Sustainable Design of a Reusable Water Bottle: A Systems Thinking Approach

Despite the efforts to increase the pace of sustainable design adaptation in industries, several systemic barriers currently hinder this shift. The design for sustainability methods has been utilized in product design and development phases in many industries. However, they do not have a holistic approach that can capture these systemic drivers and barriers while considering all three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. This research proposes a systems thinking approach toward sustainable design that can collectively consider different aspects of the production system in an attempt to resolve the multidimensional challenges within the design for sustainability. A reusable water bottle is selected as the case study to illustrate the applications and limitations of this approach. In addition, this case study also helped to define the boundaries and stakeholders involved in the system and reduce the abstractions. The results from this analysis are demonstrated as a causal loop diagram that could be implemented in a system dynamics model to quantitively identify the systematic forces and leverage points driving sustainable design in product development. The comprehensive understanding provided by this analysis revealed many improvement possibilities, trade-offs, and feedback loops within the system that can assist in realizing sustainable product design proliferation and associated positive sustainability outcomes.