Through having been around for 30 years, never before has Eco-design become such a popular philosophy of design. Companies are either being praised or criticised if they present eco-design labelled offers - it is either a good push in the right direction towards a more sustainable future, or it is greenwashing. 


Anh Nguyen

Colette Menard

Through having been around for 30 years, never before has Eco-design become such a popular philosophy of design. Companies are either being praised or criticised if they present eco-design labelled offers - it is either a good push in the right direction towards a more sustainable future, or it is greenwashing. As business leaders, it is important to navigate among these noises: what are the limitations of Eco-design, as used today? Will it bring a differentiation factor or will it drive up the production cost?

Eco-design as used today is counterproductive

Let’s look at the case of a multinational food and beverage company, one of our clients. As plastics and plastic packagings for food and beverages are under scrutiny in Europe, the Strategy and Innovation team started to explore 

. One of the ideas was to use aluminium - which is recyclable and gives a luxurious touch to the product. They spent 12 months conducting studies and surveys to choose the perfect test subject, and then another 12 months to replace the plastic packaging with a super thin, recyclable aluminium one.

However, aluminium packaging is too expensive to produce. This drives up the production cost as well as the end customers' purchase price. The team, therefore, switched towards a 

 they spent another year studying the different product shapes that could minimise the production cost while keeping the new aluminium packaging. A new oval shape was proposed to replace the current cube shape, which drove the production cost of each unit down to 10%. Yet, this new shape caused another problem for stacking and storing. Logistics-wise, this is not optimal.

This is the case of one of our clients, yet it is also the situation of many others. These eco-design practices didn’t work because the team had started solving the problem with a

. They wentfrom replacing an old material with a new one to redesigning with constraints (design-to-cost, on top of a new type of material). 

With constraints upon constraints, the solution space ends up being empty.

Here’s another example. The Innovation team of this multinational cosmetics company want to reduce the amount of raw material used in their creme containers. The newly-designed concept was not accepted by their brands, as the new containers are much lighter and hence, do not give a luxurious feel to the product. Finding the perfect compromise between environmental friendliness (removing raw materials) and a luxurious feel (adding more raw materials) seems to be a puzzle that is almost impossible to solve.

This dilemma has been occurring more often than not. 

Despite the good intentions, eco-design as used today, in most cases, often leads to unsatisfying solutions.

 The problem here is that teams approach a design problem with narrow-defined design parameters: “which material is more “sustainable?”, “how to reduce the amount of raw material used?”... while trying to fit these new concepts into the current systems - the same business models, the same codes of consumption, the same stakeholders with the same needs and demands.

To break free from this limitation of current eco-design practices, it is important to opt for the mindset of

 Let’s take the example of our other client in the cosmetic industry, who also wished to reduce the weight of the containers, hence the amount of raw material. Instead of directly trying to solve this problem using narrowly-defined design parameters, we opted for an extensive exploration of possible concepts. 

Any characteristic of the current design can be challenged

: the shape, the way users interact with the container, the traditional elements, the way these containers are stocked and transported and most important of all, the values perceived by end users. It was necessary to challenge the codes of luxe: less doesn’t mean low-cost, cheap-looking products. Simplicity can be luxurious, purity can also mean lush and desirable.

With this new code of luxe introduced, the company has created a new system, in which a lighter, “purer” cosmetic container can be possible and perceived as 

Here’s another example to illustrate this mindset of designing to reinvent. The Innovation team of this international premium pet food manufacturer called for us with a clear mission: creating radically new products that allow a reduction of 80% of the environmental footprint.

To reach such a high ambition, the team was

 (i.e products, processes, consumer habits and upstream supply chain). The exploration resulted in 3 concepts allowing a 50 to 80% reduction of the environmental footprint, each with descriptions of their 

completely different business models, value propositions and production techniques. 

These 3 concepts are being tested and validated to replace the existing products and processes by 2030

If we had started the project by applying the current mindset of reducing and replacing, we would have gotten stuck with impossible solutions, incompatible with current systems and therefore would never get to the development phase. The change of mindset is critical: from a very narrow set of design parameters such as reducing and replacing, towards a broader ambition of 

, in which possible, sustainable and desirable solutions can be allowed to happen.

Business leaders today are being asked from all fronts - regulations, shareholders and clients - to develop more sustainable offers. Therefore, it is essential to get rid of the mono-parameter approach only related to the environmental dimension when it comes to the design and development of new sustainable systems and 

This mindset can bring out incredible differentiation and game-changing opportunities.

 Companies, in this case, don’t just aim at doing slightly better than their competitors by optimising some elements of the current system but 

create an entirely new set of codes and systems, ones that are more desirable and will become the industry’s new standards.

Future Thought Leaders is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of rising Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem. 

Eco-design: a differentiation factor or a dead-end?

In recent years, companies and industries are starting to rethink their products and services in order to achieve ambitious environmental goals. While these eco-design efforts are necessary, they are still object-bound while ignoring the whole system. 

Auriane Clostre

In recent years, companies and industries are starting to rethink their products and services in order to achieve ambitious environmental goals. 

While these eco-design efforts are necessary, they are still object-bound while ignoring the whole system.

Meanwhile, the environmental impacts of industries and companies equally lie in their production and business models, which were often designed in the 19th century, when environmental criteria were not taken into account.

