Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Exploring the potential of additive manufacturing for product design

in a circular economy
Marita Sauerwein*, Eugeni Doubrovski, Ruud Balkenende, Conny Bakker
Delft University of Technology, Industrial Design Engineering, Delft, the Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, is acknowledged for its potential to support sus-
Received 30 June 2018 tainable design. In this paper, we explore whether the opportunities that additive manufacturing offers
Received in revised form for sustainable design are also useful when designing for a circular economy, and to what extent additive
8 April 2019
manufacturing can support design for a circular economy. We performed a literature review on the
Accepted 9 April 2019
sustainability aspects of additive manufacturing and held a series of interviews with designers about
Available online 12 April 2019
their 3D printed design projects to obtain in-depth information. The interviews were analysed using
annotated portfolios, a novel analysis method created specifically for this research. This resulted in a
Keywords:
additive manufacturing
visual representation of the outcomes. We found that additive manufacturing supports circular design
Circular economy strategies by creating opportunities to extend a product's lifespan, for instance by enabling repair or
Product design upgrades, even if these products were not originally designed for ease of repair or upgrading. However,
Product life extension the use of monolithic structurally complex parts that support design for recyclability may hinder high
Design for sustainability value product recovery, like repair. Besides this, the current offer of 3D printable materials should be
Annotated portfolios extended with materials developed for durable use, as well as high-value reuse. Concluding, when ac-
counting for these drawbacks, additive manufacturing is able to support multiple product life cycles and
can provide valuable contributions to a circular economy.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction designing products for the circular economy.

Design for a circular economy has recently come into focus as a
Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a new research area in the wider field of sustainable design. Product
fast-developing collection of production techniques that enable life extension and complete recovery of products and materials
new manufacturing paradigms. Products are manufactured form essential elements of this approach, where a hierarchy be-
through a digital and additive process in contrast to conventional tween the recovery strategies guarantees product integrity i.e., the
production methods (Esmaeilian et al., 2016). The contribution of extent to which a product remains identical to its original (den
AM to sustainability is gaining attention in the literature; recently Hollander et al., 2017). In other words, design for a circular econ-
several special issues on this topic were published (e.g. Lifset, 2017; omy “highlights the importance of high value and high-quality
Muthu and Savalani, 2016). AM is considered to be promising for material cycles in a new manner” (Korhonen et al., 2018). The op-
sustainable production because the additive and digital nature portunities and difficulties of AM for (design for) a circular econ-
provides opportunities to save resources. This additive and digital omy have hardly been addressed in the literature. Despeisse et al.
nature enables, for instance, on demand production of spare parts (2017), who developed a circular economy research agenda for
for repair (Matsumoto et al., 2016) or avoids material losses when AM, published one of the few articles that directly address this
compared to subtractive technologies such as milling (Mani et al., topic. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore whether the
2014). These aspects may also offer new opportunities when opportunities that AM offers for sustainable design are also useful
when designing for a circular economy, and to what extent AM can
support design for a circular economy.
* Corresponding author. We first present a literature review on sustainability aspects of
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Sauerwein), e.l.doubrovski@ AM. Subsequently, we discuss the findings from interviews with
tudelft.nl (E. Doubrovski), [email protected] (R. Balkenende), c.a.bakker@ five designers conducted to gain a greater understanding of the
tudelft.nl (C. Bakker).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.108
0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149 1139

