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Sustainable Product Development (SPD) has gained increasing significance across businesses, government, and academia as the recognition of sustainability impacts throughout the value chains grows. In this context, manufacturing companies are progressively taking steps to enhance the sustainability performance of their developed products. While environmental sustainability has been a focus in the past, broader sustainability considerations encompassing social and economic dimensions, remain insufficiently addressed in SPD. The lack of systematic incorporation of sustainability considerations into the product development process and the multitude of unconsolidated management practices present challenges for companies and academia. Therefore, this research aims to identify and consolidate the existing management practices for SPD. Through a systematic literature review, 546 practices were identified from the 312 studies, resulting in the consolidation of 61 key management practices for SPD. These practices were further classified according to the context of application, key focus areas and organisational functions, offering valuable insights for SPD research and practice. The consolidated list of management practices serves as a strategic resource, enabling companies to navigate the complexities of SPD and select the most relevant practices to their context. Future research is recommended to delve deeper into the application of the identified SPD practices, explore their impact on sustainable product development, and showcase successful case studies.

Throughout time, the definition of sustainability has been interpreted differently and different philosophies have consequently emerged, each with its own vision of a sustainable society. At the same time, manufacturing firms have focused on environmental improvements, but social aspects have often been neglected. This study identifies 11 philosophies and 51 product design strategies contributing to sustainability awareness, cohesion, and equity, set to ensure social sustainability integration at a manufacturing firm level.

Manufacturing firms are facing the critical need to manage their business growth while staying within the biophysical limits of the planet. Absolute environmental sustainability decoupling (AESD) combines these goals and is one of the keys for manufacturing firms to achieve their sustainable transition. This study offers an initial contribution to categorise decoupling at the firm level while incorporating absolute environmental sustainability goals. It also explores the role of design in achieving AESD and opens doors for further research on manufacturing firms' sustainability transition.

Sustainable Product Development (SPD) enables the systematic incorporation of sustainability into product development and can be achieved by implementing a number of management practices. An industry survey was conducted to investigate the capability of manufacturing companies to apply a consolidated set of 61 SPD management practices. The results indicate that despite the high interest for SPD, the uptake of SPD practices in industry is still behind the state-of-the-art literature. Hence, a greater improvement opportunity exists in the industrial uptake in SPD.

Trade-offs involving multiple criteria that cannot be satisfied at the same time are ubiquitous in engineering design activities. Navigating trade-off decisions can be challenging, especially when it comes to sustainability-related decisions in early-stage projects. Through a systematic literature review, we unravel the challenges related to sustainability trade-offs in technology development, concept design, and other front-end of innovation activities. The challenges, which were evaluated by experts from industry and academia, range from technical and organisational to psychological aspects.

Based on circular economy readiness assessments of six value chain layers, 18 design strategies and five collaboration strategies for circular economy were identified. The design strategies have many applications, from the design of materials, products, and processes to business models, and while some are specific to determined layers, others can be addressed by companies in multiple layers. Furthermore, collaboration across the value chain was found to affect positively the employment of circular economy design strategies, contributing to the fulfilment of solutions’ circularity potential.

Sustainable Product Development (SPD) has been gaining increased attention in academia, industry, and policy. Over the past three decades, significant progress has been observed in incorporation of environmental issues into the product development process, through the so-called ecodesign management practices. Nevertheless, systematisation of the SPD practices, which simultaneously consider the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability, is still missing. To address this gap, this research aims to identify the existing SPD management practices in the academic literature, with special focus on how sustainability dimensions are currently being considered, their coverage in relation to key knowledge areas for product development and their applicability across the SPD phases. Through a systematic literature review, 362 practices were identified and further classified according to a classification criteria. While environmental considerations are still the most prominent ones, the research highlights the importance of the early stages of product development for SPD, as well as the key knowledge areas which are currently being covered by the practices, such as sustainability evaluation and sustainability improvement.

