Towards early environmental sustainability assessment in technology development – understanding and overcoming challenges

Manufacturing companies play a key role in the transition towards a more sustainable society. While companies have moved towards integrating sustainability into their product design and management practices, the front end of innovation has been left largely unexplored from a sustainability perspective. There is a lack of methods and tools for assessing environmental impacts of low-maturity technologies in research and development projects. Through action research, a combination of literature review and empirical work within a large manufacturing company, this study investigates the challenges surrounding environmental sustainability screening of technological alternatives for decision-making during early-stage projects. Four main challenges are identified and discussed, alongside potential ways to overcome them.