Global concerns about climate change and resource management have escalated the need for sustainable consumer products. In light of this, sustainable design methodologies that supplement the product design process are needed. Current research focuses on developing sustainable design curricula, adapting classical design methods to accommodate environmental sustainability, and sustainability tools that are applicable during the early design phase. However, concurrent work suggests that sustainability-marketed and innovative products still lack a reduction of environmental impact compared to conventional products. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has proven to be an exceptional tool used to assess the environmental impact of a realized product. However, LCA is a reactive tool that does not proactively reduce the environmental impact of novel product concepts. Here we develop a novel methodology, the PeeP method, using historical product LCA data with kernel density estimation to provide an estimated environmental impact range for a given product design. The PeeP method is tested using a series of case studies exploring four different products. Results suggest that probability density estimations developed through this method reflect the environmental impact of the product at both the product and component level. In the context of sustainable design research, the PeeP method is a viable methodology for assessing product design environmental impact prior to product realization. Our methodology can allow designers to identify high-impact components and reduce the cost of product redesign in practice.
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Disassembly-based bill of materials data for consumer electronic products
Consumer electronic products have a complex life cycle, characterized by environmental, social, and economic impacts and benefits associated with their manufacturing, use, and disposal at end-of-life. Accurately analysing these trade-offs and creating sustainable solutions requires data about the materials and components that make up these devices. Such information is rarely disclosed by manufacturers and only exists in the open literature in disparate case study format. This study presents a comprehensive database of bill of material (BOM) data describing the mass of major materials and components contained in 95 unique consumer electronic products. Data are generated by product disassembly and physical characterization and then validated against external benchmarks in the literature. The study also contributes a reproducible framework for organizing BOM data so that they can be expanded as new products enter the market. These data will benefit researchers studying all aspects of electronics and sustainability, including material scarcity, product design, environmental life cycle assessment, electronic waste policy, and environmental health and safety.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10177463
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Scientific Data
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2052-4463
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Summary The rapid technological evolution and adoption of consumer electronics highlights a growing need for adaptive methodologies to evaluate material consumption at the intersection of technological change and increasing consumption. While dematerialization and the circular economy (CE) have both been proposed to mitigate increasing material consumption, recent research has shown that these methods may be ineffective at achieving net material use reduction: When focused on specific products, these methods neglect the effects of complex interactions among and increasing consumption of consumer electronic products. The research presented here develops and applies a material flow analysis aimed at evaluating an entire “product ecosystem,” thereby including the effects of increasing consumption, product trade‐offs, and technological innovations. Results are then used to evaluate the potential efficacy of “natural” dematerialization (occurring as technology advances or smaller products substitute for larger ones) and CE (closing the loop between secondary material supply and primary material demand). Results show that material consumption by the ecosystem of electronics commonly used by U.S. households peaked in 2000. This consumption relies on increasingly diverse materials, including gold, cobalt, and indium, for whom secondary supply is still negligible, particularly given low recovery rates, often less than 1%. Potential circularity metrics of material “dilution,” “dispersion,” and “demand mismatch” are also evaluated, and indicate that CE approaches aimed at closing the loop on consumer electronic material still face several critical barriers particularly related to design and efficient recycling infrastructure.
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The circular economy (CE) has emerged with the promise of conserving resources through approaches such as durability and extended product lifetimes. At the same time, buildings negatively contribute to resource use and waste production, making buildings a key target for CE strategies. However, the question of how durability and lifetimes affect the social and environmental impacts of building products remains largely unexplored. In this study, we applied environmental and social life cycle assessments (E-LCA and S-LCA, respectively) to a common building component, roof covering, to investigate the effects of durability and different lifespans, and the tradeoffs between social and environmental impacts. We tested different lifespan scenarios for three materials with different durability: thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO), zinc-coated steel, and galvanized aluminum sheets. The results suggest that it is critical to consider the tradeoffs of social and environmental benefits: steel had the most promising social performance, followed closely by aluminum, while the least durable material (TPO) had the worst environmental and social performance. However, the environmental impacts resulting from the production of aluminum sheets were significantly lower than the impacts from steel, which made aluminum the preferred choice for this case study. Moreover, product lifespans impacted the results in both E-LCA and S-LCA due to the number of replacements needed over the life of a 100- year building. We discuss key limitations of integrating E-LCA and S-LCA approaches, such as data aggregation and spatial issues, lack of standards on how to account for product durability, and concerns surrounding S-LCA results interpretation.more » « less
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