In recent years, the concept of environmental sustainability has gained attention within the field of product design. However, most current initiatives, frequently described as more sustainable, usually target incremental improvements such as reducing material usage or minimizing waste. This raises an essential question: are these incremental design improvements truly enough? Even when products show clear improvements, their environmental impacts may continue to exceed biophysical limits of the Planet. The concept of absolute environmental sustainability proposes an innovative approach, urging manufacturers to evaluate if their products’ environmental footprint aligns with scientifically defined planetary boundaries. However, limited research has focused on this. This study investigates the practical integration of absolute environmental sustainability into product development methodologies, using household utility products as a case study. Initially, targets for absolute environmental sustainability were established in parallel with technical and market-driven requirements. Following this, collaborative sessions were held to generate concepts focused explicitly on sustainability strategies. These concepts were then evaluated against defined selection criteria, and the most promising designs were carried forward into detailed development phases. Throughout this process, life cycle assessment played a central role in assessing and refining these concepts. Overall, this study demonstrates the practical feasibility of quantifying environmental sustainability constraints and embedding them systematically alongside traditional technical specifications during the design phase. At the same time, it highlights the challenges of achieving absolute environmental sustainability, due to limitations imposed by factors, such as the manufacturer’s operational context. The findings underscore the paramount importance of cross-boundary collaboration across stakeholders.
Gonçalves et al. (Thu,) studied this question.