A framework for the integration of environmental and business aspects toward sustainable product development

Growing environmental concerns, coupled with public pressure and stricter regulations, are fundamentally impacting the way companies design and launch new products across the world. Companies are recognising that implementing design for environment (DfE) in their product development process provides opportunities both for improving environmental aspects of a product and for enhancing the product competitiveness. Therefore, integrating environmental and business aspects for decision-making during DfE consideration are crucial in the product design process. The environmental aspect of the product is captured by the lifecycle assessment, and the result is directly introduced to the selection of DfE strategies followed by the multi-criteria decision-making process, in order to integrate business aspects. The proposed method may help the company systematically develop appropriate and profitable design for environment strategies for their product systems.