , Computational geometry and CAD/CAM , Enabling technologies , Machine learning , Machine tools and manufacturing equipment , Manufacturing networks and security , Sustainability , Virtual/augmented reality

The aim of this review article is the analysis of the results obtained from the scientific literature concerning all the phases that make up the life cycle of traction batteries for electric vehicles, in order to evaluate the associated environmental impact. In this regard, some scientific articles dealing with LCA studies concerning electric vehicles, with particular reference to batteries, will be examined. The revision of these articles will provide a general framework for the production, use and recycling phases of traction batteries. In particular, different parameters that influence the outcome of the LCA studies will be shown, parameters on which we can then act to improve the environmental impacts of the transition from internal combustion vehicles to electric mobility. These parameters are represented by the chemistry of the battery considered, aspect at the centre of the discussion, by the specific energy and efficiency of the battery pack, by the durability of the latter, but also by other aspects, such as the energy mix considered (both for the production phase, for the use phase and for recharging) and the functional unit chosen for the study, which determines a different approach, related to the analysis of a specific problem or aspect rather than another. Finally, the usefulness of the recycling practice and the related problems will be shown. In fact, the recycling must be perfected according to the battery chemistry in question to obtain benefits and better reduce environmental loads.

Keywords: Automotive , electric mobility , electric vehicles , global warming , green mobility , LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) , lithium batteries , resource depletion , sustainability

The present study aims to validate a new research method called IDeS (industrial design structure) through the design of an electric bicycle for everyday city life. IDeS is the latest evolution of a combination of innovative and advanced systematic approaches that are used to set a new industrial project. The IDeS methodology is sequentially composed of quality function deployment (QFD), benchmarking (BM), top-flop analysis (TFA), stylistic design engineering (SDE), design for X, prototyping and testing, budgeting, and planning. The present work illustrates how to integrate the abovementioned design methods and achieve a convincing result. In going through the IDeS method step by step, we compare the different solutions on the market in order to understand which are the best performing products and to understand what is missing on the market. This method allowed us to design a bicycle that is as close as possible to the “ideal bike”, obtained with the top/flop analysis.

Keywords: Benchmarking (BM) , Industrial design structure (IDeS) , Quality function deployment (QFD) , Stylistic design engineering (SDE) , Sustainable design , Sustainable mobility , Top-flop analysis (TFA)

This paper presents a project proposal about the design of an innovative and futuristic transport system that aims to replace highways and major roads with a fast, safe and ecological new arrangement. The aim was to conceive an innovative new infrastructure of transport that fits into a future city scenery. In the current historical period we are invested by fast, frenetic and unstoppable evolution that leads to the continuous replacement of products and technologies that in a few years went from being innovative to become obsolete and outdated. Moreover, this process has inevitably affected the whole world of transport: It has assisted and is still witnessing the replacement of diesel and petrol engines with hybrid and electric ones. These evolution and change have led us into the research and understanding of increasingly innovative technologies such as the ones with zero impact motors or magnetic levitation, which in the near future will probably become a valid alternative, or even the new pioneers of transport around the world. At the beginning, the methodology used for the present case study was adopted to analyze how people used to move in the current period (i.e. 2019-20); then, it was taken into consideration the problems linked to the main means of transport diffused, with clean and green technologies; later, it was carried out a market analysis for each category, with related Benchmarking, in order to find the most significant technical characteristics of each one. According to the emerged results, a concept of an innovative transport system was developed, in order to guarantee the safety and privacy of passengers in addition to other performance items, as high speed or integration with other means. The intention was to create a transport network that could connect many cities with direct and easily practicable routes that could replace highways.

