Tag Archives: Resource

Sustainability in PLM – A Path Forward

In a recent episode of the podcast Stay Sharp in Digital Engineering from Razorleaf, hosts Juliann Grant and Jonathan Scott are joined by renowned PLM thought leader and sustainability advocate, Jos Voskuil, co-founder of the PLM Green Global Alliance.

Together, they unpack the evolving role of sustainability within the world of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and digital engineering. From the European Green Deal to the growing importance of lifecycle assessment (LCA), this episode explores how environmental impact is shaping how products are designed, manufactured, and maintained.”

Topics Covered:

  • What sustainability really means in the context of PLM
  • Regulatory drivers like RoHS, REACH, and the EU Digital Product Passport
  • The shift from hazardous material tracking to full carbon reporting
  • Why “right to repair” and circular economy models are gaining traction
  • How the product-as-a-service model transforms business sustainability
  • Practical steps for manufacturers to begin measuring environmental impact
  • Real-world examples of data-driven PLM and the use of digital twins
  • Tools and databases supporting sustainability analysis (e.g., EcoInvent, LCA, AI-driven platforms)
  • The importance of model-based systems engineering and connected data

Learn more about why sustainability is becoming a central factor in product innovation and compliance by listening to the podcast now HERE.

The above announcement and images were provided courtesy and copyright of Razorleaf, a global, vendor-agnostic consulting and systems integration firm specializing in digital transformation for forward-thinking manufacturers worldwide.

Sustainability Trends Within PLM from CIMdata

Posted on by

PLM Green Global Alliance contributor Mark Reisig recently led a CIMdata webinar on “Sustainability Trends Within PLM” on April 10, 2025.

Key topics of the agenda that Mark covered include:

  • Status of Sustainability
  • Sustainability Trends
  • Embedding Sustainability into PLM Strategies
    • Circular Economy and the Digital Product Passport (DPP)
    • Reducing Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)
    • Enhancing Supply Chain Visibility
    • Design for Sustainability (DfS)
    • Lifecycle Assessments (LCA)
    • Digital Threads and Digital Twins
  • Why Companies Should Care
  • Concluding Remarks

Continue reading →

New e-book on Product Sustainability for Dummies

Dave Duncan, Head of Sustainability for PLM solution provider PTC, has announced the publication of his new e-book “Product Sustainability for Dummies.”

In a recent LinkedIn post Dave introduced the book by writing:

“Sustainability in manufacturing is complex, and there’s no single playbook to follow. After working with hundreds of customers and partners over the past two years, one thing was clear: manufacturers can take action today in ways that are both practical and profitable.

So I set out to create a comprehensive guide for manufacturers, and now it’s here! Inside, I break down key focus areas, including:

    • How to profitably incorporate sustainability in product design and execution
    • Strategies for decarbonization, hazardous materials control, and circularity
    • How to stay ahead of evolving regulations and compliance challenges
    • The business value of sustainability beyond just meeting requirements

The biggest takeaway? Sustainability isn’t just about reducing footprints—it’s about driving better product outcomes, reducing risk, and staying competitive in a changing market.

Whether you’re just getting started or refining your strategy, Product Sustainability For Dummies can help you take the next step. Give it a read, would love to hear your thoughts on it!”

Upon reading the book, PLM Green cofounder Jos Voskuil commented:

“I just had the chance to read this eBook, and I absolutely loved it! Dave Duncan masterfully brings together all aspects of sustainability — highlighting the key principles and connections without overwhelming readers with excessive details.

He breaks down the essentials — the need, regulations, digital thread, and business impact — in a clear and accessible way, making sustainability feel both achievable and essential.

And while Dave Duncan is Head of Sustainability PTC, this book remains completely vendor-neutral. It’s a compelling call to action for leveraging modern PLM infrastructure to seamlessly embed sustainability into your processes.

A must-read for anyone in community – even if you are not a dummy!”

Congratulations, Dave, and thanks for reminding all professionals, at any stage of their career, of the value in learning with the attitude of a “Beginner’s Mind.”

The book can be downloaded for free at https://www.ptc.com/en/resources/corporate/ebook/product-sustainability-for-dummies-beyond-the-book.

(Image Credit PTC)

A Practical Guide to the Digital Product Passport from PTC Arena

The new whitepaper “A Practical Guide to the Digital Product Passport” from PTC Arena Solutions is one of the most comprehensive introductions to the Digital Product Passport (DPP) for PLM professionals.

