Perspectives on greener product development and manufacturing from Sustainable Minds, our partners, customers and contributors.

Designers

Greenbuild Booth Talks | Meet Experts on EPDs, Embodied Carbon, Materials

By Sustainable Minds on October 28, 2022

Sign up for Booth Talks
Booth 1442–1444

Everybody’s talking about EPDs, embodied carbon, circularity and healthy materials! We invite you to join us to learn from our partners and friends on these very topics.

Booth Talks offer the opportunity for demos and discussion F2F with the people doing the work! We're excited to be back in person again. If you're in San Francisco, we'd love to see you! Check out the schedule >

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Certifications & labeling, Designers, Green Economy, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Product service systems, Products, Standards & regulations, Strategies, Supply chain, Transparency is the New Green

Transparency is the New Green in Product Selection, Specification & Procurement: MSR Design, Bio-Plastic Solutions and Roseburg Forest Products

By Sustainable Minds on December 23, 2021

Recorded Tue, Nov 9, 2–3pm ET

Should interior designers care about embodied carbon?

In many building typologies, interior spaces are renovated and refreshed many times during the lifetime of the building, equaling or even surpassing the embodied carbon (EC) of the structure and envelope. However, data and modeling tools for interior designers have lagged as the perception that EC from structure and envelope are substantially greater.

A recent study from MSR Design examines the embodied carbon in casework / millwork materials and countertops, building on research from the Carbon Leadership Forum. Join us to learn about measuring and comparing the embodied carbon impact of casework, countertops and furniture in your designs and meet two manufacturers creating lower embodied carbon materials for these applications.

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Certifications & labeling, Designers, Green Economy, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Packaging, Products, Standards & regulations, Strategies, Supply chain, Transparency is the New Green, Webcast

Ecodesign Challenge: BOAST YOUR TOAST! Reinvent the toaster - Meet the winners!

By Sustainable Minds on August 11, 2020

Recorded Tue, Aug 11, 11–12pm ET

Sustainable Minds and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) created an ecodesign challenge for its inaugural Sustainability Deep Dive Conference (June, 2020) to engage the industry in an opportunity for hands-on learning. SM provided our Eco-concept + LCA Software along with a well-defined design process and ambitious submission requirements.
There were 52 entries. The results will amaze you!

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Designers, Innovation, Software & systems, Strategies, Webcast

The Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator Tool methodology: Not just what, but why? Not just how, but how big can the impact be?

By Sustainable Minds on November 18, 2019

The Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool methodology takes several bold steps to use what program operators, LCA providers and manufacturers have worked very hard to produce. Product category rules (PCRs) using different parameters to define product categories or groups; inconsistent content and data in an environmental product declaration (EPD), and PDF delivery in non-standardized layouts all make it very complicated to machine read and digitize to put today’s available data to use. Notwithstanding, this methodology delivers, for the first time, a scalable way to compare a single product’s embodied carbon impacts to all other similar products in a category.

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Certifications & labeling, Designers, Green Economy, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Packaging, Products, Standards & regulations, Strategies, Supply chain

Join us to meet experts on embodied carbon & EPDs @ our Greenbuild booth talks

By Sustainable Minds on November 18, 2019

We’re excited to be announcing several important new partners. Sign up for booth talks.

Sustainable Minds offers the opportunity for demos and discussion F2F with the people doing the work! If you're in Atlanta, come to Booth #1713 to learn from our partners.
Check out the schedule and RSVP >

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Certifications & labeling, Designers, Green Economy, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Packaging, Product service systems, Products, Software & systems, Standards & regulations, Strategies, Supply chain

We are extremely proud to be a 2018 Cleantech Open national sponsor.

By Sustainable Minds on July 16, 2018

As an in-kind sponsor, Sustainable Minds is offering a free 6-month subscription to its SM Eco-concept + LCA software for all members of the 2018 CTO cohort.

https://cleantechopen.org/en/page/national-sponsors-en

We kicked things off with the webinar: “Hands-on Training in Life Cycle Thinking & LCA for Cleantech Entrepreneurs.” The webinar provided an introduction to life cycle thinking and LCA and how to use the software in early stage product development to make informed trade-off decisions that can dramatically reduce impacts and drive innovation — in products, business models and systems.