Keywords: Ecological , Future city , Future transport , High Speed , Magnetic Levitation , Safe

Face masks are currently considered essential devices that people must wear today and in the near future, until the COVID-19 pandemic will be completely defeated through specific medicines and vaccines. Such devices are generally made of thermoplastic polymers, as polypropylene and polyethylene and are single use products. Even if in this period the sanitary emergency must have the maximum priority, the world society should not completely forget the environmental problem that are causing more and more obvious climate changes with correlated damages to ecosystems and human health. Despite the well-known correlation among anti-COVID protective equipment (or more generally medical devices) and environmental issues, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and eco-design-based studies in this field is very scarce. The present study aims to derive the most important environmental criticalities of such products, by using LCA and product circularity indicators of five different common masks. The final aim is to provide eco-design guidelines, useful to design new face masks by preventing negative impact on the environment.

Keywords: Circular economy , COVID-19 , Ecodesign , Face mask , Sustainability

Refrigeration applications is responsible for approximately 17% of the total electricity and around 8% of greenhouse gas emissions. This study presents a comparative life cycle assessment between two refrigeration systems, the first operating with a traditional fluid and the second with a natural refrigerant. The analysis was performed in accordance with international standards ISO 14040/14044 and adopted the attributional life cycle assessment approach. The functional unit was: ‘the storage of meat products, at the temperature of 0°C for a lifetime of 10 years, in refrigerating cells of a medium city supermarket'. Three different scenarios were analysed to investigate the effect of the energy mix in relation to the use of the machines. Results highlight how the choice of the refrigerating fluid has a higher effect on the environmental performances of the machine with a reduction of approximately 10% in a whole life cycle. Scenario analysis shows how the use of such machines in different countries allows a significant reduction of environmental impacts mostly related to the use phase. Eco-design actions were listed and connected with environmental hot spots specifying the life cycle phases and the environmental indicators involved.

Keywords: ecodesign , Life Cycle Assessment , Refrigeration technology

Product eco-design includes several methodologies aimed at supporting companies in the development of sustainable products. Currently, this theme is assuming an important role in both the academia and industry worlds due to the increasing attention to environmental problems and the need for a transition toward circular economy business/organizational models. In this context, the present paper focuses on the industrial sector of espresso coffee machines manufacturing which has several unexploited potentialities. The analysis of the sector specificity (internal and external contexts), as well as of the product lifecycle allowed to define an eco-design framework to guide companies involved in the design and production of espresso coffee machines. Effective eco-design strategies should include the combined use of specific methods, tools and metrics to manage all the most important lifecycle phases (beginning of life, middle of life, end of life) during the design activities in order to set preventive actions that avoid future potential environmental impacts. Only in this way, the environmental and economic benefits of the circular economy paradigm (e.g. remanufacturing/reuse of selected components) can be practically exploited in real industrial contexts. The presented case studies confirmed that the application of design for disassembly rules positively contributes to increase the product performances during maintenance and end of life, while a re-design oriented to component modularity could be a key strategy to pursue remanufacturing for boilers, a key and expensive component included in espresso coffee machines.

Keywords: Circular economy , Coffee machine , Product eco-design , Recycling , Remanufacturing

The use of engineering polymers for mechanical applications has seen increasing uptake due to properties such as low density, flexibility, ease of manufacturing and cost effectiveness. Despite these advantages, joining and assembly methods for these types of materials is still an open issue. Traditional assembly processes such as screw fastening and riveting are increasingly being replaced by new processes such as adhesive bonding. Engineering polymers, however, are difficult to bond using adhesives due to their low surface energy and low wettability. For this reason, surface chemical activation techniques with primers are often used. The utilization of various chemicals associated with such pre-treatments has a significant environmental impact. Within this context, the present paper aims to compare the environmental performance of four adhesive bonding pre-treatments: (i) mechanical (i.e., abrasion), (ii) chemical (i.e., primer), (iii) plasma and (iv) laser activation. The work was performed in three phases: (i) setup of the surface activation processes, (ii) mechanical characterization of bonded joints (static tests) and (iii) LCA analysis to evaluate and compare the different pre-treatments. The outcome of this study provides important insight into the development of laser and plasma technologies as sustainable surface activation methods for polymers through the creation of models correlating process parameters to the type of surface and joint strength.