The paper covers the following topics:

  • The Concept Behind the Digital Product Passport (DPP)
  • Understanding DPP Laws, Regulations, and Business Requirements
  • Industries Affected by the DPP Mandate
  • What Type of Information Is Stored Inside a DPP?
  • Blockchain Technology: The Foundation for Building a DPP
  • Getting Started With DPP
  • Companies Are Using PLM to Manage DPP Information
  • PLM Capabilities Used to Manage DPP Compliance
  • PLM Helps Companies Meet DPP Regulations, Design for Sustainability, and Strategically Transition to a Circular Economy

From the paper we learn about the importance of DPP:

“Within the EU, passport technology is becoming mandatory across a diverse range of product categories, starting with batteries, chemicals, construction, electronics, furniture, luxury goods, plastics, textiles, and toys.”

“Full DPP implementation is currently expected by 2030. This mandate requires companies to digitally document detailed product information across their entire lifecycle. The goal is to promote sustainability and transparency for consumers, businesses, and governments.”

Read the complete paper by downloading it now from PTC HERE.

(Header image courtesy of PTC.)

How to Become a Leader in Sustainability from PLM Group

The E.U.-based PLM Group has published a new e-book on “How to Become a Leader in Sustainability.”

The authors write that their e-report will guide readers through six steps towards a greener future and how they can implement digital technology into sustainable design and manufacturing practices.

The publication is available for download from the PLM Group HERE.

According to the PLM Group’s website, their mission is to empower people and manufacturing companies to innovate. They do that by digitally transforming your entire value chain, integrating every stage of the product lifecycle from design to aftermarket. Additional information on the PLM Group can be found HERE.

The Sustainability Thread Whitepaper

PLM Green contributor Klaus Brettschneider, who is Director of Sustainability Products at Linx-AS LLC, has authored a new thought-leadership whitepaper on “The Sustainability Thread: Rethinking the digital thread to drive sustainability performance and green R&D.”

In the executive summary, Klaus writes:

“The digital twin and digital thread concepts are now mainstream best practices for product lifecycle management (PLM) practitioners and innovation-minded organizations. The interconnectivity of product data models provides superior agility for manufacturers as the digital thread breaks through to once-siloed stakeholders with real-time, accurate information from R&D to commercialization to the customer and back.

Enter sustainability. With regulatory, consumer, and investor pressures on the rise, many manufacturers are running into stakeholders in new silos in the rush to deliver products to market—all the while, leadership wrestles with scattered data, multiple reporting frameworks, and aspirations of a more proactive green R&D posture.

In this white paper, the author posits the creation of a digital thread for sustainability data, simply stated herein as the sustainability thread. The paper explains how integrating sustainability requirements in an organization’s digital thread strategy can transform both sustainability performance and product development. It also explores through real-world use cases how the digitalization of sustainability-related processes can greatly improve operational efficiency and reporting accuracy.”

Continue exploring these topics covered in the whitepaper by downloading it HERE.

PLM and Design for Sustainability

Summary & Goals

In the last century our corporate business cultures and design engineering functions have been focused upon the well-known three dimensions of time, cost, and quality. As a consequence people, processes, and technologies were organized and optimized around these KPIs which became unrelenting drivers of new product development.

Now with the criticality of establishing a more sustainable global economy, it is imperative that design decisions include the fourth dimension of sustainability; what is called Design for Sustainability (DfS). The move to adding then prioritizing sustainability considerations promises to transform not just products, processes, and technologies, but also professions, organizations, and entire industries.

In contrast to other sustainability-related disciplines, DfS has an added burden of complexity: the design phase planning of a product must now include a prediction of its sustainability impact. This impact assessment may come from rigorous analysis using hard data or only estimates often relying upon extrapolations and comparisons.

These DfS decisions will ultimately determine the true sustainability of a product over a lifecycle that can run decades, including its repair, reuse, refurbishment, and recycling. Product data and usage information that is not complete in the early design stages must then be predicted, which becomes the “Dilemma of DfS”. The 80/20 Pareto Principle certainly applies where 80% of sustainability impact is defined during the first 20% of product life when much important data is still unknown.

Since we as an engineering community are still at the beginning of the transformation toward DfS thinking, our speed of implementation and standardization greatly matters. The goal of this new PLM Green theme and study group is to elevate and accelerate that transformation by sharing educational learnings, best practices, and real-world experiences across the three levels of:

  • People – who need to understand, practice and transfer the culture of designing sustainable products
  • Processes – which establish sustainable targets, even when the underlying performance and usage data is unknown in the early stages
  • Technologies – which require data acquisition and prediction in a complex environment from numerous sources across departments, enterprises, and stakeholders

To accomplish this our group’s mission is to establish an open non-commercial forum of design engineering professionals from around the world who freely share their knowledge, experiences, and best practices that will boost the DfS transformation.

