Brainstorm preparation (external interventions)

• Industrial design engineering
• WO
• Studiejaar 6

Preparation brainstorm external sustainability

Hi! 

Hi! First of all, thank you for joining the brainstorm session of 21 April and taking the time to prepare. This slide deck will get you started with some (environmental) sustainability definitions and guidelines for the brainstorm session. It will start with some warming up questions that you can answer by just entering your answers in this deck, the program will save it automatically. The rest of this slide deck will explain the 5 most relevant topics of Life Cycle Thinking and its application on retail focusing on Food & Fashion. During the life cycle steps (slide 8- 17) some space is reserved for sharing your first thoughts/ ideas/ questions. If you don't have any, just continue. The main goal of these slides is to get you prepared for the brainstorm and get the idea generation started! Good luck and have fun :) 

About the brainstorm

During the brainstorm of 21 April we will explore the possibilities to help the (potential) retail customers to reduce their environmental impact. This brainstorm will be guided by the principles of Life Cycle Thinking in order to cover as much area of environmental sustainability as possible. We will not evaluate how their products should be altered to reduce their impact but rather explore the possibilities in supporting and optimizing their processes and systems. 

How would you rate your understanding of environmental sustainability?

1. Low, I do not know yet how to use sustainability
2. Mediocre, I know some definitions and trends
3. High, I know how to asses for sustainability
4. Very high, I know how to asses it and already apply it to my work

What are your associations with environmental sustainability? (type in as many answers as you like)

The 5 topics - case study

To make you familiar with life cycle thinking and applying sustainability on products and their systems, you will follow the most relevant lifecycle steps of: selling a bag of groceries and selling a fashion outfit. So as you can see is not only the direct impact of the product on the environment relevant, but also the processes that are needed in order to make the sales possible. Hence, a life cycle is to be considered from mining the materials to disposing the product. Since some of the supply chain characteristics and challenges of the food and fashion retail are significantly differing, not all guidelines will apply as much to both markets.   

To sell a bag of groceries

To sell an outfit

Life cycle thinking 

In order to cover the relevant topics of sustainability for fashion and food retail, the following topics will be elaborated subsequently during the brainstorm session. The grey stages of the life cycle will initially be neglected since it seems hard to make a difference for the retailer there. But if there are any ideas/ thoughts, let me know! 

1. Optimization of initial life time

3. Reduction in material usage

4. Optimization of production techniques

5. Optimization of distribution system

7. Optimization of end-of-life system

2. Use of low impact materials

6. Reduction of impact during use

Topics > guidelines > strategies

The previously shown 5 topics will be divided into multiple guidelines. Those guidelines will give direction to create more concrete plans for sustainability per topic. However, those guidelines will still be widely applicable and are not specific for Nedap. This translation step will be made during the brainstorm session. We will transform the general guidelines to Nedap specific strategies. 

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Guideline 1: By maximizing the reliability and durability of the product, the quality of the product will be remained for a longer period of time. This could be done by optimizing the quality of the product but also the processes around the product could be optimized in order to remain the quality. 

1. Optimization of initial life time 

When developing a product or service, the life time is more or less determined by the design choices that are made. The life time of a products is characterized by the moment of when it is sold to the moment it is discarded. When products have a large impact on the environment during their production and disposal phase, it is important to increase its life time in order to spread the impact over more time of functional use. 

Guideline 2: By improving the relation between the product and the user, the product will most likely be treated in a better way. This could for example be realized by offering multiple functionalities with one product and make it unreplaceable or by providing the customer with insights in the sustainability. 

Guideline 3: In order to increase the life time of a product, maintenance and repair should be available as easy and effortless as possible. So clearly indicate how to maintain and repair parts/ products and standardize it as much as possible. 

Example strategy

1. Help the food retailer with managing their climate control in order to extend the life time of their fresh vegetables 
2. Help the fashion retailer with communicating the sustainability of their individual products 

Any first thoughts and/or questions? Leave them here! (if none, continue to the next slide)

fSome general information

Guideline 4: By avoiding overproduction, the risk of wasting final products will be lowered. Wasting final products will lead to both losing a lot of materials but also the energy that comes with processing, transport and sales. 

2. Reduction in material usage

It makes sense that using less materials reduces the impact on the environment. However, how do you assure that you do not have to give in on functionality and business? The use of materials does not only covers the use during production of the product but also covers transport and the moment of sales. 