relation between design for sustainability and for a circular econ- give an overview of several projects that show the energy
omy, based on practical design projects. We developed a new reduction of transport vehicles as a result of lightweight design
approach to analyse these interviews: it incorporates ‘annotated with AM.
portfolios’ (Gaver and Bowers, 2012) and results in a visual repre-
Reparability: Digital production supports repair because broken
sentation of the outcomes, which supports the discussion on the parts can be imitated and reproduced. Some AM technologies
role of AM in design for a circular economy. We conclude with in- can even directly print onto existing surfaces (Bertling et al.,
sights on the opportunities and limitations of AM in relation to 2014; Matsumoto et al., 2016). AM is therefore recognised as a
sustainable and circular product design. production technique that could favour repair. The digital pro-
duction process makes it possible to store spare parts digitally
2. Sustainability and additive manufacturing in relation to and produce them on-demand (e.g., Mani et al., 2014). This re-
the circular design strategies duces inventories and eliminates storage room, making repair
more accessible (e.g., Esmaeilian et al., 2016; Ford and
In previous research, we conducted a literature review Despeisse, 2016).
(Sauerwein et al., 2017) which serves as the starting point for this
Improved efficiency and local empowerment through distributed
paper. Sixty papers were screened on insights about AM and sus- manufacturing: Distributed manufacturing (also referred to as
tainability in product design; we found relevant information in 35 local production) stands for a network of local production plants
papers. We then analysed the papers and categorised the infor- to meet the needs of a certain community or region by means of
mation. It should be noted that this is an emerging field and, small scale and versatile production (Johansson et al., 2005). AM
although rapidly expanding, it is not yet mature. Many papers were supports this system because the digital file of a product can be
exploratory in character, often relying on (grey) literature; there sent to be produced locally (Singh Srai et al., 2016). This concept
were only a few empirical studies. is seen as a potentially sustainable alternative for centralised
Generally, the literature describes either the sustainability of the mass production, because of shorter supply chains, reduced
production process itself or the sustainability opportunities of 3D transportation, decreased overproduction through on-demand
printed objects. The environmental impact of the production supply, and localised repair and recycling (e.g., Ford and
method is still unclear due to many influencing factors (Faludi et al., Despeisse, 2016; Kreiger et al., 2014; Van Wijk and Van Wijk,
2015; Rejeski et al., 2018). There is a strong focus on the energy use 2015). Several authors also state that local production can
of the machine, and most results show that AM is often more en- ‘empower local communities’ by creating ‘community respon-
ergy intensive than conventional production methods (Kellens sive solutions’ and respecting ‘cultural assets’ (Chen et al., 2015;
et al., 2017; Rejeski et al., 2018). The sustainability of AM should Ford and Despeisse, 2016; Loy et al., 2016; Prendeville et al.,
however also be analysed beyond the process parameters of the 2016). Although AM seems very suitable for distributed
technology itself and include the whole life cycle (Jin et al., 2017). manufacturing, it is not clear whether this production system is
This makes quantification more challenging. The current literature actually more sustainable than centralised production. For
on sustainable options for 3D printed objects is therefore mostly instance, transportation reduction is often mentioned as a sus-
qualitative. We found several recurring aspects of AM that are ex- tainable benefit (e.g. Chen et al., 2015; Ford and Despeisse,
pected to support sustainability. After categorisation, we consoli- 2016), but this is often of minor impact in a complete life cycle
dated these into four overarching strategies related to assessment (Hanssen, 1998). Moreover, little information is
sustainability: product attachment through personalisation; given on the societal impact of distributed manufacturing.
resource efficiency through complex geometries; reparability; and,
improved efficiency and local empowerment through distributed The literature shows that AM as a production process is energy
manufacturing. These are detailed below. intensive. On a more systemic level, however, AM does seem
promising for a number of sustainable design strategies, as illus-

Product attachment through personalisation: Products are not trated above. The literature describes circular design strategies
only discarded because of technical failure, but often for psy- (Bakker et al., 2014; Bocken et al., 2016) which encapsulate some of
chological reasons. Design for sustainability uses design for the identified sustainable design strategies for AM. An additional
product attachment to improve the bond between user and strategy emphasises the focus on high value and high-quality
product in order to extend product lifetime (Ceschin and cycling of materials (Korhonen et al., 2018). We now describe
Gaziulusoy, 2016). Customisation and personalisation are seen these circular design strategies in relation to product integrity, i.e.,
as design strategies to create a stronger user-product relation- the first strategy is the most preferable in terms of product
ship. AM enables these aspects because it makes unique and preservation:
small series products accessible and affordable, e.g. AM does not
require specialised tooling (Ford and Despeisse, 2016; Kondoh 1. Design for attachment and trust: The intention is to create
et al., 2017; Loy and Tatham, 2016). However, the literature products that will be loved, liked, or trusted longer. The po-
presents little evidence as to whether customised and person- tential contribution of AM to this strategy is discussed above.
alised design with AM actually results in stronger attachment 2. Design for reliability and durability: The goal is to define optimum
and an associated longer lifetime (e.g. Diegel, 2010; Kondoh product reliability and durability. Products should operate
et al., 2017; Loy et al., 2016). throughout a specified period without experiencing failure

