Sustainability assessment in the implementation phase of a retail space

Abstract

Design for sustainability has progressively evolved from the product level, usually referred as product Life Cycle Design or Ecodesign, towards a more complex approach, in which Product-Service Systems (PSS) are considered, and from an analysis only focused on the environmental impact to the simultaneous study of the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic and social. In this work, the sustainability assessment of a PSS is addressed. A small clothing store is projected and all products and activities needed to create the retail space in which commodity is delivered, stored, displaced and tried out by the buyers are analyzed. Sustainability assessment is focused on the implementation phase of the service life cycle. A set of appropriate indicators are used to quantitatively evaluate each sustainability dimension. The greenhouse gas emissions indicator is used to assess the environmental impact, the budget of material execution is selected to evaluate the economic dimension and the working time associated to the category of workers, which is the most affected stakeholder group, is used to value the social dimension.