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Certifications & labeling, Designers, Electronics, Green Economy, In the press, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Packaging, Product service systems, Products, SM in education, Software & systems, Standards & regulations, Strategies, Supply chain, Sustainability paradox, Sustainable Europe, Sustainable interaction design, Teamwork, Webcast

Webcast Replay: SM Transparency Reports, a solution to the LCA/EPD/PCR conundrum

By Sustainable Minds on January 28, 2014

In response to market demand and LEED v4, three companies with a common mission to bring credibly greener products to the marketplace -- Sustainable Minds, TOTO USA and NSF International -- have introduced a new product for manufacturers to transparently report the environmental performance of their products.

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Certifications & labeling, Designers, Green Economy, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Standards & regulations, Webcast

Announcing SM v3.0 – New data, your data, Branded Data

By Sustainable Minds on May 14, 2013

Thank you for making Sustainable Minds the #1 Cloud LCA software for greener product innovation – now used in 600 locations in 60 countries. We are excited to bring you SM v3.0.

Sustainable Minds’ easy-to-use, standardized Life Cycle Assessment solution makes it possible for manufacturers across the value chain – large and small – to dynamically evaluate, compare and improve their products' environmental performance by integrating life cycle thinking and LCA into their product development processes. The company has been recognized by Gartner® in its 2013 Cool Vendor Report, in Product Design and Life Cycle Management, as 'innovative, impactful and intriguing.'

Now with SM v3.0, Sustainable Minds can partner with manufacturers to get visibility for your brand and make your product data available to manufacturers, consultancies, educators & students worldwide.

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Certifications & labeling, Designers, Electronics, Green Economy, In the press, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Packaging, Product service systems, Products, Software & systems, Standards & regulations, Strategies, Supply chain, Sustainability paradox, Sustainable Europe, Sustainable interaction design, Teamwork, Webcast

Webcast: Creating Knowledge Workers for the Greener Product Marketplace, Part 4: Sustainable Engineering & Design Programs

By Sustainable Minds on January 15, 2013

On December 4th, we held the fourth in a series of webcasts that feature educators from leading colleges and universities demonstrating how Sustainable Minds is being used in education. From new sustainability degree programs to traditional engineering programs, educators from a broad range of disciplines are using Sustainable Minds to teach lifecycle thinking through hands-on experience.

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Designers, Electronics, Green Economy, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Packaging, Products, SM in education, Strategies, Teamwork, Webcast

Part 2 – Tufts Masters Practicum Project: Chieco (Chic + Eco) = A design philosophy that makes products sell like crazy!

By Sustainable Minds on October 2, 2012

Jon Keng, Mercyanne Andes, Millali Marcano, and Sunyoung Bang are students in the Tufts Gordon Institute Masters in Engineering Management program. As a part of the program, students are engaged in short-term consulting projects to allow them to experience real-world challenges. They chose Sustainable Minds as their sponsor company for their summer practicum project.

Vers founder, David Laituri, clearly knows what it means to create a more sustainable product. One of his philosophies is the concept of ‘Chi-eco’ (pronounced chee-co). A customer buys a Vers product because of design and performance first (chic), and environmental performance second (eco). This philosophy truly helped Vers’ recent Kickstarter campaign achieve a 1946% funding goal and raise almost $200,000. David certainly knows how use ‘greener’ to drive product innovation that leads to new revenues.

When the team first met David, we were impressed by his extensive experience with product manufacturing and deep interest in sustainability. Every Vers component and process was already developed with sustainability in mind. It was a challenge: how can we improve on an already lean, sustainable design? Working with the team at Sustainable Minds has expanded our applicability of sustainability in product design and development. The key is to look at all of the phases of a product’s life cycle.

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Designers, Electronics, Green Economy, Innovation, Life cycle assessment, Manufacturing, Marketing, Materials & processes, Products, SM in education, Strategies, Teamwork, Webcast