Resource efficiency through complex geometries: AM allows the when maintained properly.
creation of complex geometries, which can lead to a reduction of 3. Design for ease of maintenance and repair: Products stay in a good
material usage, part consolidation, simplified assembly lines, condition by facilitating repair and replacement of broken parts.
increased product functionality, and reduced energy consump- The potential contribution of AM to this strategy is discussed
tion (e.g., Huang et al., 2015; Nagarajan et al., 2016). AM can above.
result in energy savings because it is well suited to lightweight 4. Design for upgradability and adaptability: Products should
design. Through topology optimisation, a part can be optimised incorporate options to be expanded and modified to continue
considering the applied stress and required stiffness, resulting being useful under changing conditions, and to improve quality,
in lighter structures (Klippstein et al., 2017). Kellens et al. (2017) value, effectiveness, and performance.
1140 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149

5. Design for standardisation and compatibility: This strategy aims to

create products with parts that fit other products as well to
facilitate intergenerational modularity.
6. Design for disassembly and reassembly: The aim is to ensure that
products and parts can be separated and reassembled easily.
This strategy can be applied to increase future rates of material
and component reuse. This strategy is also vital for separating
materials that enter different product cycles through e.g., repair
or remanufacturing.
7. Design for recyclability: Products should support their material
recovery to establish continuous flows of resources. Recycled
materials with equivalent properties have to be obtained.

In this paper, we explore to which extent designers have used

(consciously or unconsciously) the design for sustainability stra-
tegies in their AM projects, and subsequently, the potential
contribution of AM to these circular strategies. Since this field is
emergent, designers and manufacturers are still exploring the so-
lution space of AM through conceptual designs that have little
commercial value. We have therefore decided to focus on qualita-
tive analysis based on experiences from design practice. By inter-
viewing pioneering professional designers who are exploring the
possibilities of AM through their work, we obtained greater insights
in the sustainable and circular potential of this exciting new field.
Fig. 1. Example of one of the cards with a description of the circular design strategies.

3. Method
simply grouping text. Annotated portfolios are described by Gaver
3.1. Semi-structured interviews and Bowers (2012) as a method to annotate text to artefacts to
facilitate a discussion among peers. We combined this method with
We interviewed designers who created pioneering 3D printed McCracken's (1988) 5-step interview analysis method which de-
and sustainable design projects (section 3.3). We conducted semi- scribes the steps from data to knowledge contribution, each step
structured interviews divided into three sections, with questions representing a higher level of generality. The steps are illustrated in
on: Fig. 2.

