Consideration of Social Impacts During the Early Stages of Product Development for Sustainable Design

Abstract

Besides the explicit economic and environmental impacts, the product development process also produces an implicit social value — known as social impact. To help product designers better understand and plan for the social impact that their product may have, we present a social impact checklist table. This checklist table was constructed after a simple study was conducted on the design and reuse of corrugated cardboard. The checklist table provides the designer the opportunity to more deeply consider eleven social impact categories, map those categories to key indicators, and ultimately design parameters that influence social impact. We introduce this checklist table at the early stages of the product development process, aiming to make the otherwise implicit notion of social impact more explicit and recognizable. The checklist table has the potential to make the social dimension of sustainability more accessible to design engineers; they can then better conceive of sustainable solutions and create products that generate positive social impact.