Scenario planning is often used in design practice to foster futures thinking, reduce uncertainties and improve decision-making. Scenarios are especially relevant for innovation activities in manufacturing companies, such as technology development, a particularly uncertain process where many trade-offs occur. This study is, to the authors knowledge, the first to empirically measure the effect of scenarios in decision-making quality, in the context of technology development. In a quasi-experiment, engineers from a manufacturing company and university students were independently asked to analyse a trade-off situation between environmental and financial aspects of a technology concept, with and without scenarios. The quality of decision-making quality for control and experiment groups was measured through a standardized questionnaire. The results show that scenarios had a positive impact in 6 of the 7 quality decision-making practices (QMDP), although the effect size is small. The results suggest that both expert and novice designers may benefit from using scenario planning when performing early-stage design activities by having awareness of the decision context, a more structured decision process, and clearer decision criteria.

Sustainability considerations are increasingly important for manufacturing companies seeking to develop products that meet the needs of society and the environment. The way technologies are assessed in the early design stages plays a crucial role in the integration of sustainability into innovation activities – a necessary step towards the development of products and processes with better environmental and social consequences. However, existing sustainability assessment tools are difficult to deploy in the highly uncertain and data-scarce front-end of innovation. In order to ascertain the efficacy of technology assessment methods, a systematic literature review was conducted to systematize best practices in technology assessment and establish a set of design propositions to improve early-stage sustainability assessment. Subsequently, recommendations for designing and effectively implementing sustainability assessment tools in technology development were elicited. Several avenues for future research are proposed, including the testing and refinement of the design propositions and how to operationalize early-stage sustainability assessment.

Product-Service Systems (PSS) are seen as key enablers of circularity. However, better sustainability performance of PSS when compared to transactional business models is not given and it must be carefully considered in the design process. The early-stage PSS design is considered crucial because it determines most of the future offerings' impact. Nevertheless, manufacturing companies struggle with PSS design and often rely on ad hoc intuitive approaches with low success rates. Current PSS design approaches have been dispersed in literature until a recent systematic literature review by the authors proposed a comprehensive generic process model to enable the inclusion of sustainability considerations in the early stages. This paper takes the generic process model as a starting point and instantiates it to the context of two manufacturing companies, seeking to (i) explore the instantiation process from a generic to company-specific process models to support manufacturing companies; and (ii) reflect upon and prepare an evaluation of the generic process model concerning eight predefined criteria. The study reveals a number of potential areas for improving both generic and instantiated process models.

The design of Product-Service Systems (PSS) in manufacturing companies has been widely researched over the past three decades, with contributions from various backgrounds. However, the multidisciplinary field led to the development of disparate approaches for PSS design, which furthermore deficiently include sustainability considerations. Such discord hinders PSS uptake in industry due to the unclarity of which process to use and crucial matters to consider. This paper aims to propose a generic process model to describe the early stage of the PSS design, which is the most influential phase for the success of the PSS offering throughout its life cycle, concerning the three dimensions of sustainability. The proposed generic process model addresses early-stage PSS design in three phases and considers seven clusters of entities through five activities. To achieve this aim, existing approaches for PSS design were identified through a systematic literature review, yielding a comprehensive overview of existing approaches distilled with respect to their content, the actions they propose and the sustainability principles they discuss. The systematic review was then followed by in-depth content analysis using widely adopted methodologies in design research and manufacturing companies for process decomposition and consequently synthesis, resulting in the proposed systematic generic process model for the early-stage design of sustainable PSS. The proposed process model was further examined concerning its use implications, limitations, and potential implementation steps.