Theme Moderators

Dr.-Ing Erik Rieger, PLM Evangelist 

erieger@ptc.com

Focus & Objectives

Our near-term focus will be on exploring how best to take advantage of “PLM Levers” for supporting design for sustainability, and defining what new advancements in PLM-enabling capabilities, implementations, and user applications will be needed.

To be successful, DfS will require the following challenges be addressed, most which are ideal for PLM business strategies and software solutions:

  • Continuous data gathering and updating from numerous sources across the entire product lifecycle. In particular, data sources from material databases, supply chains, and manufacturing planning/operations has to be taken into account followed by best data-handling practices to seamlessly integrate the data into design workflows. This includes approaches for creating and maintaining digital or virtual twins.
  • Tool landscape for sustainability, which allows rapid changing software tools to be analyzed according to their functional capabilities and assessing their fit into individual enterprise requirements for given product characteristics.
  • Predicting data from actual product life history and feeding that back into the early design phase has to be incorporated. Generalizing data to check and validate early assumptions and estimations also has to be performed.
  • PLM enablement toward Green PLM systems, which support transparency of sustainability impact in all maturity phases of the product. This includes functional capabilities, such as comparing variants for assessment of change impact, rolling up sustainability from single components to the entire product, and managing sustainability for variant design in complex structures.
  • Leveraging DfS for compliance reporting will require transparent verifiable reporting against regulatory standards right from the beginning. This will help to enhance the importance and investment of DfS initiatives.
  • Maturation and standardization of design processes and KPIs to support sustainability best practices, include training on sustainability-integrated design processes across disciplines like requirements planning.
  • Closing the loop of the entire life cycle to leverage lessons learned from the other PGGA research areas such as Life Cycle Assessment.and Circular Economy.

Agenda & Activities

We propose in our DfS theme working group to exchange experiences, thought leadership, and most importantly, professional encouragement to amplify our voices and accelerate our actions.  As in the other PLM Green themes, we will do so by educating, advocating, and collaborating across the boundaries of technical disciplines, different industries, and international borders.

We will pursue these objectives using a plan composed of several elements that may include: commentaries, use cases, virtual round-table discussion groups, blog posts, book and paper reviews, recorded interviews, industry surveys, and participation as guest speakers in conferences and webinars hosted by others.

No one association, business group, or NGO, regardless of how large or small, can produce all the advancements in sustainability that are urgently needed. Thus communicating, cooperating, and collaborating with other professional groups, organizations, and alliances will be needed which we enthusiastically look forward to pursuing.

Invitation to Participate & Collaborate

To participate in our PLM Green theme study group on DfS, we invite you to first, if you have not yet done so, join the PLM Green LinkedIn Group then contact our moderator Dr.-Ing Erik Rieger at erieger@ptc.com to share your area of special interest and expertise.

Announcements & Updates

Check back soon to this website page as we announce activities for 2025, or register HERE to receive our news, updates, and announcements of events.

References & Resources

Here below we have started maintaining a curated list of featured white papers, blog posts, presentations, case studies, webinars, and interviews on Design for Sustainability. For inclusion in this library we invite you to send us examples you have come across in your own work, company, industry, or country to info@plmgreenalliance.com.

