Managing sustainable product design by integrating corporate product development practice with ISO14001 Environmental Management Systems

Sustainable Product Design (SPD) and ISO14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) are emerging as two important approaches to corporate strategic solutions toward sustainability. Integrating product design management with ISO14001 EMS can be a promising way to fulfill a corporate strategic goal on the triple bottom-line (economic, environmental, and social) benefits. An extensive literature review shows that there is currently no comprehensive model and approach for corporate integration management.; The major research question of the dissertation is what are the successes and problems experienced in American manufacturing companies when integrating SPD practice with corporate ISO14001 EMS towards building sustainable business? The dissertation describes the interrelationship between sustainable design practice and contemporary management theory.; The study involves two separate phases. In the first phase, a comprehensive evaluation research is adopted to identify companies having superior performance on corporate environmental management and sustainable design practices. A survey research is also conducted to benchmark the cutting-edge integration management practice in the American manufacturing industry. These researches show that there is a critical distinction between leading companies and other manufacturing companies in terms of their practice and performance of integrating corporate SPD and EMS.; The key research method adopted in the second phase is an embedded single-case study. Herman Miller, Inc. is selected as the case company and the research focuses on the interaction among the corporate EMS organization, the SPD group, and the product project teams through comprehensively describing the integration management process adopted by the company's Mirra project. Herman Miller's experience further confirms that managing corporate sustainability innovation through integrating product design and environmental management can be an effective approach to achieving competitive advantages.; By focusing on the process of managing product development toward corporate sustainable development policy in manufacturing firms, the dissertation advances the first integration management theory and discovers that, to be effective and comprehensive, corporate integration management of SPD with ISO14001 EMSs should be implemented in four levels: policy integration, organization integration, process integration, and tool integration. The dissertation further develops relevant models to formalize corporate SPD and management activities. Together, these findings form the basis for developing guidelines for the integration management of SPD with ISO14001 EMS and contribute to the new paradigm for corporate sustainable innovation management.