New Guide for Principles for Circular Product Design
1. Scope
These principles provide guidelines and supplementary context for product designers to better understand, apply, and qualify design decisions advantageous for the introduction of products to the Circular Economy. A Circular Economy is a holistic approach to an interconnected closed-loop systems of goods and material flows that eliminates waste and retains resource value for as long as possible. These principles standardize sustainable design guidelines factoring in systems thinking to expand design practices from cradle-to-grave to cradle-to-cradle. Furthermore, these principles are created with consideration of environment, social and economic impacts. The guidelines make explicit the need for tracking material composition, evaluating the economic value of the component parts and materials at end of life, mechanisms for extracting that value.
Keywords
Sustainable Design; Product Design; Product Development
Rationale
Existing design practices do not always factor in end of use consideration for future product life cycles. With the global movement towards a circular economy, new practices must be adapted to meet the needs for materials and goods to reenter the economy. In addition, these guidelines address the need to provide system-level thinking toward applying the triple-bottom-line to product design.
