How Leading Companies Are Implementing Sustainable Practices

The big question when developing new products is ‘how will this affect our eco-system?’

When developing new products, it’s important to not only consider the impact at ‘end of life’ but the environmental impact throughout the entire product development process.

For example, manufacturing factories are starting to convert to only using renewable energy to help reduce carbon emissions. Packaging methods are being implemented to reduce the waste generated with unnecessary amounts of resources being used. Companies are making it a higher priority to use recyclable and biodegradable materials for packaging of products.

There is a wide variety of products that are being developed which has a main purpose to helping the environment for example air purifiers that clean the air by removing pollutants. Clothing brands are using recycled materials when designing new clothing lines and using less and/or recycled materials for their packaging.

Worldwide 40 million tons of electronic waste is generated every year, this is caused by smartphone users annually upgrading their phones to the latest model instead of keeping their current one. 20 to 50 million metric tons of e-waste is disposed of every year worldwide, electronic items contain valuable resources that can be reused but only if they are recycled correctly.

Apple do this by offering money off when purchasing a new phone if their consumers hand their existing one in. This allows them to disassemble older models and reuse valuable resources like gold and silver instead of wasting them altogether. Apple have been able to recover these materials by disassembling 1.2 million phones each year.

Companies are noticing the growing trend from consumers that the products they want to purchase are not only safe for their families but also for the environment without comprising quality or price. Amazon are incorporating recycled materials into their devices to generate more sustainable products and are introducing a low power mode to reduce the energy used by their devices when not in use.

10% of the pollution driving the climate crisis is contributed by the clothing industry. Clothing brands like Patagonia are transitioning to using only renewable electricity when developing new products and having 94% of their products made from recycled materials, enabling them to creating a sustainable brand. Materials used are not only recycled but sourced from the farming industry that are linked to the regenerative organic certified cotton program. Best practices like these are not only becoming more sustainable but supporting local businesses like farms. Patagonia worth $3billion has been sold to a non-profit organization to fight climate crisis.

There has been a continuous increase in solar powered product development to save energy. Products like the following:

-        Phone chargers

-        Speakers

-        Water bottles

-        Water Purifier

-        Solar Laptop

These changes will help create a more sustainable lifestyle through reduced energy usage. It’s critical that the product development industry becomes more sustainable in order to ensure an energy efficient future.

Sustainable product development is key when meeting people’s needs as these needs are continuously changing to be able to adapt to the changes within our eco-system. So new products aren’t only meeting our customers’ needs but also our environment’s needs.

We are passionate about ensuring we design sustainable products, minimising impact on the environment. Please tell us about the best examples of sustainable products you use or have found?