Sustainable product development
Sustainable product development is a method for product development that incorporates a Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, also known as The Natural Step framework. As the demand for products continues to increase around the world and environmental factors like climate change increasingly affect policies - and thus business - it becomes more and more of a competitive advantage for businesses to consider sustainability aspects early on in the product development process.
SPD is not limited to the actual product development, but also the product design. Green design which is a part of SPD has two main goals: the prevention of waste and to minimize environmental impact. Environmental impact involves: deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and resource/material management, etc. The early stages of design tend to be the areas that effect the environment the worst, the extraction and refining.Literature