Guideline 5: By preventing final products from being wasted at the sales floor, less impact will be made due to a reduction in product waste.

Guideline 6: By changing from single use consumables ( bags, pallets, labels, temporary furniture, etc) to reusable products, the amount of material used will decrease rapidly. 

Example strategy

1. Help the fashion retailer to minimize their safety stocks 
2. Help the fashion retailer to reduce their paper tags & bags usage
3. Help the food retailer reduce its amount of plastic by climate control

Any first thoughts and/or questions on this topic? Leave them here! (if none, continue to the next slide)

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Guideline 7: By providing insights in the environmental impact caused by production, changes in processes could be considered. 

3. Optimization of production techniques

Concerning the production of products two rules of thumb could be followed: produce as clean and efficient as possible. The cleaner the processes, the less and cleaner emissions enter the atmosphere. By improving production steps for efficiency, a lot of waste and chemical treatments could be avoided. This both reduces the amount of materials needed and lowers the emissions. 

Guideline 8: By providing supply chain transparency, customers could decide for themselves if the product is worth the environmental impact.

Example strategy

1. Help the fashion & food retailer with gathering insights in their footprint for the period between production and sales

Any first thoughts and/or questions on this topic? Leave them here! (if none, continue to the next slide)

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Guideline 9: The use of less/ cleaner/ reusable packaging will reduce the impact of  the materials needed in order to transport the products safely. 

4. Optimization of distribution system

After the production will the products be distributed over various locations. This could either be directly to the store or most of times first to some kind of distribution center/ warehouse. Besides the obvious impact of the fuel needed for transport are there various points of interest. 

Guideline 10: By optimizing the logistics, a lot of impact could be minimized. Avoiding unnecessary long distance transport and non- space- efficient shipments would be a good start.  Standardizing the shipments and make bulk orders would make the logistics more efficient and therefore reduce the impact. 

Guideline 11: Transportation should be as clean and energy efficient as possible in order to reduce the impact of the product. Where transport by plane should be avoided where possible, is transporting by train or container ship preferable over transport by lorry. When considering food transport should the climate control be optimized in order to remain the quality of the products without wasting lots of energy. 

Example strategy

1. Help the fashion and food retailer with transforming their single use secundairy packaging to reusable ones
2. Help the food retailer with climate control during transport and distribution 
3. Help the food and fashion retailer with optimizing the efficiency of their transport

Any first thoughts and/or questions on this topic? Leave them here! (if none, continue to the next slide)

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Guideline 13: provide possibilities to reuse the product after its first life time. Make sure that the functionalities and aesthetics are assured after its first life and make sure the quality can be guaranteed for a long period of time. 

Guideline 15: When a product could no longer be reused or remanufactured, rightfully recycling the materials could still reduce the environmental impact. 

5. Optimization of end-of-life system

A product could be optimized for sustainability during the design process but if the disposal of the product is neglected a lot of those good intentions will not come true. The real question is, is the product done when his life time is finished, or could the product be used again? Or could some parts be used again? Most of times, a lot of environmental impact could be avoided when a product is not disposed after its first life time but used elsewhere or with a new purpose. This is especially useful when the product have a high impact during mining and production since these steps could potentially be skipped for the next product. 

Guideline 14:When it is not possible to reuse the product, make sure that the product or its parts could be remanufactured. The parts or subassemblies of the products should be easy to dismantle in order to make the remanufacturing as resource efficient as possible.

Guideline 12: By allowing reversed logistics, hence retrieving the product after its life time, the disposal could be managed way more efficiently. Reversed logistics allow for redistribution, remanufacturing or rightly disposing the product. This results in more control over the disposal process and prevent from disposing still good products and materials.  

Example strategy

1. Help the fashion retailer with organizing reversed logistics
2. Help the food retailer (suppliers) with retrieving their reusable packaging

Any first thoughts and/or questions on this topic? Leave them here! (if none, continue to the next slide)

Any other questions/ remarks?

Program brainstorm

1. Introduction (5min)
2. Warming up exercise (10min)
3. Brainstorm session to create strategies per topic guided by the guidelines (50 min) 
4. Discus fit for Nedap (20min)

Thanks for preparing, see you at the brainstorm!

!! One more question at the next slide!! 

How would you like to attend the brainstorm?

1. @Groenlo
2. Digitally
3. @Tribes