Focus on take-back of waste products is currently enjoying increased importance, as attention on environmental sustainability and circular economy grows. Single-Use or Disposable Medical Devices (SUDs), which in homecare settings often end up in landfills or incineration, are currently subject to attention, regarding the potential to slow the flow of waste and seek new value creation possibilities. Via a descriptive single-case study of the "ReturpenTM" initiative-a collaborative take-back initiative launched in three municipalities in Denmark-characteristics are elicited, of the planning, launch, and implementation, of the first 6-month pilot of the ReturpenTM initiative. ReturpenTM is a collaborative partnership of 15 public and private organizations and is adopting an end-to-end approach for its development and execution, including numerous professional workstreams. The pilot of the ReturpenTM achieved participation of 66 of the existing 73 pharmacies in 3 municipalities (90% participation rate), and an overall return rate of 13% for the used insulin pens, despite the limitations caused by the covid-19 pandemic. The return rates ranged from 10% to 15% in the 3 municipalities, and overall, the second quarter recovery (15%) was higher than the first quarter (11%). ReturpenTM demonstrates how a workstream-based approach can provide a practical framework for the development and implementation of SUD take-back in a homecare setting. The case describes how the pharmaceutical industry is taking proactive measures to contribute to a more circular economy for disposable medical devices, including the infrastructure and ecosystem necessary to ensure a closed-loop system for medical devices.

Never before has the recognition of the need for solutions to the challenges of sustainability been greater. With a rising population of increasing wealth, we have recognised that humankind is “out of planetary compliance”. Or in other words, we are borrowing from next generations, each and every day, with the direct negative effects of raising atmospheric temperatures (global warming), poisoning of our land and waterways, and threatening the biodiversity of the planet – to name but a few. The response to these challenges is finally reaching critical mass. From Climate Summits, through United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, to Circular Economy campaigns, global action is happening. International associations, geographical regions, and individual countries are making bold moves to enact action against climate change. Measurements are being made on numerous sustainability goals. And the younger generation is successfully increasing its pressure on the incumbent world and industry leaders. But how can engineering systems interpret these agendas and make a contribution to sustainability transition? What is the potential of taking a socio-technical holistic view on large and complex engineering systems, with a view to improving its sustainability performance? This chapter provides a brief overview of key sustainability developments in the past, which have laid the foundation for how engineering systems can contribute to a sustainable future through holistic socio-technical design. It also provides some paths forward for engineering systems, but some of the paving stones are still missing, so this chapter is also intended as a call to action.

Purpose This study aims to develop a systematic method called servitization maturity model to support companies in developing distinctive capabilities for successful servitization. Design/methodology/approach The concept of maturity models is adopted to support companies in developing distinctive capabilities for servitization. A systematic literature review and case study approach are employed to develop the maturity model. Findings The findings highlight 46 capabilities classified into seven categories: strategy and leadership, performance, offerings, customers, organization, network and digital technology. Furthermore, the evolutionary path is defined by combining two types of levels, i.e. capability and maturity levels, to develop these capabilities. Research limitations/implications The evolutionary path was partially validated through the application, while further investigation is required to validate the evolutionary path. Therefore, future research should investigate the further validation of the evolutionary path by conducting multiple case studies. Practical implications The proposed maturity model enables companies to not only capture the bigger picture of the required capabilities without oversight, but also determine a process for improving the requisite capabilities with feasible efforts. Originality/value Existing maturity models focused on the transition from less to more advanced services. However, recent studies emphasized that companies need to determine strategies that reflect their capabilities rather than simply move toward more advanced services. Based on this assumption, this study provides successive stages that enable companies to improve their capabilities through feasible efforts.

Product-Service Systems (PSS) have recently regained attention in the literature and industry due to their potential to contribute to sustainability. PSS are also enjoying renewed attention, currently, as the large societal focus on circular economy (CE) enforces the potential of PSS. However, PSS are not more sustainable than traditional offerings by default and they, therefore, must be designed with sustainability in mind from the early design stages and their sustainability potential screened already at a conceptual design stage. Existing approaches to screen PSS sustainability have conspicuous shortcomings regarding their lack of comprehensiveness, usability and focus on the conceptual design stage deemed crucial for the sustainability level of the future offering. There is poor coverage, in the literature, of approaches to sustainability-driven PSS design, and no consolidated approach to supporting a comprehensive consideration of sustainability aspects in the early stages of PSS conceptualisation. This paper introduces a qualitative tool and a process that support decision-making through ex-ante screening of PSS concepts for manufacturing companies based on the triple-bottom-line (TBL) sustainable value potential over the PSS life cycle. The tool was developed iteratively through three action research cycles focused on theory development and theory testing, within a manufacturing company. The tool and the implementation process are perceived as an effective and efficient way to screen PSS concepts through a comprehensive, yet readily applicable and usable approach by the industry practitioners.

