Product-Service System Design for Sustainability

Carlo Vezzoli, Cindy Kohtala, Amrit Srinivasan, Liu Xin, Moi Fusakul, Deepta Sateesh, J.C. Diehl

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781906093679
• eBook ISBN: 9781351277983
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book, based on a huge European and Asian research project, is a state-of-the-art examination of the theory and practice of system innovation through Product-Service System (PSS) design for sustainability from a trans-cultural viewpoint. PSS design incorporates innovative strategies that shift businesses away from simply designing and selling physical products to developing integrated systems of products and services that satisfy human needs. The book provides background, advice and tools for designers interested in sustainable PSSs and has a wealth of case studies for practitioners to digest.

Part I
Product-Service System Design for Sustainability: Consolidated Knowledge and Know-How

1
Sustainable development and system discontinuity

1.1 Sustainable development

During recent decades the concept of sustainable development has entered the scene of international politics. This term refers to systemic conditions where on a planetary and regional level both social and productive development takes place:

1. Within the limits of environmental resilience,¹ i.e. within its capacity to absorb the effects of human impact without causing any irreversible deterioration
2. Without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, i.e. maintain the means, or natural capital,² which will be passed on to future generations
3. On the grounds of equal redistribution of resources following the principle that everyone has the same rights to environmental space,³ i.e. the same access to global natural resources

Let us see how this concept has emerged and spread over time.

The environmental issue, understood as the impact of the production-consumption system on ecological equilibrium, began to be raised in the second half of the 1960s, as a consequence of the accelerating and spreading industrialisation. The first scientific works handling these problems were published at the beginning of the 1970s. International studies and debates considered the deterioration and exhaustion of natural resources as an undesirable effect of industrial development. The natural limits of our planet became more apparent in the light of both uncontrollable technological and productive development as well as the increase of the world’s population.

International debate about environmental issues intensified and spread further during the 1980s. The pressure from public opinion intensified, and institutions took their stand with a series of ecological norms and policies examining productive activities and based on the Polluter Pays Principle. The watchword of the United Nations Environment Programme, and other institutions, then became cleaner production, defined as ‘the continual redesigning of industrial processes and products to prevent pollution and the generation of waste, and risk for mankind and the environment’.

In 1987 an important study was drafted by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development to provide indicators regarding the future of humanity. This report was called Our Common Future and was the first to define sustainable development as ‘a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.

During the 1990s environmental issues reached the phase of maturity. The Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living publication for the World Conservation Union (IUCN) by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) had a competing definition of sustainable development: ‘improving the quality of human life within the limits of capacity to protect the ecosystems’. This accentuates the possibility to actually improve human life conditions while safeguarding the Earth’s capacity to regenerate its resources.⁴ These two definitions considered together thus describe sustainable development as a practice that delivers benefits to human beings and ecosystems at the same time.

Another historical event of those years was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This and other initiatives have provided a persistent integration of the concept of sustainable development into the documents of all international organisations, as a model for reorientation of social and productive development. Since 1994 sustainable development and environmental sustainability have formed a fundamental benchmark in the 5th Environmental Action Programme of the European Commission.

Onwards from the 2000s (following the Johannesburg Conference and ten years after Rio de Janeiro) the necessity of awareness and active engagement of all social participants involved in the production-consumption circuit is even more present and pronounced. Particularly significant was the setting up of UNEP’s Sustainable Consumption Unit in May 2000 (see UNEP 2000). The initial assumption was that ‘in spite of the progress made by the industrial world and enterprise during the last decade [...] the extent to which consumption exceeds the Earth’s capacity to supply resources and absorb waste and emissions is still dramatically evident’ (GeyerAllely 2002).

In June 2006 the European Council adopted an ambitious and comprehensive Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) for an enlarged EU.⁵ It builds on the Gothenburg strategy of 2001 and is the result of an extensive review process that began in 2004. The renewed EU SDS sets out a single, coherent strategy on how the EU will more effectively live up to its long-standing commitment to meet the challenges of sustainable development. It recognises the need to gradually change our current unsustainable consumption and production patterns and move towards a better integrated approach to policy-making. It reaffirms the need for global solidarity and recognises the importance of strengthening our work with partners outside the EU, including those rapidly developing countries that will have a significant impact on global sustainable development.

The European Council in December 2009 confirmed that ‘sustainable development remains a fundamental objective of the European Union under the Lisbon Treaty’. As emphasised in the Presidency’s 2009 review of the Union’s Sustainable Development Strategy, the strategy will continue to provide a long-term vision and constitute the overarching policy framework for all Union policies and strategies. A number of unsustainable trends require urgent action (EU 2009).⁶

In parallel with this EU sustainable development strategy, Asian countries have equally been developing various locally relevant strategies to co-exist harmoniously with nature. Numerous royal projects in Thailand, for example, led by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, emphasise the revitalisation of natural resources, conserving cultural heritage and prioritising human development and people’s well-being according to the philosophy of a Sufficiency Economy. In May 2006, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan presented the first ever Human Development Lifetime Achievement Award to His Majesty the King in recognition of His Majesty’s visionary thinking and sixty years of contributions to human development.

From a global perspective the UN approach has been to break down general policy frameworks into regional and country agendas. This has been the case with Agenda 21 (with the development of Local Agenda 21 in local levels of government) and it is the case for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP). The Marrakech Process, a joint initiative by UNEP and UN DESA (United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs), promotes and supports regional and national initiatives to promote the shift towards sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns. Among its actions is the organisation of National Roundtables and regional consultations in regions and countries, as well as the Task Forces, the main mechanism for implementing ‘concrete projects and programmes at the regional, national and local levels to develop and/or improve SCP tools and methodologies’.

The result of the effort is a draft 10-year Framework of Programmes on SCP which will then be negotiated by countries at the 19th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 2011.

The UN’s agenda is to recognise the diversity of countries and their economic and social systems, especially considering the disparity of environmental impact produced by industrialised, emerging and low-income countries/contexts and the pressing needs for social inclusion and its related basic needs. This has been an important parameter for sustainable development and the SCP approach throughout the UN’s directives and policy orientation. The positive assertion is that the neces...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• Book rights
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction: sustainability in design.
• PART I: PRODUCT-SERVICE SYSTEM DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY: CONSOLIDATED KNOWLEDGE AND KNOW-HOW
• PART II: THE NEW DESIGN FRONTIERS OF PRODUCT-SERVICE SYSTEM DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY