Holistic Sustainable Design: Incorporating Change Propagation and Triple Bottom Line Sustainability

Hossein Basereh Taramsari (hbasereh@stevens.edu), Steven Hoffenson and Roshanak Nilchiani
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Hossein Basereh Taramsari: Department of Systems and Enterprises, Stevens Institute of Technology, 1 Castle Point Terrace, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
Steven Hoffenson: Department of Systems and Enterprises, Stevens Institute of Technology, 1 Castle Point Terrace, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
Roshanak Nilchiani: Department of Systems and Enterprises, Stevens Institute of Technology, 1 Castle Point Terrace, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 5, 1-27

Abstract: Sustainable product design addresses sustainability challenges through product development processes and tools. The number of sustainable design methods has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Still, their adoption is limited, and many of these methods exclusively focus on the environmental impacts of products rather than taking a holistic perspective that includes social and economic sustainability. This research provides a holistic sustainable design framework by integrating change propagation methods and sustainable design tools to enable simultaneous consideration of design parameters’ impacts on the three dimensions of sustainability. A reusable water bottle is used to demonstrate the application of the proposed holistic sustainable design (HSD) framework. A multi-domain matrix (MDM) is used to capture the interdependencies among these design parameters of the product, and then equations are defined to quantify them. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is then automated to evaluate the product’s environmental impacts, and the investigation of its results provides details to identify critical unit processes contributing to the environmental categories. Sensitivity analyses reveal how changes to individual design parameters propagate through the model to influence the three dimensions of sustainability. Ultimately, the designer can select optimal design parameter values to balance environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

Keywords: sustainable design; product design; change propagation; life cycle assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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