Sustainability Score System for Multi-Dimensional Product Impact
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current sustainability evaluation tools for building materials and construction projects primarily focus on environmental impacts, neglecting social and monetary dimensions, making it difficult for individual users to assess the broader effects of their decisions across multiple impact dimensions.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that automatically provides an impact index for products by selecting attributes related to environmental, social, health, and economic dimensions, determining weightages for these attributes, and calculating a sustainability score across these dimensions, enabling users to understand the wider impacts of their choices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If conventional sustainability evaluation tools are used, then environmental impact assessment is provided, but social and monetary dimensions are neglected
Solution Approach 1:
The sustainability evaluation system is segmented into four distinct impact dimensions (environmental, social, health, monetary), each assessed through specific attributes and variables. This segmentation allows comprehensive coverage of all sustainability aspects while maintaining manageable complexity through modular assessment of each dimension separately.
Solution Approach 2:
The evaluation system is designed to universally assess all products across multiple impact dimensions simultaneously. The same framework can evaluate any product by mapping its attributes to the four dimensions, making the system multi-functional and broadly applicable without requiring dimension-specific tools.
2Measurement precision
If established impact evaluation processes are used, then full building assessments are possible, but impacts of single material choices cannot be estimated
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality assessment by evaluating impacts at different levels of detail depending on the assessment scope. For single material choices, only relevant local attributes are assessed, while full building assessments aggregate multiple material impacts. This allows precise measurement at any scale without requiring complete building-level data for material assessments.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs partial assessment when full assessment is not necessary or feasible. For single material choices, only the material's direct attributes are evaluated rather than complete building lifecycle impacts, providing sufficient precision for material selection without the complexity of full building assessments.
3Adaptability or versatility
If existing sustainability tools are used, then one or two impact dimensions are covered, but social and monetary impacts are excluded
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides universal accessibility through a unified interface that handles all four impact dimensions simultaneously. Users interact with a single evaluation process that automatically considers environmental, social, health, and monetary aspects, eliminating the need to switch between dimension-specific tools while maintaining ease of operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs automatic evaluation of all impact dimensions based on product attributes provided by users. The complex mapping of attributes to multiple dimensions and calculation of impact scores is handled automatically by the system, making comprehensive multi-dimensional assessment as easy to operate as simple product input without requiring expert knowledge.
Data Source
AI summary
According to the present disclosure, a system and method for automatically providing an impact index for a product or a material across a plurality of impact dimensions are disclosed. The method comprises the steps of selecting at least one product from a plurality of products, identifying a plurality of attributes related to a plurality of impact dimensions for the at least one product selected, selecting at least one set of attributes from the plurality of attributes for the at least one product selected, mapping the at least one set of attributes to a plurality of variables related to each of the plurality of impact dimensions, determining a plurality of weightages for the plurality of variables and the plurality of attributes and automatically determining an impact index, which is a sustainability score, of the at least one product for each of the plurality of impact dimensions using the plurality of weightages.