Product development can play a key role in society’s transition toward sustainability. However, methodological support for this is immature, particularly regarding the social dimension, and as it remains largely unclear among companies what social sustainability means, it is hard for them to assess how they and their products contribute to a socially sustainable society or not. Because social sustainability has been overlooked for long in product development research, there is a need to build methodological foundations for how companies can integrate social sustainability considerations in their practices.

The overall aim of this thesis was to explore how the social dimension of sustainability could be strengthened in the context of product development and specifically how a systemic, systematic and strategic sustainability perspective could be included to provide better support for decision-making and innovation for social sustainability.

The research included industrial case studies to explore current practices and needs, to prototype and test initial decision-support, to reflect on challenges and opportunities, and to create a conceptual approach for improving existing practices. Specific methods and techniques included literature reviews, interviews, prototyping and typology building.

Insights include that: (i) organizations that show a better understanding of the complexity of social sustainability and have a broader perspective of its interdependencies have a way of organizing that overcomes traditional hierarchies and allows for more collaborative and strategic work in this area; (ii) the applied systems perspective clearly determines how encompassing and aligned the scope and definition of social sustainability become in an organization’s practices; (iii) social sustainability impacts connected to products’ lifecycles, when addressed, are often considered by functions outside of product development; (iv) analysis as decision-support has several limitations, particularly in dealing with supply chain impacts. Mitigating the risk of an unsustainable supply chain is unlikely to occur through simply selecting suppliers based on ‘country social sustainability score’, but rather requires making design decisions early in the innovation process and actively seeking to improve social conditions in the supply chains. 

Building on these insights, a typology containing three types of social sustainability approaches in product development organizations was developed. The insular, the connected and the systemic types describe elements that differentiate approaches, and that taken together determine when an approach has the potential to strategically contribute to social sustainability. The differences also determine the constraints that product developers work with when pursuing social sustainability goals. 

Integrating social sustainability in product development requires rethinking established practices. The possibility of just complementing previous theories and methodologies within sustainable product development with social sustainability aspects should not be taken for granted as there are significant differences and therefore extensive development of new theory and methodology might be needed. This should be investigated further. Identification of leverage points to intervene in organizations to help them shift to a more systemic perspective and maximize the organization’s ability to strategically work with social sustainability is also an interesting line of further research.

Product development companies can play a key role in society’s transition toward sustainability. However, previous research points to the lack of such a systemic and strategic perspective in dealing with sustainability aspects in product development and the neglect of the social sustainability. This paper builds on a prior empirical paper and together with insights from Sustainable Product Development and Corporate Sustainability literature propose a typology of social sustainability approaches in product development organizations.  The typology presented is a result of an iterative five-step process: defining purpose, reviewing literature, defining relevant dimensions and attributes, reviewing empirical cases and finally creating the typology and its types. The resulting typology presents three types – the insular, the connected and the systemic - across four dimensions: System boundaries, how success is defined, what guides strategic decisions, and how the work is structured within the organization. Each dimension is further broken down into three to four attributes. The typology suggested serves as an analytical tool by bringing clarity to important elements that differentiate social sustainability approaches. These differences, taken together, determine when an approach adopted by a product development organization has the potential to strategically contribute to social sustainability and when it cannot. In terms of product design and development activities, the differences in the system boundaries and success dimensions of our three proposed types also determine the constraints that product developers work with when pursuing social sustainability goals. In this sense, the typology is promising also in terms of its practical application as it should be helpful in framing discussions and providing direction for product development organizations who wish to truly progress in their sustainability journey.

Product-Service Systems (PSS) have been identified as potentially important for addressing sustainability challenges. However, progress has been relatively slow as regards realizing this potential, and a lack of practical approaches to the design of business models capable of supporting implementation of such PSS has been proposed as a partial reason. The aim of this study is to explore connections and the potential functional nexus between the three fields of PSS, Business Models and Sustainability, in pursuit of possible key enablers to further realization of the potential for sustainability-promoting PSS. A systematic review and analysis of the academic literature is performed. The review shows that, although a relatively new and unexplored endeavor, there is growing effort at the interface of the three fields. The review indicates that the main deficit so far is that the PSS and business model fields lack concrete guidelines and practical tools for how to embrace the sustainability dimension in a strategic way. Especially the strategic dimension emerges as a general finding from diverse sources as a potential key enabler for mutual benefits across the three fields. The study thus points to the need for research aiming at developing such guidelines and tools, and also at exploring case-based applications to create experiential knowledge, to fill the gaps in current theory and practice.

Between 1950 and 2013 the total amount of Swedish travelling has increased from about 20 billion to about 140 billion passenger kilometers. This included an increase in travelling with private cars from about 3 billion to about 105 billion passenger kilometers, and in bus travelling from about 2.5 billion to about 5 billion passenger kilometers. The European commission has indicated that public transportation (if powered by clean fuels) is a suitable way to reduce environmental and health problems.

This thesis focuses on sustainable personal road transport, and aims to develop and test a new approach to examining the economic and socio-ecological sustainability effects of various road vehicles for private travelling and related business models. A special focus is set on comparing various bus systems for public transport and ways (business models) for private people to access cars. The main comparison parameters are the total cost of ownership and carbon dioxide emissions of different energy carriers for buses and cars. The Design Research Methodology is used to guide the research approach. The approach also builds on the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, which includes, for example, principles that define any sustainable future and a strategic planning process. The approach first employs Strategic Life Cycle Assessment to give a quick overview of sustainability challenges in each bus life cycle stage from raw materials to end of life. Several analysis tools such as Life Cycle Costing, Life Cycle Analysis, Product Service System, and Business Model Canvas mapping are then iteratively used to ”dig deeper” into identified prioritized challenges. Literature reviews, interviews, and simulations are used as supporting methods.

The results from a first theoretical test of the new approach suggest that a shift from diesel buses to electric buses (powered by renewable energy) could significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions, while also significantly lowering the total cost of ownership. The theoretical calculations were followed up by testing of electric buses in real operation in eight Swedish municipalities. The tests verified the theoretical results, and showed that electric buses are better than diesel buses both from a sustainability point of view and a cost point of view, and also that electric bus operation is a practically viable alternative for public transport. The new approach was tested also by comparing a variety of business models for private car travelling. The results indicate, among other things, that only people who travel more than 13.500 kilometers per year would benefit from owning a car.

In all, the thesis suggests a simultaneous shift from diesel buses to electric buses in public transport and, for the majority of the car drivers that drive less than 13.500 kilometers per year, switching from car ownership to car use services would be favourable for an affordable transition of the transport sector towards sustainability.