1. The designer's experience of working with additive 1. We transcribed the interviews and highlighted the sentences
manufacturing directly related to the design projects.
2. Sustainability aspects of the design 2. To further develop the highlighted sentences for interpretation,
3. The applicability of the circular design strategies in relation to we transformed them into annotations. The sentences were
additive manufacturing. summarised and translated into English (if needed). Subse-
quently, the annotations were connected to specific parts of a
In order to minimise bias in the answers concerning the sus- design project, resulting in annotated visuals.
tainability of the design project, we initially only notified the in- 3. Categories were identified from the interview setup and tran-
terviewees about the goal to obtain knowledge about 3D printing in scripts. These categories were assigned to the annotations with
a design context. During the interview, we informed them about colour codes. Each annotation can belong to one or more cate-
the research focus on sustainability. We asked them to name the gories. The colours put the annotations in context, and show the
sustainable aspects of their design and the role AM played in connections within the categories.
achieving these aspects. Subsequently, the circular design strate- 4. Relations between the categorised annotations were indicated
gies were introduced by reading cards with the descriptions of the with dotted lines to find patterns at the level of a particular
circular design strategies (see Fig. 1) out loud. The designers were interview. This helped to determine the most prominent an-
asked to indicate which strategies were applicable to their design notations, to bring hierarchy, and to potentially eliminate
and the extent to which AM supported the use of these strategies. redundant annotations.
The interviews lasted between 40 and 65 min and were pref- 5. The visuals of each design project were combined into the an-
erably conducted face to face. However, due to time and distance notated portfolio. We sought for patterns by analysing the vi-
constraints, two of the five interviews were conducted through suals from the design projects. New visuals were created to
video-conference. Three interviews were held in Dutch and two in communicate these patterns and explain the results.
English. They were recorded and transcribed for analysis as
described below. The stage between data and the general theories (i.e.,
intermediate-level knowledge (Lowgren, 2013) is often difficult to
3.2. Qualitative interview analysis with annotated portfolios communicate. The annotated portfolio allowed us to clearly visu-
alise this part of the interview analysis process. Statements and
We developed a novel approach to analyse qualitative in- explanations from the interviewed designers are illustrated in a
terviews by incorporating ‘annotated portfolios’ (see Sauerwein visual that directly links the information to the object. This leads to
et al. (2018) for an extensive description). This allowed us to inte- a comprehensive overview, as well as to a better understanding and
grate visuals from the start of the analysis process, other than communication of the analysis process.
 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149 1141

Fig. 2. Visual representation of ‘annotated portfolios as a method to analyse interviews’.

3.3. Selected design projects

We searched for design projects on the internet based on several

criteria: ‘produced with additive manufacturing’, ‘conveys sus-
tainability’, ‘created by professional designers’ and ‘the project has
been presented at a design-related exhibitions’. This last criterion
served as an indicator of the projects' pioneering and model roles.
The selected design projects are briefly described below.

3.3.1. ‘Standard products’: Jesse Kirschner and Jesse Howard (2016)

In this project, the dimensions of furniture pieces are adjusted to
standard wood dimensions that differ throughout the world. The
stool in Fig. 3 is made of standard wood elements connected by 3D
printed joints. These joints can be adjusted online to the right
dimension. Customers can also customise the furniture according
to their preference, for example, from a stool into a bench. After-
wards, they can choose to either purchase the digital files of the Fig. 3. ‘Standard products’ by Jesse Kirschner and Jesse Howard.
1142 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149

joints, the printed joints, or the complete product. This project was
exhibited at the Dutch Design Week in 2016 (Strikwerda, 2016).

3.3.2. BIOMIMICRY: soft seating’: Lilian van Daal (2014)

Van Daal aimed to design soft seating that is better suited to
recycling. Soft seating or sofas are usually made of a combination of
different materials (e.g. frame, pillows, spring, etc.), that are often
hard to separate. Van Daal designed a seat made from a single
material and fabricated in one print with AM. By varying the local
structures, different material properties are obtained to fit the re-
quirements of the different elements, like the legs or the seating
(Fig. 4). The recyclability of the seat is increased through the use of a
mono-material. A prototype has been exhibited in several places; it
is considered an innovative example for soft seating (e.g. the Dutch
Design Week 2014 (Hobson, 2015)).
Fig. 6. ‘Project Re_’ by Samuel Bernier.

3.3.3. ‘Value added repair’: Marcel den Hollander and Conny Bakker
(2015)
Value Added Repair (VAR) aims to change the perception of
repair. The product lifespan of broken products is extended, not
only through repair, but also through the addition of an extra
functionality (Fig. 5). The handle of a hedge cutter, for example, was
given a better grip, or the fixture for a broken wheel arch now also
holds a rear light. The flexible design options and accessibility of
AM make it possible to add value to the products. The digital files
can be adjusted and stored online. This project was exhibited at the
Dutch Design Week in 2015 (Mind the Step, 2015), where it served
as a demonstrator project.

