Beyond the Book recommendations
Likely, you landed here from our book, Product Sustainability For Dummies, PTC Special Edition. This page includes links to the book’s references and additional recommendations for deeper research. These additional recommendations aren’t an exhaustive list but offer a great starting point for diving deeper into product sustainability. We intentionally do not list software vendors or their service providers in the spirit of keeping the book at the industry level. We keep the links updated, but if you find one that's broken, let us know at sustainabilitysupport@ptc.com.
Recommended resources for additional research
Resource
Resource Type
Product Sustainability Relevance
Advisories
Book
Book
Book
Book
Book
Community
Community
Book
Blog
Industry Group
Industry Group
Industry Group
Industry Group
Industry Group
Industry Group
Media
Media
Media
Podcast
Podcast
Podcast
ABI Research, CIMData, Forrester, Gartner, IDC
We work well with these advisories on sustainability topics. They produce insightful sustainability market and technology research. Most are also referenced in the book.
Design for Sustainability (Fabrizio Ceschin, Idil Gaziulusoy—2017)
Covers the adopted DFS practices from the last few decades and assimilates them into a cohesive methodology. This covers a broader scope than discrete manufacturing, but most of it is relevant to discrete product design.
Ecodesign: A Lifecycle Approach for a Sustainable Future (Rudolf Koopmans, Karine Van Doorsselaer—2021)
Emphasizes lifecycle thinking. A great read to gain both ecodesign intuition and discipline to incorporate sustainability goals with designs.
Systems Design Engineering: A Holistic Requirements-led Approach to Concept Design (David Genter—2024)
David’s paper covers lifecycle thinking at the systems engineering level, specifically how to make better decisions earlier in design. Note how it highlights sustainability as an added dimension of design that can fit largely within existing design methods.
Product Design and Sustainability (Jane Penty—2020)
Broad coverage of DfS methods with real world examples and visuals.
The Climate Dictionary (United Nations—2025)
Globally recognized glossary for decarbonization terminology, treaties, and programs.
PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) website and LinkedIn group
LinkedIn community of over 1,000 members focused specifically on how product lifecycle management can reduce product footprints.
Peer-to-peer discussions to collaborate and educate on product sustainability in product lifecycle programs. Open to PTC customers, partners, and employees. Register online for the PTC User Community .
Jos Voskuil is a Netherlands-based PLM blogger who often features sustainability topics. Jos is also an active leader in the PLM Green Global Alliance (noted above in communities).
Oleg Shilovitsky is a US-based PLM blogger who often features sustainability topics.
Also noted in Chapter 5. Establishes frameworks for managing and integrating product information, at both design and physical asset layers. Integral in the data exchange standards underlying the Digital Product Passport, including the Asset Administrative Shell. EU-based, but with global participation.
Aerospace manufacturers collaborate on sustainability challenges. Many issues discussed are unique to aerospace like the technology challenges of long-haul Scope 3.11 abatement.
US-based nonprofit with a charter to drive decarbonization in small and medium businesses (SMBs). Larger companies also participate to drive supplier engagement toward reducing their “Scope 3.1” supply chain emissions.
Led by US-based Sustainability Roundtable for corporations to procure renewable energy for their operations through Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPAs). We noted VPPAs as a top Scope 2 reduction approach in Chapter 5.
Offers Sustainability Council memberships that include three annual on-site symposiums for senior management and executives to collaborate. Also hosts sustainability events.
Offers network memberships for peer-to-peer collaborations with recurring on-site events. Also hosts sustainability events, including GreenBiz.
Product lifecycle themes, frequently with sustainability focus.
Product lifecycle themes, frequently with sustainability focus.
The Economist runs “Sustainability Week” events in Europe and the US. The topics span policy, markets, and technologies.
Neil D’Souza’s and Jim Fava’s podcast is targeted for product managers’ pursuits of sustainable design. The “Five Lives to Fifty” title indicates that an average product has about five lifecycles before the world’s net-zero target date of 2050, implying that aggressive design progress must begin now.
PTC’s podcast features innovative products and the digital methods to bring them to market. Product sustainability is a common discussion topic.
Bloomberg’s podcast covers decarbonization from a financial perspective, offering insights into business cases and market trends to support product sustainability initiatives.
