Study finds four emotional drivers for determining product sustainability

Detroit — What are the emotional drivers of sustainability? According to research by Kiersten Muenchinger, head of the product design department at the University of Oregon in Eugene, there are four.

Muenchinger, who was a panelist during a Nov. 8 session on sustainable design considerations at the 2017 Design in Plastics event, referenced a study she did to gauge how people emotionally relate to sustainability in products.

At the start of the discussion, she passed around a set of 11 cups. The cups were the same size — all injection molded — but each was made from a different polymer. Materials ranged from polypropylene and polylactic acid to high density polyethylene made from sugar feedstock and conventional HDPE.

The results of her study showed that participants found only four material design strategies to be indicative of the cups' sustainability: durability, naturalness, degradability and rawness.

You will notice that recyclability did not make the cut.

"Recyclability is one of the things we talk about a lot," she said. "If we make something out of more recycled materials or more recyclable materials, is that something people are going to see and understand in a product on the market? The research I've done says no."

Muenchinger said the outcome probably goes back to a consumer's experience with recycling products, where there's a fine line between whether an item makes it into the recycling bin or ultimately ends up in a landfill. The study's participants seem to be defining sustainability based on experiences they know they can rely on, she said.

"I think that's one of the reasons that durability is something that's driving sustainability," she added. "People have a very good experience with durability and know that something that's durable is something they'll keep for a long time."

Muenchinger was joined on stage by Gary Wnek, a professor of macromolecular science and engineering at Case Western Reserve University, and Mike Maczuzak, founder and CEO of SmartShape Design, an industrial design firm with headquarters in Cleveland.

"[Durability is] an area that affects more of the work that we do at SmartShape in product design," Maczuzak said. "For example, we design all kinds of permanent products that you would use for years and decades, like this table or chair."

Maczuzak's plastic cup on the table, however — most likely made from PET — is more durable than it needs to be, he said.

"This cup that I used at lunchtime … is intended to be used for a minute, minutes or even a few seconds," said Maczuzak, holding up the clear cup. "You fill it up, drink it and throw it away. That's the whole entire lifespan use of this product."

The durability of the table and chairs that the three speakers were gathered at should be optimized so that the pieces of furniture last for decades and don't end up in a landfill, he explained.

"But this cup, there's a certain optimal level of durability, and this is … more durable than it needs to be for that lifespan," he said.

Maczuzak, who frequently travels to Shenzhen, China, where SmartShape has an office, compared the sturdy, single-use plastics cup to the thinner, flimsier cups he uses during meetings in the China.

"It feels almost like a plastic bag, but it doesn't leak. It doesn't fall out of my hand," he said. "It works."

The three panelists agreed that oftentimes in the United States product designers are faced with competing interests of user experience and sustainable design. That desire for a "feel-good" user experience can sometimes prevent optimal sustainability, they said.

"They're not going to make a plastic cup that's perceived as flimsy if Americans prefer a user experience that isn't," Maczuzak said.

Another hurdle for product designers? Sustainability and high value are mutually exclusive, Muenchinger said.

"If it's considered luxurious, precious or expensive, it is mutually exclusive of being sustainable," she explained. "Those two things don't cross and, as a matter of fact, if you see one as one thing, then you do not see it as the other. It can't have high value or high worth and be sustainable."