Circular Economy business model innovation is challenging, as it requires the consideration of new variables, adding complexity to decision-making. Despite the range of existing approaches for Circular Economy business model innovation, they are limited in providing adequate advice to practitioners. Key limitations are related to: lack of a holistic structure with systematisation of practices; focus on single innovation stages; lack of analytical and decision-support structures and; marginal consideration of institutional and strategic aspects, as well as interdependencies with other business processes. This paper addresses these limitations by developing a systematic process model for Circular Economy business model innovation, in close collaboration with seven manufacturing companies. The process model contains four stages (prepare, sense, seize and transform) with recommendations of institutional, strategic and operational practices (including activities, tools, interdependencies, decision gates, and recommended mindset and attitudes). The process model brings unique contributions to manufacturing companies by providing: (i) a systematic structure to strengthen and mature existing Circular Economy business model ideas into viable and implementable concepts, and (ii) a source of inspiration for best practice Circular Economy business models in specific sectors. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the body of knowledge that develops Circular Economy methodology by (i) consolidating a holistic and systematic view of practices for Circular Economy business model innovation within manufacturing companies, and; (ii) providing an example of approach to develop methodological support that is able to offer proactive advice to practitioners.

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.

Any product has an environmental impact across its life cycle (e.g. due to the consumption of resources and the generation of waste). It is increasingly recognised that producers and consumers bear a joint responsibility to ensure that the negative environmental impacts created from the manufacturing and consumption of products and systems are as low as possible, or that we can ensure to create positive (or net-neutral) impacts from our usage of the planet’s resources. Ecodesign is a way in which to aid the product developer, through a structured approach to environmental improvement throughout every phase of the product development process and considering every product life cycle stage. This chapter introduces a short history and current status regarding the practice of ecodesign and introduces a structured approach to ecodesign, focusing on two complementary views: the top-down, design-driven approach; and the bottom-up, environmental life cycle approach. Related practices, strategies, guidelines and tools are introduced, to exemplify how ecodesign can be integrated into the design process.

The market penetration of business models for Circular Economy is limited in most manufacturing sectors due to shortcomings in capabilities of companies to execute Circular Economy Business Model innovation. Available approaches are still generic and provide limited help for contextualised solutions within sectorial challenges. This paper introduces sectorial business model patterns to support manufacturing companies to reduce complexity and uncertainty within Circular Economy Business Model innovation. Based on a multidimensional scaling analysis of more than 180 cases of companies that implemented Circular Economy Business Models, a number of sectorial patterns were consolidated for six selected sectors. The patterns prescribe a combination of business models configuration options and architectures for tackling specific sources of structural waste. Testing with manufacturing companies revealed the potential of the sectorial patterns to support: (1) visualisation of viability and feasibility of Circular Economy business models, which strengthens motivation and arguments for their implementation; and (2) reduction of uncertainties and complexity, which facilitates the exploration of business models with higher impact for Circular Economy. In addition to providing insights about pattern variations across sectors, a procedure for the development of business model patterns is put forward, which can be expanded to other sectors and/or emerging cases.