No matter how hard we try to "fix" or improve this faulty system, we will never achieve the target level of environmental performance

. As environmental targets become more demanding, it is necessary to move away from the optimisation thinking and design new systems that are compatible with current environmental issues.

Reinventing to break free from past design choices

Our current industrial and economic models are a legacy of the industrial revolution of the 19th century

, and of design choices that did not take into account the scarcity of raw materials, or upstream and downstream pollution during the manufacturing process. These are models that have mainly responded to the challenges of economic performance, speed and efficiency.

Companies therefore find themselves optimising the environmental performance of systems that were not originally designed to do so

 - systems that are energy-intensive, raw-material consuming and waste-inducing. So long as companies remain in this optimisation mindset, they will come up against the very limits of their model and, in most cases, will not be able to meet the environmental objectives defined by current or future regulations. 

This is a phenomenon we call the "invisible R&D wall"

, which is well known in R&D activities. When optimising a system, initial efforts are well rewarded and significant improvements are quickly made. But, over time, it becomes more and more expensive to optimise the system and the performance gains are smaller and smaller.

Companies, faced with the climate emergency, must therefore opt for 

, a process aiming to thoroughly reinvent a product, a service, a business model or a historical process, 

by freeing themselves from the choices and design models of the past

. A good example of reinvention is the transformation of 

 from a mining company in Belgium to a precious metal refining and recycling company in the 2000s. This transformation required the total reinvention of its activities and expertise. The example of Umicore given earlier corresponds to a radical transformation of the company's positioning. 

A company can in fact play on one or more dimensions of reinvention to drastically reduce its environmental footprint.

Let's take the example of a leading European packaging company, with whom we started working in 2019. Our work with the R&D team initially focused on reinventing the

, which resulted in the reuse of over 30% of thermal energy, saving €1.5 million per year. In 2020, we tackled the second dimension - their 

, by completely transforming the packaging architecture. This reduced the amount of raw material used, and therefore the associated CO2 emissions within the manufacturing process, by 40%.

 The order of reinvention naturally corresponded to the expertise of the R&D team of this manufacturing company.

 Work on these first two dimensions has already yielded significant results, but it is possible to push the ambition even further.

The company's business model is based on a single unit and single use sales model.

 The company is therefore still attached to a system that is very energy and resource intensive. Reinventing the business model therefore represents a significant potential for reducing environmental impact. Tackling this dimension means 

a profound rethinking of product use and functionality, the value chain and relationships with suppliers and customers

Given its systemic nature, this dimension often goes beyond the traditional scope of business, and therefore, is understandably the most difficult to address. But precisely because of its systemic nature, it can enable us to 

transform entire industries in a profound way, with significant potential for reducing environmental impacts.

There are examples of companies that are beginning to experiment with this third dimension of reinvention, rethinking the rules of the most common business models inherited from previous centuries: 

Tackling the third dimension of reinvention: leading examples

Single-use or disposable products are products with a limited life span. One of the most striking examples is that of the giant tire manufacturer 

 has experimented with shifting from the model of selling single-use tires to a pay-per-use model.

 This model aligns economic and environmental interests, encouraging maximum use and life of a tyre. It is also more beneficial for customers, as it provides significant cost savings. For road transport customers, for example, 

good equipment maintenance can reduce fuel consumption by 

 for long-distance transport (or 8 tonnes of CO2 emissions).

 corresponds to products that can potentially last indefinitely, but customers tend to want or own more than one, such as clothes, shoes, kitchenware, etc. Several established companies in the textile and fashion industry are beginning to find answers. For example, 

 - a second-hand marketplace for luxury clothing now valued at $1.7 billion. To take the model a step further,

 one could ask whether it is possible to limit the loss in value of these products over their life cycle, or even increase their value. 

This is the principle of upcycling or Kintsugi, which involves, for example, repairing broken pottery with gold dust.

 can be easily challenged for products that have a long life but are not used very often. It is common for every household to own them, even if their use is not always very frequent, such as specialised utensils, tools or even parts of the home. 

monetising the unproductive and little-used spaces of a household

. The platform creates new suppliers and customers of rental spaces by monetising small rental units, such as the provision of a room for a short period of time. The same model of sharing and mutualisation applies to household appliances, with tool rental platforms such as 

Major challenges such as the climate emergency and environmental degradation require profound and systemic transformations. And this reinvention must be tackled on three dimensions - process, product and business model. 

Only by deconstructing the historical models on each of these dimensions, and by questioning the most deeply rooted elements

, that we will start building build these new, more adapted models.

companies must reexamine: What dimension of Reinvention was previously addressed? What results have been achieved? Would it be interesting to go further and tackle other dimensions or perimeters? 

For some industries such as ready-to-wear, automotive or consumer goods, if we don't address the business model dimension, we are not addressing the most important lever and risk missing out on the opportunities for truly meaningful change.

Future Thought Leaders is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of rising Energy & Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

Reinvent the business model – the most important lever to tackle the environmental shift

Colette Menard is a Partner and Scientific Director at Stim, and also a co-founder of StimShift. she has been in charge of developing methods and tools to manage innovation activities. Today, through StimShift business unit, she has made a real role in the environmental transition of industries and companies. 

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Colette Menard

Colette Menard

Reinvent the business model – the most important lever to tackle the environmental shift

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