Design for Sustainability

Ford began integrating "design for environment" principles into the product development process in the early 1990s. Initially we focused on designing our vehicles to facilitate end-of-life disassembly and recycling by taking into account the accessibility of parts to be disassembled, the type and number of different fasteners used and the marking of parts for easy identification. Based on several studies, however, it became clear that focusing on a single life-cycle phase (e.g., end of life) leads to sub-optimizations and potentially increased impacts in other life-cycle phases. Since then, we have shifted our focus to include a more comprehensive life-cycle approach to improving the sustainability of our vehicles. This focus incorporates the material and component production phase and the use phase, as well as effects on the end-of-life phase. In 2002, we began to use a holistic "design for sustainability" approach that incorporates social and economic aspects as well as environmental aspects into our life-cycle analysis and design approach.