Aberdeen Research Covers Green Products

By DE Editors

According to the Aberdeen Group (Boston, MA), consumer demand for ecologically friendly products has grown steadily. While some have dismissed green as a trend, many companies have responded by devoting a greater focus to reducing energy consumption and enhancing the recyclability of their products and their materials.

Aberdeen Group recently conducted a study of green product development initiatives, called Greening Today’s Products: Sustainable Design Meets Engineering Innovation. (see DE,  Oct. 2008, p. 10). The study found several top factors driving the current proliferation of green products: as part of larger corporate social responsibility programs designed to green the company (reported by 37 percent of respondents) as well as the greater competitive differentiation that green products provide (35 percent). 

In the Greening Today’s Products study, Aberdeen found that companies operating at the highest levels of performance are 44 percent more likely than their lagging competitors to use control systems to minimize the consumption of natural resources such as water, gas, oil, and electricity. Plus, they are 96 percent more likely to arm their products with systems that monitor and control the carbon footprint of their products by minimizing the emissions they expel.

In a previous report (see DE, Aug. 2008, p. 10), Aberdeen released Research on Design For the Enterprise and The Environment in which it found that while shrinking development schedules is the top pressure (60 percent), rising raw material costs (32 percent) and decreasing product price-points (28 percent) make for a difficult combination. While identification of differentiated strategies offers direction, more detail is needed for change. The first question addressed was:  given their formidable challenges, are any engineering organizations performing well?

For details on research, contact Aberdeen Group.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.