King's College London

The future of sustainable innovation is a key focus for both academia and industry, with an increased demand for the development of sustainable products due to Climate Change as well as consumers becoming more socially aware of sustainability issues. Literature has previously identified that product designers have a vital role in implementing sustainability during NPD. Critical analysis of literature has identified a range of key factors of environmental sustainability, tools and methodologies which are suggested to be implemented by product designers during NPD; however, it is currently unclear of the current status of environmental sustainability within the product design industry. Semi-structured interviews with 20 sustainability-based product design professionals were conducted to explore the current status of environmentally sustainable innovation. The interviews focus on factors of environmental sustainability, tools, and technologies to aid sustainable product development and the education of participants to understand how equipped they are to fulfil industry’s demands for sustainable NPD. The critical review of literature combined with the data analysis of the semi-structured interviews has enabled the development of a conceptual framework which illustrates the environmentally sustainable product design process suggested by literature and participants. Future research directions have also been outlined.