PLM Green Global Alliance Discusses Trends and Future Directions - On November 11th, we celebrated our 5th anniversary of the PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) with a webinar where Jos Voskuil (me) interviewed the five other PGGA core team members about developments and experiences in their focus domain, potentially allowing for a broader discussion. In our discussion, we focused on… Continue Reading
Design for Sustainability Workgroup Kickoff Meeting - The PLM Green Global Alliance held a meeting earlier this summer to kick off the establishment of the new Design for Sustainability (DfS) workgroup. Organized by PLM Green cofounder Jos Voskuil and then led by theme moderators Erik Rieger and Matthew Sullivan, the attendees explored each of their various special… Continue Reading
PTC and Makersite to Accelerate Sustainable Product Development - PTC has announced its latest step in the journey toward enabling smarter, more sustainable product development: the integration between PTC’s enterprise PLM product, Windchill, and Makersite, the leading AI-powered platform for product lifecycle intelligence. Dave Duncan, VP of Sustainability at PTC, comments: "This integration helps manufacturers who are looking to… Continue Reading
Design for Sustainability News - (The following post from PLM Green Global Alliance cofounder Jos Voskuil first appeared in his European PLM-focused blog HERE.) Within the PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA), we had an internal kick-off meeting related to the topic of Design for Sustainability (DfS). As you might have seen on our website, Erik… Continue Reading
New e-book on Product Sustainability for Dummies - Dave Duncan, Head of Sustainability for PLM solution provider PTC, has announced the publication of his new e-book “Product Sustainability for Dummies.” In a recent LinkedIn post Dave introduced the book by writing: “Sustainability in manufacturing is complex, and there’s no single playbook to follow. After working with hundreds of… Continue Reading
PLM Green Announces Design for Sustainability Theme - The PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) announces that a new study theme focused on Design for Sustainability (DfS) has been established which will be led by PLM Green contributing moderator Erik Rieger from Transition Technologies PSC Germany. PLM Green’s mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate across the boundaries of… Continue Reading
PLM and Design for Sustainability - Continue Reading
Addressing the Global Plastics Problem in Electrotechnical Product Design - Our latest PLM Green Global Alliance post is a guest author contribution from Roger Franz who is a recognized authority on supply chain reporting for compliance with worldwide regulations, leveraging his decades of experience with engineering software tools and enterprise IT systems. Previously, Roger shared his professional passion and special… Continue Reading
Life Cycle Assessments for Design Engineers in NPD and R&D - The latest PLM Green Global Alliance post is authored by Klaus Brettschneider, principal moderator for our Life Cycle Assessment study theme and Director of Sustainability Products for PLM consultancy Linx-AS. Engineers and designers in New Product Development (NPD) and Research & Development (R&D) play a critical role in shaping the… Continue Reading
PLM Tools to Design for Sustainability - This month we are pleased to feature a guest blog submitted by PLM Green Global Alliance follower Roger L. Franz. who shares a few things he has learned as a Principal in Engineering Information Technology when beginning to explore the state of PLM tools to Design for Sustainability. Design for… Continue Reading

We Can’t Achieve Net Zero Without the Circular Economy

This article from the SAP News Center written by Darren West emphasizes the role of the circular economy in achieving net-zero emissions. It states that energy efficiency and renewable energy can only address 55% of greenhouse gas emissions. The remaining 45% are tied to products, materials, and food.

Currently, the linear economy dominates, as only 7.2% of the world’s resources are reused or recycled. Thus, adopting Circular Economy requires significant short-term capital investment, more data, and a collaborative approach.

Learn more by reading further at https://news.sap.com/2024/03/we-cant-achieve-net-zero-without-the-circular-economy/.

PLM and Circular Economy: a framework for sustainable product development

This article from PTC Arena Solutions discusses the growing role of PLM in sustainable product development and the circular economy. Here are the key points:

  • PLM has become increasingly important for manufacturers in new product development and introduction, especially in markets with complex products where quality management and compliance regulations are stringent.
  • The Circular Economy is based on three principles driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature.
  • PLM is starting to play a critical role in manufacturing companies’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies.
  • A survey found that many companies are using more sustainable materials, increasing the efficiency of energy use, and using energy-efficient or climate-friendly machinery.

Image Courtesy of Arena Solutions

Learn more by reading PLM and Circular Economy: A Framework for Sustainable Product Development | Arena (arenasolutions.com).

Leveraging PLM and Circularity for Product Development

An article in the publication Sustainability on “Leveraging PLM and Circularity for Product Development” describes the transition from a linear to a circular economy.

The author, Joseph Prock, writing for PTC Arena, remarks that the linear model is largely unsustainable. The circular economy, on the other hand, aims to minimize environmental impact by regenerating or reusing materials.

To achieve this, PLM systems can facilitate the transition to the circular economy from the earliest stages of product design.

Read the complete article HERE.

PLM Vision for Circular Economy

The conference paper “A PLM Vision for Circular Economy” written by Sofia Freitas de Oliveira & António Lucas Soares redefines PLM due to the shift from the mass production model to a new paradigm of personalized, on-demand, customer-centric, and knowledge-based production.

In doing so, the authors highlight the growing concerns around sustainability and circular economy, which require improved products that can be used for longer, with multiple life cycles.

 

The paper was published in “Collaboration in a Data-Rich World” the proceedings from the18th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises. It may be downloaded HERE.

