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Banking on Green
13 Jan, 2011 By: Jim RomeoAt Yakima, lifecycle thinking generates products that not only reduce carbon footprint but also drive innovation and save money.
Editor's note: This article was originally published in the Fall 2010 issue of Cadalyst magazine.
Forget about doing the right thing, giving back, and corporate conscience. Today, companies in increasing numbers are pursuing sustainable product design because, plain and simple, it makes good business sense. Environmental performance is the newest criteria for product development — and it's driving innovation and boosting profits.
An approach known as lifecycle assessment, or LCA, is key to realizing these bottom-line benefits, and it's catching on. LCA models the complex interaction between a product and the environment, from cradle to grave. When used in early-stage design, it brings sustainability considerations into product development by taking a comprehensive view of a product's potential lifecycle impacts on the environment in an effort to reduce those impacts (including carbon footprint), as well as overall costs. In short, it supports what is known as the double bottom line: planet and profits.
One company putting LCA to the test is Yakima Products, based in Beaverton, Oregon — a provider of popular vehicle-mounted racks to carry equipment for kayaking, bicycling, skiing, and camping. Like many of its customers, Yakima is enthusiastic about preserving the outdoors for long-term enjoyment. On the Planet Payback page of its web site, the company outlines the corporate principles that guide everything from product design to how employees commute to work. "Our primary objective is reduction. We constantly look for ways to create less waste and consume less energy," the site states.
Products such as Yakima's FrontLoader and ForkLift bike mounts must be environmentally friendly as well as practical, durable, and profitable. Image courtesy of Yakima Products.
What the site does not reveal is that Yakima has found that environmentally friendly ideals make for better products and bigger profits.
Assessing the Lifecycle
Environmental performance incorporates many facets of a product's lifecycle, including design, manufacturing supply chain management, and brand value. LCA goes beyond the common misconception that sustainable design always costs more. In fact, LCA can cumulatively reduce the total cost of product ownership.
Terry Swack is CEO of Sustainable Minds, the company that develops the Sustainable Minds LCA software used by Yakima and other companies to support lifecycle assessment. The software-as-a-service product allows Yakima to estimate, evaluate, compare, and track the environmental performance of products throughout their lifecycles based on real-time environmental impact data. Product teams can make informed trade-off decisions between performance, cost, and other criteria early in the product development process. Design options that reduce environmental impact (or improve environmental performance) can be identified before changes become costly or impossible to make.
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