Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 37, December 2012, Pages 342-352
Journal of Cleaner Production

Manufacturing, sustainability, ecodesign and risk: lessons learned from a study of Swedish and English companies

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.07.037Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous research suggests that, despite a desire to introduce environmental concerns into New Product Design, many companies in the northwest of England have not done so. In order to understand more about why companies do or do not take on sustainability methodologies, an entirely new and rigorous approach was taken. This paper therefore presents the results of a questionnaire investigating the up-take of Eco/Sustainable Design in manufacturing companies in Sweden – a country that might be considered more environmentally progressive than the UK – and discusses them alongside the results of an identical questionnaire in the UK. The results are presented in the context of risk and risk aversion/management – in particular the risk associated with taking on board Design for Sustainability as a design method or a company strategy.

It is found that there is no clear “winner” in sustainability between UK and Swedish engineering companies; there is encouraging news in both countries, with a desire to practice sustainability, but some that is not so good with the number of companies that actually implement relevant methodologies. It is apparent that there are still hindrances and perceived risks preventing companies taking sustainability fully on board, despite the recognition that sustainability is a “good thing”; the importance of the implementation of sustainability has not yet been fully grasped by industry and by those with the responsibility required to effect any changes.

Highlights

► Investigates eco-/sustainable-design attitudes in UK & Swedish engineering. ► There is no winner between Sweden and the UK in applying eco-/sustainable design. ► Statistically, companies applying sustainability are likely to use ecodesign also. ► Companies with formal design processes more likely to use eco-/sustainable design. ► Many companies still perceive there to be risk in changing to apply these methods.

Introduction

In any given engineering company, a number of different stakeholders may wish to see things done differently – to change the company. Of particular interest to the research presented in this paper is the desire to change companies to be more “sustainable” or “eco-friendly”, terms which are often used interchangeably. Previous research, however, suggests that despite a desire to introduce environmental concerns into New Product Design (NPD) systems/processes (such as they are), many companies in the northwest of England have not done so (Lee-Mortimer and Short, 2009). In order to understand more about why companies do or do not take on sustainability methodologies, it was decided to take an entirely new and rigorous approach, extensively broadening Lee-Mortimer and Short’s previous work by comparing it to results from a country that might be considered more environmentally progressive. Nordic countries have a reputation for being ahead of the UK in “green” areas, such as renewable energy, eco-awareness and so on. Given the pre-existing contacts between the authors, therefore, it was appropriate to carry out a joint research project, investigating the situation in Sweden and discussing it in the light of the UK-based research.

This paper thus presents the results of the research and in doing so it:

  • Briefly examines anecdotal suggestions that Sweden leads the UK in considering the environment;

  • Develops a scenario for the introduction of Eco/Sustainable Design, based on risk and risk aversion/management;

  • Investigates the up-take of Eco/Sustainable Design in Swedish manufacturing companies using hypotheses from the UK research, particularly in relation to company attributes such as size and approach to product development;

  • Discusses and compares the results of questionnaires carried out in the UK and Sweden to test the hypotheses.

When it comes to environmental credentials, Nordic countries are often portrayed in the media as being ahead of the UK, with an emphasis on renewable energy, wide environmental awareness and a lifestyle that might promote harmony with nature. This reputation has gained credence in recent years with a number of statistical analyses.

The 2010 Environmental Performance Index (Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (Columbia University), 2010), “ranks 163 countries on 25 performance indicators tracked across ten policy categories covering both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality”. According to its statistics, Sweden comes in 4th place in the world rankings, with Norway in 5th but the UK down in 14th.

The World Bank’s data on CO2 emissions show that total CO2 emissions have remained roughly constant in both countries over the period 1960–2006 (The World Bank, 2010a), although Sweden’s emissions are an order of magnitude lower. The data also show that whilst both countries have reduced their emissions per capita (The World Bank, 2010b) the UK has dropped from 11.7 tonnes per capita in 1970 to 8.8 in 2007, but Sweden’s have dropped from 11.5 to 5.4 tonnes per capita over the same period.

