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Technological innovation designs the world of tomorrow. Through technology research and development (R&D), engineers, designers, and researchers develop new materials, product capabilities, and production processes that are essential for the Circular Econo-my (CE), a promising pathway towards a more sustainable society. If properly designed for CE, technologies can enable gains in efficiency, reduce environmental impacts, and retain the value of resources.
Manufacturing companies bear much of the responsibility for developing and im-plementing these technologies in a responsible and sustainable manner. Ultimately, companies decide how these technologies are applied into everyday products and sys-tems, thus shaping how circular and sustainable they will be. And although sustainability and circularity might be the newest additions to the decision criteria used in R&D pro-jects, they are far from the only ones. R&D engineers need to balance them with busi-ness viability, technical feasibility, risk, and more. In this balancing act, they often face dilemmas or trade-off situations. As companies increasingly prioritise environmental sus-tainability and circularity in R&D, they require new tools to make sense of the risks and benefits of new technologies and decision-making support to navigate trade-offs.
Therefore, the aim of this PhD research is to support the integration of sustainabil-ity and circularity into technology R&D through an assessment and decision-making toolbox. The research followed the Design Research Methodology with an Action Re-search approach. A variety of methods were used, including systematic literature reviews and synthesis, interviews, workshops, and quasi-experiments. The research was con-ducted in close collaboration with Grundfos, a large manufacturing company in the water industry. The tools were also evaluated in other contexts and industries, such as aero-space and medical devices, as well as with academics and consultants.
The toolbox – which is the main result of this thesis – includes a screening tool for new technologies and a decision support tool for trade-offs in technology R&D:
- The screening tool, called Value-Impact Analysis (VIA), takes a workshop ap-proach combining life cycle thinking and the notion of value retention strategies in CE, tailored to the technology R&D process. It also features future scenarios to-gether with both qualitative and semiquantitative assessment and a novel visuali-sation of results.
- The trade-off support tool, called Multiple Narrative Decision Analysis (MNDA), builds on top of non-compensatory multiple criteria decision analysis tools. It ap-plies an innovative approach where narratives take centre stage, together with a systematic sensitivity analysis.
Evidence from extensive evaluations indicate that these tools are useful additions to the arsenal of R&D engineers, enabling them to better understand, discuss, analyse, interpret, visualise, and communicate the sustainability and circularity potential of new technologies. Other than the key contribution to manufacturing companies through prac-tical tools, this thesis also expands current scholarly knowledge and debate about CE trade-offs and Design for Sustainability more broadly, particularly regarding the role of scenarios and narratives in assessment and decision-making.