Keywords: adhesive bonds , environmental impact , laser ablation , LCA , polymers , surface activation , sustainability

In the present global health emergency, face masks play a key role in limiting the diffusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, by acting as physical barriers to avoid droplets and filtrate exhalations coming from infected subjects. Since the most widespread devices are disposable products made of plastic materials, this means that relevant quantities of fossil resources will be consumed, and huge amounts of wastes will be generated. The present paper aims to compare the environmental performances of five different typologies of face masks (i.e. 3D printed reusable mask with filter, surgical mask, filtering face-piece masks-FFPs with and without valve, washable masks), considering an average Italian use scenario and the whole mask lifecycle: materials, manufacturing processes, use, sanitization, and disposal. The Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used to assess the environmental impacts in terms of both ReCiPe midpoints and endpoints. Reusable masks and masks with interchangeable filters could potentially contribute to improve the environmental performances in all the considered impact and damage categories. Eco-design actions can be developed starting from the study results.

Keywords: COVID-19 , environmental analysis , face masks , life cycle assessment , personal protective equipment , waste reduction

This work presents the Special Issue on Innovative Textiles in the Era of Circular Economy, published in the Applied Sciences Journal. Such an issue was introduced to promote papers related to the textile field aiming at the development of a range of sustainable processes, technologies, products, and actions for the improvement of human well-being and social equity. Works proposed in this Special Issue are aimed at significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological shortcomings related to the development of textile products.

Keywords: Circular economy , Innovative textiles

As nearly one third of global energy demand and CO2 emissions are attributable to manufacturing activities, the reduction of energy/resource consumption in the industrial sector is increasingly crucial. Therefore, research and innovation for the factories of the future is not only a matter of developing and integrating new technologies, but also a challenge to make manufacturing less dependent on energy and managed in an optimized way. This requires considering the efficiency of resource exploitation according to a systematic approach. To this aim, the present paper proposes a resource-saving tool, called Resource Value Mapping (RVM), and describes its application in a smart multinational company that produces electromechanical components for the automotive industry. The RVM tool is composed by three main modules that jointly allow the involved stakeholders to collaborate toward the optimization of the plant management: the Cloud data center that represents the repository of the collected real-time and offline data, the Analytics module that is responsible for data elaboration with the aim of calculating a set of key performance indicators useful to identify process inefficiencies, and the Web-based platform that represents the user interface of the tool. The case study demonstrated how such a tool allows (1) mapping the energy/resource flows to multiple levels (machine, line, plant), (2) characterizing them to identify the most critical activities that do not generate value and (3) supporting multiple stakeholders (plant manager, energy manger, operators) in the management of resource anomalies and definition of a more sustainable action plan.

Keywords: Energy efficiency , Industrial case study , Plant management , Resource-saving tool , Sustainable manufacturing

De-manufacturing and re-manufacturing are fundamental technical solutions to efficiently recover value from post-use products. Disassembly in one of the most complex activities in de-manufacturing because i) the more manual it is the higher is its cost, ii) disassembly times are variable due to uncertainty of conditions of products reaching their EoL, and iii) because it is necessary to know which components to disassemble to balance the cost of disassembly. The paper proposes a methodology that finds ways of applications: it can be applied at the design stage to detect space for product design improvements, and it also represents a baseline from organizations approaching demanufacturing for the first time. The methodology consists of four main steps, in which firstly targets components are identified, according to their environmental impact; secondly their disassembly sequence is qualitatively evaluated, and successively it is quantitatively determined via disassembly times, predicting also the status of the component at their End of Life. The aim of the methodology is reached at the fourth phase when alternative, eco-friendlier End of Life strategies are proposed, verified, and chosen.

Keywords: Circular economy , Demanufacturing , Ecodesign , EoL strategies , Mechatronics