Design for Sustainability Part 1: Goals and Metrics (Self Study)

Design for Sustainability: Goals & Metrics (Part 1) turns sustainability from an abstract idea into clear, measurable goals for which you can design. In this microcredential, you will learn how to identify the most important problems to fix (or prevent), apply lifecycle thinking across products, services, and systems, and use proven frameworks like the Triple Bottom Line, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Planetary Boundaries, Cradle to Cradle, and the Circular Economy, to define what “good” actually means. You’ll use fast-track Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to quantify impacts, even in early stage projects with high uncertainty.

By the end of the microcredential, you’ll be able to benchmark current sustainability performance and set SMART goals with target numbers. You will learn how to make evidence-based decisions instead of relying on hunch or hearsay to set design priorities and compare design options. This lets you avoid greenwashing, communicate impacts clearly and confidently to stakeholders, and allows you to focus time and budget where it creates the most value for your organization, society, and life on Earth.

By participating in this course, you will learn how to successfully:

• Analyze a product, service, or system against Planetary Boundaries, SDGs, and the People–Planet–Prosperity (PPP) framework to identify critical sustainability risks, tradeoffs, and leverage points.
• Evaluate the current sustainability performance of a product, service, or system by benchmarking lifecycle impacts, using fast-track Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify dominant impact hotspots.
• Create SMART sustainability goals for a product or system that are explicitly aligned with SDG targets, Planetary Boundaries, and business value drivers.
• Create and evaluate evidence-based design decisions by selecting fair functional units, comparing alternatives with LCA-informed metrics, and choosing high value options using circular economy strategies.
• Manage data gaps, uncertainty, and tradeoffs, demonstrating evidence-based judgment rather than assumptions, to avoid greenwashing.

Who should attend?

This course is designed for engineers, designers, product managers, and sustainability or strategy professionals who need to set credible, measurable sustainability goals, evaluate trade-offs, and make evidence-based decisions in real-world product, service, or system development.

Course Materials (included in purchase of course)

• Digital course notes via ASME’s Learning Hub
• Exercises and resources from Sustainable Design from Vision to Action
  • Sustainable Development Goals Exercise 
  • Ecodesign Exercise
  • Doing Fast Track LCA Exercise
  • LCA Priorities files
  • LCA Comparison files
• Idemat calculator

Supplemental Course Materials (not included with course, purchase separately)

Sustainable Design from Vision to Action - Sustainable Design from Vision to Action - 1st Edition - by Jeremy Faludi

A Certificate of Completion and Digital Badge will be issued to registrants who successfully complete the course by achieving a passing score of 75% or higher on the final exam.