Integration of sustainability criteria from a triple bottom line perspective is considered a challenge for manufacturing actors, who are engaged in developing sustainability-oriented initiatives. The earlier in the development process the criteria are integrated and sustainability potential is evaluated, the more opportunities exist to introduce improvements and select an initiative with a highest sustainability potential. The challenge does not only lie in understanding what sustainability criteria to use to assess sustainability performance, but in managing conflicting results, known as trade-offs. Trade-offs are situations characterized by conflicts between the desired objectives, where it is impossible to satisfy all criteria simultaneously. Although sustainability trade-offs are common, there is a gap in the existing approaches for sustainability measurements to support tradeoff dialogue and decision-making. If trade-offs are not acknowledged, there is a risk of accepting an initiative leading to sub-optimizations or higher impacts. Therefore, this study proposes a framework to support trade-off analysis in the early development stages of sustainability-oriented initiatives. The trade-off navigation framework relies on input data and a structured guidance, with the twofold objective: (i) help making trade-offs explicit, and (ii) provide a structured approach to support trade-off analysis and acceptability in a transparent manner. The purpose is to encourage a dynamic decision process and reinforce the knowledge of decision-makers about potential risks and opportunities behind their choices. Using a case of a product development involving CE principles, this paper discusses how a trade-off navigation framework was applied and evaluated by industrial and academic experts, leading to its improvement and identification of strengths and limitations.

The building and construction sector is selected by the European Commission as a key product value chain in the transition towards circular economy (CE) due to the major resource consumption, waste generation and GHG emissions from this sector. This paper reports the result from qualitative and semi-structured interviews with 30 Danish stakeholders from the sector on the current stage of implementation of CE and the research/innovation needs to scale circular construction from niche to mainstream. The interviews showed a large variety in the stakeholder’s stage of transition from hardly knowing the term to having CE as a major driver in their business. Some meant that scaling of CE is close to impossible and that material reuse will never develop to more than a niche, whereas others already offer full-scale circular solutions to clients. The interviews pointed at a need for a common definition and terminology for CE, methods for documenting the gains from the circular solutions (economic and environmental), methods for technical documentation of the quality of reused materials, processes which enables scaling, methods to implement CE in various systems such as digitalization and building passports, new value chains and framework conditions in support of circularity. Regardless these needs, demonstration projects of major importance to gain general knowledge have been built or are planned in Denmark. These demonstrations have different approaches: using todays waste from different industries as construction materials; reusing construction materials (the basic building, elements or processed materials); and designing new buildings for disassembly to enable future reuse.

Pilotprojekter har høstet værdifulde erfaringer om cirkulært byggeri. Men nu skal vi gå skridtet videre og skalere cirkulært byggeri. Vi skal begynde med at få dokumentationen helt på plads og derefter følger en række aktiviteter i et roadmap. Dermed vil vi kunne realisere den store fortælling om cirkulært byggeri. Stadig flere arkitekter, ingeniører og bygherrer eksperimenterer med cirkulært byggeri. De forsøger at tænke ind fra første dag, at affald ikke skal ende i deponi eller som fyldstof under motorvejen, men anvendes i byggeriet. Men indtil videre bliver det mest ved pilotprojekterne. Man kan ellers roligt sige, at der er en brændende platform for byggeri i sin nuværende form. Stigende urbanisering og den voksende middelklasse betyder, at verden får behov for at bygge mere, end der har været bygget i de sidste 4.000 år. Det skaber pres på ressourcerne. Byggeri anvender 50 % af de materialer, vi udvinder.1 Flere steder i byggebranchen forventer virksomhederne stigende problemer med at få tilstrækkelige forsyninger med visse materialer. Desuden skaber byggeri og produktion af byggematerialer store mængder affald. En særdeles høj andel af nedrevne byggematerialer genbruges ikke, men nedgraderes: Biobaserede materialer bliver omsat til energi ved forbrænding, metal smeltes om og bruges i nye varer, og de tunge materialer som beton og tegl nedknuses og anvendes som fx bærelag under veje. I EU udgør byggeaffald 35 % af den samlede affaldsmængde. Byggeri og produktion af byggematerialer står for betydelige udledninger af drivhusgasser. Det anslås, at disse udledninger udgør 5-12 % af verdens samlede CO2-udledning.2 Beregninger viser, at op til 80 % af byggeriets udledninger kan spares gennem mere effektiv brug af materialer.3 I mange industrialiserede lande, inklusive Danmark, udnyttes bygningsmassen dårligt. 50 % af beboerne vurderer, at de bor for stort. Hertil kommer, at mange bygninger står ubrugte hen eller kun anvende