Regarding waste and its treatment, the latest figures available from Eurostat (2011) show Sweden producing 9% less waste per capita than in the UK, but only treating 1% by landfill (UK 48%, EU27 countries 38%) and recycling 36% (UK 26%, EU27 24%).

Of course, such statistics can be written and interpreted in different ways and it is therefore inappropriate to suggest that they prove Sweden to be ahead of the UK in environmental or sustainable concerns generally. On the other hand, they at least provide indications that that might be the case and make it relevant to consider the place of Eco/Sustainable Design in Swedish engineering design/manufacturing methodologies, particularly in comparison to its place in UK engineering.

There are any number of reasons why stakeholders in the engineering design process may want to change the process and/or to change the company – particularly in the context of sustainability. With the media’s tendency to paint a picture of impending world gloom, and with eco-disasters and global warming regularly hitting the front pages, it might be thought that people would want to make changes. Perhaps the recent graduate believes things are a little old-fashioned, having been taught about newer methods, the availability of newer, apparently superior technology and the relevance of sustainability to today’s engineering. The dyed-in-the-wool engineering designer may feel he/she is in a rut, that change to the company would bring more interest/excitement to the job and that the company is not doing enough to help the environment. Managers may be in a position to see a better way, having heard that there are economic benefits from implementing some kind of sustainability methodology, but without knowing how to get there. Senior management may think that there is a business case for change but not have any evidence. Equally, investors may have a strong point of view that requests or requires changes to the way the company works so that the company can be seen to be more “sustainability aware”, presenting a more eco-friendly face to the world.

For most, however, the inclination to change is tempered by the risk associated with making such a change. In each case, risk analysis (or aversion) determines the extent to which each entity is willing to make changes; similarly, there is always the desire (and, for some, the requirement) that these actions should not have an economic impact – either on themselves or on the company.

Luttropp and Züst (1998) discuss a “holistic view” of “eco-effective products” and note the risks inherent in the design process: “In particular, designers and managers have different personal goals and private assessments of risks, yet they still have to co-operate in the product design process”. They note the contradiction in risks between the designer (for whom “the main consideration is whether or not the product will work … The designer may accept bad performance but never a non-working product”) and the manager (more concerned with the survival of the company). Luttropp and Züst use Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) “hypothetical value function”, to describe the personal goals of designer and manager. This value function, as shown in Fig. 1, shows gains in the positive x-axis – and consequently losses in the negative x-axis – and the value to the subject in question is shown on the y-axis. It shows that small losses have a large personal negative value, but small gains have only small personal positive value.

Considering the designer, as long as the product fulfils its main function, there is a personal gain to the designer – perhaps financially, or more likely in reputation – with some consequent value. Less functionality provides less gain, but it is still a gain and therefore has value. Should the main function not work, the gain becomes a loss with increasingly negative value to the designer – and it is very easy to blame the designer when things go wrong EVEN if the malfunction is due to a widening of tolerances for lower cost, made by production or purchases.

For the manager, the same curve of Fig. 1 can now be thought of as representing successful sales of the product. A small profit (gain) from the product brings small personal value to the manager; however, a small loss is of much larger (negative) personal value. The S-curve, then, allows an understanding of the risk inherent in proposing changes and is the same whether for the new designer who is learning the company way, or for the senior manager, developing and implementing a corporate strategy. The curve also allows appreciation of two different risks: the (failure of the) main function of the product and the (lack of) profitability of the product.

The implementation of any new design process or method necessarily implies risk to those proposing and applying the new process/method. The research carried out for this paper therefore looked to examine what companies are doing – or are not doing – in the field of sustainability, what their attitudes to sustainability are and what is motivating their behavior. It looked to establish what companies are doing practically, but also what employees of these companies think about the company actions.