Fig. 7. ‘Screw it’ by David Graas.

3.3.4. ‘Project RE_‘: Samuel Bernier (2012)

This project explores AM as a do-it-yourself tool for the reuse of
products. The functionality of used cans and jars is converted into,
for example, a pencil holder or piggy bank (Fig. 6), through the
addition of customised lids. The project is open source and people
can download the files online to print the lids themselves. In 2012,
this project was one of the first inspiring examples of AM and is,
therefore, still frequently exhibited all over the world (e.g. ‘Imme-
diate Future e 3D printing’ in Madrid (Fabian, 2016)).

Fig. 4. ‘BIOMIMICRY: soft seating’ by Lilian van Daal.

3.3.5. ‘Screw it’: David Graas (2013)

David Graas designs products based on existing objects. The goal
of this design project was to give a new function to PET bottles. He
designed connectors that transform used bottles and their lids into
new products, like a vase or bracelet (Fig. 7). This design project was
featured in an overview exhibition on 3D printing (Materialise,
2016).

4. Results

4.1. The annotated portfolio

Based on the interview transcripts, we created annotations and

assigned them to pictures of the design projects. We identified five
categories (represented with colour codes): Three of the categories
followed from the interview setup (‘3D printing’, ‘sustainable as-
pects’ and ‘circular design strategies’), the other two emerged from
Fig. 5. ‘Value Added Repair’ by Marcel den Hollander and Conny Bakker. the transcripts (‘future opportunities’ and ‘other aspects’):
 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149 1143

Fig. 8. ‘Standard products’ with annotations. In this project, the categories ‘3D printing’, ‘circular design strategies’ and ‘future opportunities’ are most present. The annotation about
standardisation is most connected, followed by the annotation about local production.

Fig. 9. ‘BIOMIMICRY: soft seating’ with annotations. This project has mainly annotations belonging to the categories ‘3D printing’ and ‘sustainable relations’. The annotation about
biomimicry received the most connections.
Fig. 10. ‘Project Re_’ with annotations. The annotations in this project are evenly distributed between the categories ‘3D printing, ‘sustainable aspects’ and ‘circular design stra-
tegies’. The annotation about DIY in the digital age received the most connections.

Fig. 11. ‘Screw it’ with annotations. This project received the least annotations. Most belong to the category of ‘circular design strategies’. The annotation about standardisation
received the most connections.
 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149 1145

Fig. 12. Value added repair (VAR)’ with annotations. In this project, most annotations belong to the category of ‘circular design strategies’. The annotations about the goal has the
most connections and is well connected to the ‘circular design strategies’ category, but does not belong to this category.

3D printing: annotations in this category refer to 3D printing as 4.2. Patterns in the annotated portfolio
a manufacturing technique. They cover its abilities and short-
comings as a production technique, but also in terms of output When analysing the annotated portfolio, we looked for related
and results (blue). annotations between the design projects that said something about

Sustainable aspects: this category shows when the interviewee sustainability and the link to design in a circular economy. We
assigned a certain aspect to sustainable behaviour/use/produc- collected the annotations that could be clustered in a particular
tion, or lack of it (green). pattern and created new visuals with these annotations to

Circular design strategies: this category depicts when the cir- communicate the findings. Distributed manufacturing using AM
cular design strategies are mentioned or when something is was a recurring topic in the design projects, adaptability with AM
mentioned about the circular economy (orange). also appears in other circular design strategies than ‘design for

Future opportunities: annotations in this category refer to the upgradability and adaptability’, and we found sustainability of 3D
instances where designers talked about future possibilities of printable materials to also be a recurring topic.
their design. This was either because they were inspired by the
questions or had a future vision which could not yet be achieved 4.2.1. Distributed manufacturing in the design projects
(yellow). In Fig. 13, the annotations about distributed manufacturing as

