Sustainability Assessment Methods and Design Strategies in Product Development, 7,5 credits

The purpose of the course is for the student to: (1) develop an in-depth understanding of key sustainability challenges linked to product development in socio-technical systems and lifecycle thinking, (2) learn and demonstrate how sustainability impacts and sustainability performance can be analyzed and assessed in product development, and (3) discuss the potential of different design for sustainability strategies based on the analysis and assessment. The course contains learning about various sustainability assessment methods, for example, ex-ante assessment (the assessment of future actions, for example, prospective LCA, S-LCA, Sustainability Fingerprint, MECO), durante (during), and post evaluation (the assessment of past actions and their outcomes, for example, standard LCA, social LCA, LCC, streamlined LCA). The course also introduces some design for sustainability strategies, for example, Design for Circularity, Design for the Environment and Design for the Bottom of the Pyramid.