Maturity-based approach for the development of environmentally sustainable product/service-systems

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Abstract

Despite their substantial potential for enabling increased environmental performance, product/service-systems (PSS) are not intrinsically environmentally sustainable. In order to ensure increased environmental performance, PSS best practices should be integrated with ecodesign best practices, from the early stages of the development process. This paper aims to identify the best practices for PSS development, based on a systematic literature review, and to propose their integration into an existing maturity model for ecodesign, the EcoM2, into which 30 best practices for PSS development are identified and integrated. The proposed approach has the potential to enable the development of environmentally sustainable PSS offerings.

Introduction

The current industrial shift from selling products to providing product/service-systems (PSS) is mainly driven by business motivations [1], [2], [3], [4]. Increased competitiveness, reduced costs, enhanced customer convenience and flexibility, and improved corporate identity [5], [6] are some of the business drivers towards PSS.

In addition to potential economic benefits, PSS is also seen as a feasible and promising environmental strategy, with the potential of enabling a more sustainable society through the provision of solutions with improved environmental performance [7], [8]. In a PSS context, the service provider is often stimulated to use and maintain any related products properly, increasing both efficiency and effectiveness, which leads to several potential environmental benefits [6], [9], [10], such as:

  • Lower materials and energy consumption during production and use;

  • Extension of the manufacturer's responsibility for the product in the use and end-of-life phases;

  • Development of more durable and use-intensive products;

  • Higher quality end-stock and less down-cycling;

  • Optimization of products to their primary function(s), with better insight into the product requirements;

  • Collection of end-of-life products, with increased re-use;

  • Easier upgrading to more eco-efficient technologies.

PSS has the potential to break the link between production volume and profit, enabling a reduction of resource consumption, increased motivation to deal with through-life and end-of-life issues as the manufacturer retains ownership of assets, enhanced in-use efficiency, product longevity/durability, and effective reuse of materials [11], [12].

Despite the potential of PSS to enable the creation of more sustainable systems, the mere addition of services to conventional products does not necessarily lead to a reduction of environmental impacts [13], [14], [15], [16], [17]. The development of PSS is not intrinsically sustainable and there are cases in which the environmental impacts are higher, when compared to traditional product systems [9], [12], [18], [19]. The PSS environmental performance depends on the product and systems’ design and on the efficiency of the networks and infrastructure within which the PSS is operated [16], [20].

The PSS design process is therefore one of the most influential factors in the development of sustainable PSS [13], [21]. Structured practices for PSS development are needed to enable each process phase to transform the inputs to valuable outputs and to manage the interaction with the different actors throughout the system life cycle [22]. It is essential that considerations of environmental sustainability are integrated into the PSS design and development process, that its market launch is carefully prepared to ensure success, and that the PSS solution on the market is constantly reviewed in terms of economic, environmental and social impacts [23]. In summary, the implementation of ecodesign best practices into the PSS development process has the potential to increase the environmental performance of the developed PSS, supporting the transition towards a more sustainable system [24].

This paper aims to identify the best practices for PSS development, based on a systematic literature review, and to propose their integration into the Ecodesign Maturity Model (EcoM2), a maturity-based framework developed to support companies in the integration of ecodesign best practices into product development and related processes. The main result presented in the paper is a maturity-based approach to support companies in the development of PSS with increased environmentally sustainable performance.

The following section provides a description of the EcoM2, the maturity-based approach employed in this research to support the development of environmentally sustainable PSS. “Methodology” section presents the methodology employed for the identification of the best practices for PSS development and their subsequent integration into the EcoM2. “Best practices for PSS development” section presents the identified best practices for PSS development. “EcoM2 for PSS development‘’ section presents the integration of the identified best practices for PSS development into the EcoM2, and is followed by conclusions and final remarks (“Conclusions and final remarks” section).

Section snippets

Ecodesign Maturity Model

The Ecodesign Maturity Model (EcoM2) is a framework that supports manufacturing companies to achieve systematic and consistent implementation and management of ecodesign [25] in the product development and related processes (such as strategic planning, marketing and manufacturing).

The EcoM2 focuses on improving the integration of environmental issues into the decision-making processes, by enhancing the capabilities of companies to develop products with increased environmental performance,

Methodology

The methodology employed for the identification of best practices for PSS development and their integration into the EcoM2 consisted of two main steps, as presented in the following sub-sessions.

Best practices for PSS development

This research focused on the identification of the best practices for PSS design and development dealing with the managerial activities required to develop a PSS. Best practices are defined as an optimal way currently recognized by industry to achieve a stated goal or objective [39].

The identified best practices for PSS development are presented in Table 3. Whenever necessary, similar practices were clustered in a unique practice, so to simplify the set of practices and ensure consistency and

EcoM2 for PSS development

The integration of the identified best practices for PSS development into the EcoM2 aims to bring the environmental elements into the PSS context, in order to ensure that the developed PSS will actually have improved environmental performance, when compared to traditional products and/or to other PSS solutions that are not designed with environmental issues taken into account.

The approach for the integration of PSS and ecodesign followed in the previous study took ecodesign as the point of

Conclusions and final remarks

Product/service-system (PSS) is a promising business approach that has the potential to increase environmental sustainability performance, when compared to traditional products and services. However, PSS is not intrinsically sustainable – several recent studies have shown that the environmental performance of PSS can actually be worse when compared to traditional products.

The hypothesis advocated in this research is that the implementation of ecodesign best practices with best practices for PSS

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