SED group
SUSTAIN 2024–2028

SUSTAIN

Accelerating Sustainable Product Development in the aerospace industry

SUSTAIN project logo

About

Sustainability integration in product development activities is essential to accelerate the sustainability transition, in industries where products have a significant impact on planet and society.

The aviation sector is particularly unique with long product development processes, tough safety regulations and complex stakeholder landscape. The industry is exponentially growing, and passenger air travel does not currently fit into the vision of a sustainable society and planet.

Research has developed methods and tools to support the integration of sustainability in product development, but few are implemented in the industry or not used to their full potential. Further research is needed to understand how to effectively implement these supports, which are relevant in the aerospace context and how to use them to drive sustainable decision-making.

Aims

  1. Integrate sustainability in novel technology development to identify and address sustainability challenges before these technologies are established
  2. Create decision support to promote, measure, and visualize the lifecycle sustainability- and value performance to stakeholders, to support the aerospace industry to incorporate new business models in line with a circular economy
  3. Increase the capability to enhance the sustainability performance as the technology matures and empower development teams to anticipate, evaluate and enhance the sustainability performance of their solutions

Project team

  • Johanna Nylander
    Project leader and Industrial partner representative
  • Sophie Isaksson Hallstedt
    Professor and supervisor
  • Pauline Léonard
    PhD student
  • Giliam Dokter
    Post-doc researcher and co-supervisor
  • Ola Isaksson
    Researcher and project advisor
  • Lars Olsson
    Industrial partner representative

Publications

  • Conference paperOpen access

    Design Aspects of Importance in a Sustainability Transition

    Leonard PLY, Hallstedt SI, Nylander JW, Isaksson O · 2024 · Proceedings of the Norddesign 2024 Conference · DOI

  • Conference paperOpen access

    Key elements to navigate sustainable product development in aerospace

    Léonard PLY, Hallstedt SI, Isaksson O, Kipouros T, Mallalieu A · 2025 · Proceedings of the Design Society · DOI