{"id":7241,"date":"2017-10-13T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ulprospector.com\/knowledge\/?p=7241"},"modified":"2022-07-15T08:49:18","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T14:49:18","slug":"pe-how-millennials-view-sustainable-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ulprospector.ul.com\/7241\/pe-how-millennials-view-sustainable-products\/","title":{"rendered":"How Millennials View Sustainable Products"},"content":{"rendered":"

A University of Oregon educator asked young adults what material- and design-related factors they consider most important to a product\u2019s overall sustainability. The results may surprise you. <\/em><\/p>\n

By Robert Grace <\/strong><\/p>\n

Just what constitutes an environmentally friendly, sustainable product? What determines whether a consumer views a product as sustainable or not? Kiersten Muenchinger is keenly interested in such topics, so she decided some time ago to investigate further.<\/p>\n

\"\"Muenchinger, an associate professor at the University of Oregon, is head of product design there. Named \u201cYoung Educator of the Year\u201d in 2011 by the Industrial Designers Society of America, she also is a principal of the school\u2019s Green Product Design Network.<\/p>\n

Muenchinger likes to research new materials and their processing methods to understand when and why the newest materials technologies are accepted in mass-produced consumer products. She notes that several approaches can be used to create more sustainable products.<\/p>\n

Long-time qualitative strategies<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cSeven qualitative design strategies have been used for the last 20 years as guides to help design more sustainable products,\u201d Muenchinger notes. \u201cThese strategies are to choose materials that are 1) abundant, 2) non-toxic, 3) natural, 4) minimal and minimally processed, and to minimize waste by using 5) recyclable materials, 6) extending the product\u2019s life, and 7) minimizing the impacts of disposal1,2<\/sup>. These qualitative strategies are all based in materials selection,\u201d she adds, and aim to assist designers to consider sustainability factors early in the design process.<\/p>\n

She is particularly curious as to what individuals the age of her typical students \u2014 millennials \u2014 consider to be sustainable.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past 10 years,\u201d she wrote in an article recently for Plastics Engineering<\/em> magazine, \u201cI have been asking millennials how they emotionally relate to the sustainability of products in their lives. I run Kansei engineering analyses to discover which of the seven sustainability strategies are the most effective for consumers to understand. Kansei analyses quantify the emotional connections people have to product features, so they are perfectly suited for understanding how people have assimilated the complex, misunderstood, nascent issues of sustainability with which designers and engineers currently grapple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muenchinger went on to explain the concept further, noting that Kansei analyses require individuals to rank where an object falls on a linear scale between two verbal descriptors of the thing. She asks her millennial subjects, for example, to rank an aspect of an object (such as durability) on a scale of one to seven (i.e., from delicate to durable), and then analyzes their statistically significant responses to ascertain their attitudes or understanding about sustainability.
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Material perceptions <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Her most recent study \u2013 completed early last year \u2013 focused entirely on polymers. The research targets were a set of 10 similarly sized drinking cups that had been injection molded for the study. Each cup was made from a different polymer. The chosen materials were:<\/p>\n