Circular Business Models: A company perspective

This project aimed to research the perspective of companies on the relationship between sustainability and circular business models. This was done by first looking at how literature describes the relationship between sustainability and the circular economy/circular business models. With this as a basis, thirteen different multinational companies...

Frugal Thermometer Innovation

In low-resource settings, like Uganda in Africa, fever is commonly measured by means of tactile contact with skin. However, for patients, caregivers and healthcare workers, self-assessment of fever is significantly inaccurate. Inadequate healthcare leads patients to be over-diagnosed with malaria and therefore over-treated with antimalarial...

Rotterdam's circular waste glossy & solid board waste bin

Dealing with waste in a proper way is part of the shift from a linear to a circular economy. Sorting waste is an essential step in the recycling process. Making households sort their waste is a challenge. Rotterdam is one of the lesser performing municipalities of the Netherlands. In general, high-rise households sort their waste below average,...

PAYG in South Africa and Zimbabwe: Design of a Product Service System for SolarWorks

This master thesis describes the research for and design of a Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model for SolarWorks! in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Modern energy services (like electricity) contribute positively to the economic development, welfare and health situation in Africa, but the products like Solar Home Systems (SHS) are often too expensive to...

A new sanitation system for slums in urban dense areas

Around 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to proper sanitation solutions, leading to many social, economical and health related problems. This report elaborates on “Clean Alliance” a product-service-system based in the provision of adaptable toilet booth availability supported by a waste processing Mini Multi Product Plant (MMPP)...

A Cradle-To-Cradle Picnic experience for Ameland and the other Cradle-to-Cradle islands

During this graduation project a sustainable activity for the C2C-Islands was researched and designed, with Ameland as main context. It was chosen to develop a C2C picnic set, because this matches the current activities (mainly outdoor) that are undertaken and possibilities that are available (local foods and excellent picnic facilities). The...

Material analysis and environmental improvement of a flat panel television

Even though the Econova television of Philips has proved to be the best holistic environmentally friendly television, with an extremely low energy usage, it could still be improved by using lower impact materials. The eco-impact of printed circuit boards remains a main area worthy of further study. A first step is made in the direction of a...

A Sneaky Kettle - Emotionally Durable Design Explored in Practice

Emotionally durable design is a genre of sustainable design that aims at reducing consumption and waste by enhancing the durability of the relationship established between users and products. More durable relationships should lead to prolonged use of products. As a consequence, fewer products will be replaced which reduces environmental impact...

A strategic focus on sustainable product innovation tool development for Vietnamese SMEs

A lot of different tools and methods for strategic product development are being used used in the West. Companies cannot exist without doing a sufficient ammount of marketing and branding activities. Customer needs are explored on a daily basis and brands are developing itself to extent from the broad range of companies offering similar services...

Trash to Treasure: Turning waste into sustainable and enjoyable applications for Dierenpark Emmen Next

The current zoo of Emmen will move to a new location in 2015, so plans are being made to realize a new park that will be highly sustainable. In this graduation project a vision was created on how the 'material flows' in the park can become as sustainable as possible. This vision was used to generate product ideas for the new park. Finally three...

Design of an Environmentally Friendly Bamboo Toy

Since the dawn of time, play has been a joyful and experience-oriented method of acquiring knowledge and skills. Toys and games have been an essential part of each and every human culture around the globe, accompanying us from birth to old-age, fulfilling different roles over the course of human life. In the same way, toys have had great effect...