One of the problems with discussing sustainability within industry is the lack of prevailing understanding of relevant terms. Phrases such as “ecodesign”, “green design”, “design for environment” and “design for sustainability” are often taken to mean roughly the same thing – Baumann et al. (2002), for example, suggesting that “The term DfE [Design for Environment] seems to be the American term and ecodesign the European term”. Those using the terms professionally, however, may acknowledge differences between the expressions and use them in specific contexts without the listener necessarily being aware of any nuances. Two particular phrases of interest for this paper are “Ecodesign” and “Design for Sustainability”. Whilst Karlsson and Luttropp (2006) define ecodesign as being design that encompasses both ecology and economy (two of the three pillars of sustainability), it seems likely that the proverbial “person on the street” – or more relevantly, the “person on the factory floor” – would associate ecodesign purely with environmental (ecological) design. Indeed, Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2012) state that “ecodesign focuses on the integration of environmental considerations into product development”. Bhamra (2004) refers to suggestions by Dewberry and Goggin (1996) that cover three different design methods:

  • 1.

    Green design has a single-issue focus, perhaps incorporating the use of some new material, such as recycled or recyclable plastic, or consider energy consumption.

  • 2.

    Ecodesign adopts the life-cycle approach, exploring and tackling all or the greatest impacts across the products life cycle.

  • 3.

    Sustainable design would take a more broad and holistic approach, including questioning/addressing needs, concern for ethics and equity, services and leasing, dematerialization, empowerment, caring and sharing, as well as incorporating ecodesign best practice.

Sustainable Design – or Design for Sustainability – should clearly go far beyond ecodesign, into social and economic aspects. However, it too suffers from a lack of understanding with a variety of meanings in widespread use (Short, 2008).

For the purposes of this paper, and to avoid any further confusion, ecodesign and design for environment are taken to be synonymous, as tools or methodologies to address environmental concerns. Additionally, much of the discussion is equally relevant both to DfE and to Design for Sustainability (DfS). They will therefore be subsumed into the single moniker “DfS/E” except where a deliberate difference in meaning is intended or is investigated.

Section snippets

Previous research

In order to understand the uptake of DfS/E it is necessary to consider why companies might use DfS/E processes and how many have so far done so. Willard (2005) talks about five stages of sustainability integration into business activities, which Hallstedt et al. (2010) then summarize as:

  • Pre-Compliance: Ignoring sustainability and opposing related regulations.

  • Compliance: Obeying laws and regulations on labor, environment, health and safety.

  • Beyond Compliance: Recognizing the opportunity to cut

UK

The original UK questionnaire (partially reported in Lee-Mortimer and Short (2009)) was constructed following a process that included the 5 key steps widely regarded as essential (Czaja and Blair, 2005, Fowler, 2002, Gillham, 2000, Jolliffe, 1986, Synodinos, 2003): consideration of the research objectives; determination of the survey administration; questionnaire construction, including wording, sequence and response choice; extensive pretesting; data collection and analysis.

From a wide-ranging

Results

The survey covered baseline company data, design/processes in general, and sustainability/ecodesign both as a process and in practice. Some of the questions are “cold hard facts”, whereas some ask for opinions. For simplicity, they are presented here in three sections: baseline results, understanding of sustainability and practice of sustainability. In each case, no analysis is presented within this chapter – simply the number of companies responding in each way to each question.

Discussion

The following section looks in more detail at the results presented above, in particular considering potential links between the answers provided. Where analysis of the links was relevant, a series of hypotheses (generated as part of the questionnaire development process – see Section 3.1) was used and a table of results for each hypothesis was presented in Microsoft Excel – for example size of company (large or SME) vs practice of DfS (yes or no). A table presenting the expected results, if

Conclusion

The research paints a picture of engineering that is, in many ways, very similar in both countries, with large companies using formal design processes, SMEs relying on an informal process or no process at all, companies facing too many projects at any one time and customers changing their requirements. Although the introduction suggested that, given some of the evidence regarding CO2 emissions, recycling and general environmentalism, Swedish engineering companies might be ahead of their UK

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Haydn Insley and The Manufacturing Institute for hosting Lee-Mortimer’s survey, and the EPSRC for funding his research. Thanks also to KTH, Stockholm, for hosting Dr Short during his research in Sweden and to KTH and Jönköping University for providing translations of questionnaires and access to contacts.

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