Other aspects: annotations in this category say something about stated by the designers are presented in a graphical representation
the design project, but do not belong to one of the categories of distributed manufacturing, because this logistic model is not
mentioned above (grey). directly related to tangible aspects of the design projects. In line
with the literature findings, the designers liked the possibilities AM
Figs. 8e12 together form the annotated portfolio of this inter- creates for distributed manufacturing. The designer of ‘Standard
view series. All visuals follow the same layout to support the products’, for example, uses local and small-scale production to
comparison of the annotations between the design projects. The create products that are adapted to the local context. Consumers
annotations are linked to details of the design project, and can thus have access to the digital files to replace parts when they break. In
be read in random order. The dotted lines indicate relations be- ‘project Re_‘, the designer likes the idea that no transport and
tween the annotations to support pattern finding in the data. The packaging of the product is needed when producing on location.
size of the dots was increased with every additional connection. The designer would prefer the filament to be locally produced as
Since the annotated portfolio represents the stage of intermediate- well to create a closed system. However, these filaments are scarce
level knowledge, it contains a high density of information. as AM materials are often specialised, originating from protected
recipes only known to the producing company (Kellens et al., 2017).
1146 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149

Fig. 13. Annotations related to distributed manufacturing as stated by the designers.

Another difficulty is the precision of 3D printers as output can also enriched the act of repair as well as permitting customisation
differ between printers, even with the same settings. For the to personal wishes.
designer of ‘Screw it’, this was a reason not to have the product The designers of ‘project Re_’ and ‘screw it’ used AM to give a
produced locally, despite the fact that this was the initial intention. new life to existing products. Cans, jars and bottles obtained a new
‘Project Re_’ indicates a difficulty when distributed manufacturing purpose with different kinds of 3D printed lids. They made use of
is open source; even though open source enables people to existing standards to create non-standard design adaptations. The
continue the project and correct mistakes, the designer loses con- designers built on the standardised connector of these objects to
trol over the printing process and cannot guarantee that the guarantee wide applicability, and therefore a higher chance of
product is actually printed at the place of utilisation. actual reuse of discarded products.
‘Standard products’ are designed for dis- and reassembly,
4.2.2. Additive manufacturing and the circular design strategies because the parts can easily be taken apart. However, this is mainly
To explore the role of additive manufacturing in design for the due to the shape and not specifically a result of AM production. The
circular economy, we examined the annotations in more detail designer of ‘BIOMIMICRY: soft seating’, on the other hand, con-
about the circular design strategies as indicated in orange in the siders AM the only suitable production technique to achieve the
annotated portfolio in section 4.1. In Fig. 14, a colour scheme has complex and varying mono-material structures of this design
been used to identify the various circular design strategies. When project. Choosing a mono-material was possible because local
reading the annotations, ‘adaptability’ (or variants) appear not only properties can be tuned to local variations in structure that fit the
in ‘design for upgradability and adaptability’, but also in the other product requirements. This resulted in a seat made out of one
strategies. component. This completely eliminated the ability of dis- and
The project ‘standard products’ embraces adaptability, although reassembly, however, the choice for a mono-material optimally
its name suggests otherwise. Several furniture pieces can be made facilitates design for recyclability.
on an online platform. Consumers are given the opportunity to
adjust the dimensions of furniture to their needs. They can, for 4.2.3. 3D printable materials in a circular economy
example, create four stools that are perfectly sized to the width of All designers expressed tensions regarding their material
their table. This creates the opportunity to achieve product choices and sustainability/circularity, as is evident from the anno-
attachment by adjusting the product to its surroundings. Accord- tations in Fig. 15. Most designers struggled to find a material they
ing to the designer of ‘standard products’, adaptability can also considered ‘sustainable’ and that also met their product re-
support durability and reliability; if the consumer decides to quirements. In ‘standard products’, for example, the designers
create a bench instead of a stool, the dimensions of the joints can be chose to use nylon although they did not acknowledge this a sus-
increased to match the forces applied to a bench. tainable material; instead, it was chosen for durability consider-
Project ‘VAR’ illustrates how AM-enabled adaptability facilitates ations (i.e., the joints should be able to withstand certain applied
repair and upgrades of products that were initially not designed forces). ‘BIOMIMICRY: soft seating’ is another example of this ten-
for these strategies. The replacement parts of the broken compo- sion. This project aims to increase the recyclability of soft seating
nents were digitally modelled and upgraded after which they were through the use of a mono-material. However, the material in the
3D printed. In other words, through applying AM, the products design project is nylon which is, according to the designer, currently
became suitable for repair and upgradability. These modifications not recycled after printing with the selected laser sintering (SLS)
 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149 1147

