Product Design’s Role in Circular Economy

• WHAT IS CIRCULAR PRODUCT DESIGN
• THE ADVANTAGES OF CIRCULAR PRODUCT DESIGN (CPD)
• CIRCULAR PRODUCT DESIGN LIMITATIONS
• ROLE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN AND DIGITAL ENGINEERING IN CIRCULAR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
• CONCLUSION

A circular economy keeps materials, products, and services in circulation for as long as possible. Its key aim is to reduce material use, redesign materials, products, and services to be less resource intensive, and recapture “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products. Only 8.6% of the world has adopted a circular economy to date, which means that only 8.6% of the 92.8 billion tons of minerals, metals, biomass, and fossil fuels entering our global economy each year are reused. When it comes to designing products, it’s imperative for design advocates to rethink the process of creating a product and adopt sustainable practices right from concept to development. Designers must therefore design products and their components with a circular mindset.

Circular Product Design Concept

WHAT IS CIRCULAR PRODUCT DESIGN

Circular product design is a concept that entails designing products with sustainability and environmental concerns in mind. 80% of the environmental impacts arise due to improper design principles. It encourages the creation and design of products with the primary goal of reusing and recycling them to increase the value derived from the product life cycle. The circular economy is a restorative and regenerative concept. It enhances the rate of reuse, refurbishment, and remanufacturing. In the current linear economic model, product design is inconsiderate toward end-of-life options and thus valuable resources are lost in landfills. This ensures the incorporation of circular thinking at an early stage, giving businesses the flexibility to incorporate sustainability management and infrastructure at the point of production and consumption.

Linear vs Circular Economy

There are misconceptions about whether a product’s lifespan corresponds to its functional lifespan, but we frequently discard goods while they are still repairable or refurbish able. There is an environmental need to define a product’s lifetime in terms of obsolescence, which can be aesthetic, social, or technological in nature. Designers must thus work to keep products from becoming obsolete so that circular business models work. To reduce losses, they must also recover materials, parts, and so on with as much integrity as possible. This alternative model has the potential to generate $4.5 trillion in benefits by 2030.

THE ADVANTAGES OF CIRCULAR PRODUCT DESIGN (CPD)

Reduce the usage of non-renewable resources: Theoretically, nothing gets thrown away in a circular economy, our ores, crude oil reserves, and other exhaustible sources of energy can be preserved to meet our sustainability targets. We have the potential to reduce our natural resource consumption by 70%. An example would be Groupe SEB, a French MNC that manufactures small electronic components and household appliances. It focuses on producing durable and repairable design products and guarantees a service life of at least 10 years. Reverse logistics is also used as customers are rewarded with coupons in exchange for their old products.

Lowering the carbon emission during manufacturing: Currently, approximately two-thirds of emissions are caused by the production and disposal of materials. Many companies are working with leading manufacturers in production monitoring and optimisation.

Zero waste and economic benefits to consumers: It encourages the reuse of products, the purchase of recycled products at a lower cost, and the repair of products, thereby improving their product life cycle. By 2030, there will be 6 million new job opportunities as new, sustainable ecosystems are introduced, necessitating the emergence of new industries. (According to a 2018 International Labour Organization report.)

CIRCULAR PRODUCT DESIGN LIMITATIONS

One of the challenges of a circular economy would be the transition from a linear to a circular design model. One of the methods proposed is the Dfx (Design for x) method of product design, in which the design approach is centred on the end-of-life stage, such as design for recyclability, design for remanufacturing, and so on. The challenge remains in incorporating these design approaches into the circular design cycle.

Second, the use of the CPD model would prolong the life of a product, enhancing its lifespan. The drawback is that longer product life cycles don’t necessarily result in better environmental outcomes. So, when adopting CPD, the trade-off between the lifetime of a product and its effect on the environment must thus be considered.

Third, the use of technologies essential to enable this like Industry 4.0, AI, and IoT requires significant financial investments, so the acceptance of CPD is still in its preliminary stages.

Fourth, it’s still difficult to change how consumers see using CPD. If consumer ideals were to change in this way, people would have to accept and use old products, which would add to the cyclical nature of CPD.

Finally, a company’s culture might be a significant impediment to CPD implementation.

ROLE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN AND DIGITAL ENGINEERING IN CIRCULAR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Material selection, design for sustainable behaviour, durability, modularity, and standardisation are some of the most used circular design practices. For businesses engaging in service-oriented business models, after-sales services like repair and maintenance, pay-per-use contracts, and sharing activities should be promoted. In today’s supply chains, materials, and energy flow from upstream to downstream. This method focuses on integrating supply chain operations, particularly on resource flow and waste management. Businesses in the same value chain can coordinate and collaborate to recover waste’s value.

Another approach is how AI and Industry 4.0 can prove to be beneficial in the implementation of circularity in the production chain. With technologies like remote sensing, real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and IoT, an accurate volume of data can be generated about resource allocation, the efficiency of processes, and the conditioning and functioning of products. This contributes to the propulsion of circular economy adoption in manufacturing processes. AI on the other hand can help in improving product selection, demand forecasting, access material structure, and properties in the product development stage itself. This will in turn help in waste reduction, reuse materials wherever possible, and contribute to the circular product economy.

CONCLUSION

Rising commodity costs, losses due to economic and structural waste, and the negative impact on the environment have all impacted the longevity of enterprises’ wealth generation capacities over the previous decade. The circular economy concept has grown in popularity in response to these concerns. Instead of the take-make-dispose paradigm of the linear economy, the circular economy focuses on the concept of “waste design,” which is concerned with improving product long-term sustainability.

Circular product design will offer significant economic and environmental benefits, perhaps cutting our natural resource usage by 70%. Now that the world’s economies have agreed to cut emissions, businesses must move faster to put CPD principles into practice.

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