Science, Education and Training

Providing initial basic knowledge on different topics of sustainability  -  including potential product social impacts - Raising students' awareness of the need and the opportunities for start-ups as well as any company to either develop a sustainable business idea, or improve the sustainability performance of existing business ideas.

The Design Factory at Pforzheim University of Applied Science (https://www.hs-pforzheim.de/design_factory) stands for an interdisciplinary innovation and start-up platform where students and teachers from the university meet with business partners from the local region of Northern Black Forest and from the greater area of south-east Germany. Here, new ideas, products and services are jointly developed and realised, and entrepreneurially thinking and acting personalities - the entrepreneurs as well as the intrapreneurs of tomorrow - are empowered.

At the Design Factory Pforzheim (DFPF) we have a focus on sustainable innovation. The DFPF has been a member of the Design Factory Global Network https://dfgn.org/  since October 2021, making it the second German university to be accepted into this network after inno.space in Mannheim. Active participation and exchange within the global network of so called Design Factories offers many opportunities. The aim is for interdisciplinary student teams from Pforzheim University to participate in the product development project course at Aalto University and other innovative courses, as well as to intensify cooperation with existing partner universities that are also already active in the global network, currently consisting of ca. 40 partners around the world.

 As part of entrepreneurship education, since 2018 the "Startup Summer Camp Sustainable Innovation", is offered this year 12.-17. September 2022 in a cooperation with the Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC) at Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences. The Summer Camp is designed to enable students to develop a simple business model within six days from scratch. The focus is on “Sustainable Innovation”, which is why lectures and impulses on the goals of sustainable development are given This draws attention to the opportunities offered by the mega-trend of sustainability, using "best practice" examples and raising awareness of the complexity of the interrelationships between various aspects of sustainability. The transfer of know-how and the method training in combination with the exercises, enabled the ca. 30 participants of the coaching to take sustainability aspects into account when developing start-up ideas.

We summarised the coaching concept and materials (currentlich only in German available) in the following guidebook: Innovationen nachhaltiger gestalten - ein Werkzeugkoffer für das Nachhaltigkeitscoaching

A main focus is the integration of a simplified life cycle assessment, assessment of social aspects, estimation of the contribution regarding SDGs, life cycle thinking and eco-design. This gives the students the opportunity to try things out and develop their own "sustainable business idea". To support the impulse lectures and the subsequent exercises, a guide was developed and described by Preiss et al. (2022)  which is together with other working material provided to the participants and the coaches as a handout. An English version will be provided soon as well.

Moreover, the evaluation tool "Green Check Your Idea" (Lang-Koetz et al. 2020) is presented and applied in parts to the students' ideas (online and free of charge at https://www.green-check-your-idea.com/start). With the help of the application of this online tool during, an understanding of the complexity of the emergence of environmental impact, taking into account the complete life cycle, can be conveyed.

The coaching concept developed comprises four blocks that can be carried out in a period of about eight hours. The first block includes Life Cycle Thinking and Stakeholder analysis (with a focus on sustainability); the second block explains the 17 SDGs and initiates a critical questioning of the positive and negative effects of a start-up idea on the categories of the SDGs. In the third block, environmental aspects are then looked at and significant points are identified according to the principle of LCA.  From this first potential improvement are shown according to eco-design principles.

Finally, the fourth block of the coaching concept takes a closer look at social effects of the startup-idea e.g. regarding the upstream processes of the supply chain or the product use. And this also includes to Product Social Impact Assessment (PSIA) methodology. Of course, the students will not be able to calculate quantitative results. Nonetheless, after an impulse presentation on the basics and methods for evaluating social impacts according to the “Product Social Impact Assessment” (PSIA-methodology) (Goedkoop et al. 2018), the participants carry out a simplified social impact analysis regarding their startup-idea. On a further worksheet-template they have to reconsider already collected data regarding important life cycle stages and allocate relevant stakeholders to it. The students have to estimate conditions of certain production processes. For example, by quick internet research or based on “expert guess” they gather some information in order to choose the most relevant “social topics”, and derive “performance indicators”. Based on the checklists with examples listed by Goedkoop et al. (2018), a corresponding “reference scale” is derived. Finally, the students are asked to discuss and review potential improvement measure to increase the reference scales, if possible.

References

Goedkoop, M. J.; Indrane, D.; Beer, I. M. de (2018): Product Social Impact Assessment Handbook - 2018, Amersfoort, September 1st, (version 4.0 - September 2018) (PSIA) - With Annex.

Lang-Koetz, C.; Reischl, A.; Sorg, F. (2020): Umweltwirkungen von Innovationsideen bewerten und verbessern mit dem Tool „Green Check Your Idea“. In: Ideen- und Innovationsmanagement, 46, S. 62-66. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37307/j.2198-3151.2020.02.08. Online verfügbar unter https://www.ideenmanagementdigital.de/.download/_sid/ZMGX-564590-FAzx/153019/bvw_20200208.pdf.

Preiss, Philipp; Reischl, Annika; Witt, Pauline; Lang-Koetz, Claus (2022): Innovationen nachhaltiger gestalten - ein Werkzeugkoffer für das Nachhaltigkeitscoaching. Hochschule Pforzheim. Pforzheim. Online verfügbar unter https://opus-hspf.bsz-bw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/160.

 Curious about what else the Design Factory Pforzheim has to offer? You can always find the latest news and offers on the following information channels:

Website: https://www.hs-pforzheim.de/design_factory

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/designfactorypf  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/design-factory-pforzheim