PLM & Sustainability News March 2024

Posted on by

The PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate across the boundaries of technical disciplines, industries, and international borders to advance the use of Product Lifecycle Management strategies and technologies in the transition to a more sustainable decarbonized circular economy.

In our latest quarterly PLM & Sustainability News Digest we hope to provide not only timely information but also inspiration to the thousands of professionals around the world who work in PLM-related fields and care not only about delivering products and profits but also protecting people and the planet. We believe these objectives do not have to be in conflict, but in fact are absolutely synergistic when it comes to sustaining the long-term wealth of our economies and health of our communities and ecosystems.

Our recap of news and resources from a busy 1Q2024 is easy to scan for what interests you or might have been missed in your own feeds about the following topics: Continue reading →

PLM and Sustainability Book Preview

Posted on by
Reply

From PLM Green Global Alliance’s (PGGA) European co-founder Jos Voskuil.

During May and June of this year I wrote a guest chapter for John Stark’s book Product Lifecycle Management (Volume 2): The Devil is in the Details. The book is considered a standard in academic and professional circles when studying all the many aspects of PLM.

Continue reading →

PLM Tools to Design for Sustainability

Posted on by
Reply

This month we are pleased to feature a guest blog submitted by PLM Green Global Alliance follower Roger L. Franz. who shares a few things he has learned as a Principal in Engineering Information Technology when beginning to explore the state of PLM tools to Design for Sustainability.

Design for Sustainability is now a mainstream requirement from governments, regulators, and customers. In this brief we summarize some current trends in the area of PLM tools to support rapid engineering assessment of environmental footprint among the many engineering choices. Engineering and science-based tools to quickly guide hardware engineers toward material selection and product configuration choices with reduced environmental footprint are critical to our future.

Continue reading →

Discussing PLM and Sustainability with CIMdata

Posted on by

Last year the PLM Green Global Alliance was excited to speak with PLM solution providers SAP, Autodesk, Dassault Systems, Sustaira, Aras, and PTC to learn about them and their customers’ contributions to sustainability. This year we were equally enthused to meet with CIMdata’s Mark Reisig in a wide-ranging conversation about sustainability, climate change and green energy.

Continue reading →

Discussing Sustainability with PTC

Posted on by
Reply

The following post was first written by PLM Green co-founder Jos Voskuil where it  appeared in his European PLM Weblog in December 2022.

We are excited to close the year with the first round of the PLM Global Green Alliance (PGGA) series of interviews and panel discussions about PLM and Sustainability.

Continue reading →

Climate Change Chronicles December 2022

Posted on by
Reply

This month’s Climate Change Chronicles from the PLM Green Global Alliance provides a quick-to-scan summary of news from around the world during December 2022 about the changing climate and its impact on people and the planet.

Our good news question of the month: what laboratory announced a breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy? Read on to find out and learn what else might have been missed in your own news feeds.

For news about the use of PLM-enabling technologies in creating a more sustainable, low carbon, circular economy, subscribe to the PLM & Sustainability Newsletter then join our PLM Green LinkedIn Group.

Continue reading →

PLM and Sustainability December 2022

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome to the latest edition of PLM & Sustainability, a news digest from the PLM Green Global Alliance exploring the role of Product Lifecycle Management business strategies and enabling technologies in transitioning to a sustainable, low-carbon, circular economy. In this issue you will find:

  • Looking Back at the Year 2022
  • PLM Green News Roundup
  • References on PLM and Sustainability
  • Industry and Solution Provider News Roundup
  • More About the PLM Green Initiative
  • A Holiday Wish for a Green New Year

Continue reading →

Climate Change News Digest November 2022

The latest Climate Change news digest, prepared for followers of the PLM Green Global Alliance, summarizes the most substantial news from around the world during the month of November 2022 about the changing climate and progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This month’s good news question: what US state announced a ban on the use of fossil fuel plants to power crypto-mining operations? Read on to find out.

For more positive news about the use of PLM-enabling technologies in creating a more sustainable, lower carbon, circular economy, subscribe to the PLM & Sustainability Newsletter then join our PLM Green LinkedIn Group.

Continue reading →

PLM & Sustainability Oct. 2022

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome to the latest edition of PLM & Sustainability, a news digest from the PLM Green Global Alliance chronicling the role of Product Lifecycle Management enabling technologies in helping companies and industries transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon circular economy. In this newsletter you will find a compilation of recent news about PLM Green, solution providers, industry references, people and jobs that is fast to scan for what might have been missed in your own feeds.

Continue reading →