Abstract
This study used co-creation to integrate existing sustainable design strategies into the product development process of a large manufacturer, Stanley Black & Decker. The co-creation process involved understanding the existing product development workflow; finding what sustainable design methods, mindsets, activities, and tools were valued by the company team; integrating them into the existing workflow; using life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify resulting benefits; and revisiting one year later to check for retention of the co-created workflow. The business unit participating in co-creation had retained the new workflow, with the first resulting product showing over 90% reduction in CO₂ impacts, saving an estimated 2,800 tons of CO₂eq. per year for the company’s client. Two other business units not participating in co-creation had not made such improvements. While co-creation was deemed effective, other factors were also at play. Still, the study demonstrated how sustainability can be quickly and effectively integrated into a major manufacturers product development using co-creation to leverage existing design methods, accelerating practical adoption and long-term retention.
Keywords
Sustainable design methods; Integrating design methods; Sustainable product development; Green product design; Co-creation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.160
Citation
Chatty, T., Cumersdale, T., Fitzgerald, D., Murnane, E.,and Faludi, J.(2025) Integrating Sustainability into a Large Manufacturer's Product Development with Co-Creation, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.160
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 8 - Circular/Sustainable Design
Integrating Sustainability into a Large Manufacturer's Product Development with Co-Creation
This study used co-creation to integrate existing sustainable design strategies into the product development process of a large manufacturer, Stanley Black & Decker. The co-creation process involved understanding the existing product development workflow; finding what sustainable design methods, mindsets, activities, and tools were valued by the company team; integrating them into the existing workflow; using life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify resulting benefits; and revisiting one year later to check for retention of the co-created workflow. The business unit participating in co-creation had retained the new workflow, with the first resulting product showing over 90% reduction in CO₂ impacts, saving an estimated 2,800 tons of CO₂eq. per year for the company’s client. Two other business units not participating in co-creation had not made such improvements. While co-creation was deemed effective, other factors were also at play. Still, the study demonstrated how sustainability can be quickly and effectively integrated into a major manufacturers product development using co-creation to leverage existing design methods, accelerating practical adoption and long-term retention.