Fig. 14. Annotations related to the circular design strategies.

Fig. 15. Annotations related to the material input of additive manufacturing.

1148 M. Sauerwein et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 1138e1149

process. Therefore, the designer did not consider nylon as a sus- (2015) developed 3D printable materials based on Chitosan and
tainable material option; a bio-based plastic would have been water which are fully recyclable upon contact with water, and
preferable however this was unavailable for SLS printing and too Faludi et al. (2019) calculated the sustainable gain of a pecan shell-
time consuming to develop. The products in the design project based 3D printing material in comparison with ABS. These mate-
‘value added repair’ are actually made of a bioplastic: PLA. This rials are based on abundant and local resources and therefore also
material was well suited to the purpose of a demonstrator project. satisfy the need to close the system on a local scale.
However, if the design objects were to be used in practice, PLA
would not suffice because its mechanical and thermal properties do 6. Conclusion
not fit the demands of these products. Although other printing
materials exist that could fulfil these demands, the designer would We explored a number of opportunities that AM offers for
prefer other digital manufacturing processes for functional pro- design for a circular economy. We conducted a literature review
duction, because of the limited material availability for AM. about AM and sustainability in product design. Subsequently, we
interviewed five designers about the use of AM and the sustain-
5. Discussion ability of their projects, and about the links of their projects to the
circular design strategies. We developed a new method to present
In this paper, we set out to explore to what extent the oppor- the analysed interview data with annotated portfolios. The strong
tunities offered by AM for sustainable design are also applicable visual representation of the data provides rich insights into our
when designing for a circular economy. In general, we found these qualitative research findings.
opportunities also to be beneficial in a circular economy. However, The analysis of the design projects showed that AM creates
there is a notable difference, as illustrated by the design project opportunities to enable circular design strategies like upgrades and
‘BIOMIMICRY: soft seating’. This project is designed for sustain- repair which extend a product's lifespan, even if these were not
ability and can only be produced with AM, but most circular design considered in the original product design. This is attributed to AM
strategies (such as ease of repair) are inapplicable. Due to the characteristics like digital production and adaptability; digital
implementation of a mono-material, the design of the sofa is product files can be adjusted to changing needs and contexts or to
optimised for recyclability (despite the use of nylon which is enable repair, essential for product life extension.
currently not recycled in SLS printing), but this is “the least However, to fully support design for a circular economy with
preferred option [in design for a circular economy] given that it AM, a number of challenges need to be overcome. There is a need to
involves the destruction of a product's integrity” (den Hollander develop materials that enable durable use, as well as high-value
et al., 2017). In a circular economy, strategies that enable repair, reuse. Furthermore, monolithic structurally complex parts that
refurbishment, and remanufacturing are preferred to recycling, as support design for recyclability may hinder high value product
these help retain a product's economic and environmental value recovery. It is therefore essential that sustainable opportunities
over time. In this example, the ability to create complex shapes offered by AM support multiple product life cycles when designing
encouraged the designer to create a single part product which is for a circular economy. Accounting for AM in the design process can
easy to recycle and thus contributes to sustainability goals, but not lead to a new generation of products that successfully operate in a
necessarily to circular economy goals. This illustrates that design circular economy.
for sustainability with AM does not automatically lead to products
that work well in a circular economy. References
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