Holistic Material Selection Approach for More Sustainable Products

The relevance of material consumption during the product lifecycle is catching up with that of energy consumption. While the share of renewable energy sources has continuously been rising over the last years, material resources are getting more and more limited on earth. Thus, a method that enables a holistic material selection is essential to develop truly sustainable products. The selection of suitable materials is closely correlating with product and production system design. Hence, an integrated consideration of the three dimensions product, production and material is necessary. In practical engineering, however, these three dimensions are often developed independently and interactions are not sufficiently considered what results in less sustainable products.This paper presents a holistic material selection approach that equally considers material, product and production system aspects and requires a multidimensional assessment of potential solutions for these dimensions according to material consumption as well as technical and economic requirements.