A preliminary decision-making tool for sustainable packaging design

To achieve sustainability, designers face greater responsibility to develop packaging whilst considering the principle of sustainable design. In the study of previous researchers, sustainable product design frameworks and tools have been proposed by researchers. However, many focused on the end-of-life stages of products, and the implementation of sustainable design principles relies heavily on designer's judgement and prior experience. This study therefore aims to explore an early-stage decision-making tool which enables designers to conduct early evaluation of conceptual packaging designs before entering into detailed design stages. This tool has transformed unquantifiable packaging design factors into an evaluable sustainability index, reflecting the environmental sustainability of the packaging design prototypes. A pilot case study and action research have been implemented to investigate the main themes of this study. The effectiveness of the decision-making tool has been examined, with discussions focusing on the strengths and limitations of the tool.