Designing for circularity: Integrating sustainability into new product development: Case study in the health-technology industry

Abstract

Healthcare electronics generate a growing amount of environmental waste because many of them have short lifespans and are often designed for single use. The healthcare sector faces increasing pressure to reduce its ecological footprint while maintaining high standards for safety, quality, and reliability. This creates challenges for integrating sustainability into product development. This master’s thesis explores how sustainability considerations are integrated into the early stages of new product development (NPD) in the health-technology sector by exploring development practices, emerging trade-offs, and the role of circular business models (CBMs). Additionally, this thesis proposes a framework for sustainable NPD (SNPD).

Previous research emphasizes the need to integrate sustainability and eco-design principles early in the NPD process, where most of a product’s environmental impacts are determined. However, companies often face trade-offs between sustainability, performance, cost, and time-to-market. In healthcare electronics, regulatory and safety requirements further constrain circular strategies. Although circular approaches are gaining attention in healthcare, existing research has mainly focused on product redesign rather than early-stage development processes. Empirical, industry-specific research on how sustainability is actually implemented remains limited.

This master’s thesis addresses this research gap through a qualitative single-case study conducted within an EU Horizon research project that develops sustainable healthcare electronic devices. Empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with project members (N=15) and was analysed thematically.

The findings show that sustainability integration in early-stage NPD occurred through iterative product development generations, in which functionality and regulatory feasibility served as primary conditions and enabled later sustainability improvements. Development activities also reflected principles of concurrent engineering, where sustainable material development, sustainable component design, and system integration progressed in parallel. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was primarily used to identify environmental hotspots, while eco-design principles supported their interpretation and translation into design decisions. Trade-offs between environmental ambition, regulatory compliance, technical performance, manufacturability, cost, end-of-life (EoL) and healthcare waste system constraints shaped sustainability-related decisions.

Based on the findings, the study proposes an adapted early-stage SNPD framework that extends the Eco-Stage-Gate model by incorporating regulatory, social, and economic boundary conditions alongside environmental and EoL considerations in the front-end phases. Sustainability integration is described as an iterative, generation-based process. First development generation focuses on functionality and regulatory feasibility, while later development generations enable more advanced sustainability improvements based on testing and LCA insights. The framework supports the integration of sustainability into healthcare NPD while maintaining safety and feasibility requirements