Analysis of the Interrelationships between Lightweight Design and Design for Sustainability

Lightweight design is gaining in importance for design for sustainability due to its capability to reduce weight, conserve materials, and enhance energy efficiency. However, environmental sustainability encompasses a broader spectrum, including, for instance, a responsible resource management as well as material recyclability. Despite their shared objective of optimizing resource consumption, can lightweight design indeed be substantiated as sustainable, and if so, how?

Therefore, this contribution emphasizes a systematic approach for the analysis of environmental effects caused by property changes resulting from the implementation of lightweight design strategies (system, form, material and manufacturing lightweight design) in products. Thereby, life cycle issues of the lightweight design strategies are evaluated on the basis of a holistic life cycle perspective. Finally, the interrelationships between lightweight design strategies and sustainability strategies (eco-efficiency, eco-effectiveness, and sufficiency) are discussed. In future, the presented approach supports both positive synergies as well as negative conflicts of lightweight design and design for sustainability to be efficiently and strategically evaluated throughout the design process, so that holistically optimized lightweight and sustainable products can thus be created.