The book’s references (sorted by chapter)
Chapter
Resource
Product Sustainability Relevance
Introduction
1
1, Figure 1-2
2, Figure 2-1
2, Figure 2-3
2
2, Figure 2-5
3
3
3, Figure 3-1
3
3
3, Figure 3-4
3
5, Figure 5-1
5
6
David Genter, “Systems Design Engineering: A Holistic Requirements-led Approach to Concept Design,” 2024
David noted that sustainability is just one more dimension of value to add to existing design processes. David’s book is also referenced above in “Resources.”
Source of the globally accepted definition of sustainability.
A globally adopted framework for the full scope of sustainability. It includes goals spanning environmental, social, and governance topics. The site has impressive drill-down detail within each of the 17 goals. For discrete manufacturing, goals 9 and 12 are common pursuits, and others also may be important for your products.
The 9 Planetary Boundaries (Credit: Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Richardson et al., 2023.)
Framework for measuring human ecological impacts and their sustainable limitations.
Economically critical finite materials (Link from “The raw-materials challenge: How the metals and mining sector will be at the core of enabling the energy transition,” January 2022, McKinsey & Company, www.mckinsey.com). Copyright (c) 2024 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Explains the new urgency to secure and circulate certain metals and minerals within the emerging renewable energy infrastructure. These same metals and minerals are critical in other products too, further emphasizing the needs for their circular lifecycles in advanced manufacturing.
Greenhouse gas accounting standard. You likely do not need to know this in depth, but you should understand the scope categories where your products contribute.
Decarbonization Pathway (“Pathways to Net-Zero” — Science Based Target Initiative, 2021)
Framework for decarbonizing a corporation towards near term (2030) and net-zero (before 2050) target dates.
LED lighting – US Department of Energy
LED lighting – Constellation Energy blog
EV efficiency – Forbes
EV efficiency — MotorTrend
Solar vs. gas costs – oilprice.com
Utility plant costs – Corporate Knights
Solar costs – Bloomberg
Aero engine tech – AIAA.org
Aircraft fuel efficiency – Aviation Services
We open Chapter 3 with examples of different vertical products with general statistics. These numbers are not single-sourced and intended to be directional indicators of lower-footprint technology progress. We’ve added sample-supporting links here.
Forrester, “Embrace the Circular Economy to Make Manufacturing More Sustainable,” June 2024
Research on profitable methods to improve product circularity.
Cost efficiencies that also reduce emissions (“Decarbonize and create value: How incumbents can tackle the steep challenge”, October 2023, McKinsey & Company, www.mckinsey.com. Copyright (c) 2024 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.)
Research on profitable actions to start decarbonizing advanced manufacturing.
The Butterfly Diagram (Ellen MacArthur Foundation)
A strong visual framework for circularity that most of the sustainability community knows well. The website also has deeper dives into the circularity topics.
Fascinating project that almost overnight multiplied the number of stable materials that advanced manufacturing can consider in their products (48,000 to 421,000). The implication is that “game-changing” materials can solve some stubborn product sustainability challenges.
The Value Hill — “Master Circular Business with the Value Hill” – Circle Economy 2016
An effective framework to explain circularity’s business value. Circle Economy also has more resources to assist your circular pursuits.
ABI Research, “Life Cycle Assessment Software Tools and Vendor Analysis,” 2023
A market and vendor analysis of lifecycle assessment (LCA) capabilities. LCAs are increasingly run as subroutines from PLM to assess products’ environmental impacts.
LIDS Wheel - “Ecodesign: A Promising Approach to Sustainable Production and Consumption – Han Brezet and Carolien van Hemel, 1997 (now out of print, but “LIDS Wheel” research available online from several sources)
Rules of thumb to promote lifecycle thinking in product design. It’s an old idea but holds up. The original text is tough to find, so we suggest a query for online resources that cover the concept well.
Establishes frameworks for managing and integrating product information, at both design and physical asset layers. Integral in the standards underlying the Digital Product Passport, including the Asset Administrative Shell. EU-based, but with international participation.
Motivating story of how Interface, a modular carpet manufacturer, became a first mover on sustainability.