Towards instinctive sustainable product use

An effective and holistic corporate social responsibility strategy should consider all stages of the product lifecycle; design and development, manufacturing, distribution, sales, use and disposal. However, there appears to be a lack of consideration on the part of manufacturers regarding the effects of product use, despite this stage having been identified as having a significant environmental and social impact (Environmental Change Unit, 1997, Sherwin and Bhamra, 1998) which is largely determined by the consumers’ behaviour. Technological intervention and consumer education alone is not sufficient to reduce the impact of product use, instead a fundamental shift in behaviour is required (Fletcher et al., 2001, Velden, 2003), a shift which could be initiated by products. This paper reports on the findings of a literature review conducted as part of a doctoral research project in the Department of Design and Technology at Loughborough University. The aim of this project is to identify ways of reducing unsustainable behaviours through improved product design.