Life cycle assessment and eco-designing early automotive product development

Postdoc researcher: Josef-Peter Schöggl
Started: 2018

This project explores how the decision-support capabilities of methods for sustainability assessment and eco-design can be improved regarding their application in early phases of automotive product development. The focus of these intended improvements lies on: the integration of eco-design methods with established design theories and frameworks, the integration of qualitative and quantitative indicators, the consideration of mechanisms of inter-functional collaboration and knowledge diffusion. The prescriptive part of this project uses a tested method for sustainable product development in early development stages (the CSPD) as foundation. With this method the focus of sustainable product development is directed toward identifying opportunities, recognizing mutual benefits and facilitating the exchange of knowledge between different departments. To elaborate on this qualitative method the findings from the exploratory research are gradually integrated. Moreover, the method is complemented with a quantitative decision-support approach.