Wrapping up your message: Sustainable storytelling through packaging

Besides contributing to the actual sustainability performance of a product-packaging combination, packaging can also play a role in communicating about sustainability. Such green marketing aspects of packaging may either focus on the sustainability credentials of the packaging itself, or on the credentials of the product contained (or even the...

Developing new products and services in entrepreneurial contexts

Assessing Relative Sustainability of Different Packaging Sizes

The classical method to compare the environmental impact or eco-burden of different packaging designs is to use life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA requires a functional unit to compare unequal concepts on an ‘equal’ footing, for instance by comparing three 0,5 litre bottles, with one 1,5 litre bottle. Creating this ‘equal’ footing usually ignores...

Editorial: Design Research for Sustainable Behaviour

For better or worse, products contribute to shaping the behaviour of their users. Hence, designers have the opportunity, or if you are so inclined the responsibility, to take those potential behaviour changes into account in their design process. Through thoughtful design, they may aim to change user behaviour for the better and make it, for...

Nature inspired design: Strategies towards sustainability

Current design practices focus on eco-efficiency as the main approach in the field of sustainable product development. This approach mainly aims at improving existing products and services. Environmental product performance can be greatly improved using ecoefficiency but in many cases the improvements are incremental. Furthermore, the overall...

Nature inspired design: Strategies towards sustainability

Current design practices focus on eco-efficiency as the main approach in the field of sustainable product development. This approach mainly aims at improving existing products and services. Environmental product performance can be greatly improved using ecoefficiency but in many cases the improvements are incremental. Furthermore, the overall...

Practices of a "green" front end of innovation; A gateway to environmental innovation

Activities in the fuzzy front end of the innovation process (FFE) are the root of success for any company hoping to compete on the basis of innovations. Considering the importance of the FFE, it would seem logical to bring the environmental considerations already to the activities of the early stages of the innovation process in order to...

Sustainability in Design Engineering Education; Experiences in Northern Europe

In recent years, the implementation of sustainability into the curricula of engineering has become increasingly important. This paper focuses on the experiences of integrating sustainability in Design Engineering education in the academic bachelor programs at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, at the University College of West...

Balancing Environmental Performance with Sales Functionalities in Packaging for Consumer Electronic Products

Two major changes are currently taking place in the world of Consumer Electronics. They are, first, the relocation of production to low-wage countries, in particularly China. This results in longer distribution distances, which lead to a higher relative importance of this phase in the entire life cycle. To make this phase as efficient as...