Design for Sustainability: A Practical Approach

Companies all over the world increasingly need to innovate their products and processes to: keep up with competitive pressure; increase productivity within the region or worldwide; defend or expand market share; and to create the ability to attract foreign investments.

The Design for Sustainability (DfS) Programme of Delft University of Technology has published a practical set of guidelines and workbooks that will make interesting reading for all businesses , but is especially targeted at SME’s, and in particular SME’s in  developing economies. Why? Because such companies can easily be left out of the innovation race for a variety of economic and structural
reasons.

An increasing focus and concern of innovators is, or should be, the growing global concerns about environmental problems such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss and about social problems related to poverty, health, working circumstances, safety and inequality, have fostered sustainability approaches for industry.

Promoting approaches to Design for Sustainability is the focus of the organisation which says, "A broad definition of D4S would be that industries take environmental and social concerns as a key element in their long-term product innovation strategy. This implies that companies incorporate environmental and social factors into product development throughout the life cycle of the product, throughout the supply chain, and with respect to their socio-economic surroundings (from the local community for a small company, to the global market for a transnational company (TNC))."

At eco-psfk.com we welcome the initiative and encourage use of the guide. It is a a simple step-by-step methodology that can be downloaded for free. Follow this link to access the report.