Emelia Delaney is undertaking her PhD under the supervision of Professor Wei Liu in the Department of Engineering at King’s College London. Her doctoral work explores how designers within industry implement factors of environmental sustainability into their design process during New Product Development. Emelia’s research also investigates design management, design and engineering education, and the circular economy. She won the Design Management Institute (DMI) student essay competition and has been selected as a Doctoral Student Fellow in the 2022 Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) Doctoral Consortium.

Research interests

• Design for Environmental Sustainability
• Design
• Environmental Sustainability
• Design Tools
• Design and Engineering Education

Thesis title and abstract

Design for Environmental Sustainability – Investigating the perceptions of environmental sustainability factors in the product design process

The product design stage has been identified to greatly influence the sustainability of an entire product during New Product Development (NPD). Sustainability encompasses social, economic, and environmental issues with the primary aim to fulfil the needs of the present society without compromising the potential needs of future generations. This PhD study aims to primarily focus on the environmental pillar of sustainability. Literature will be investigated from the past four decades, to ensure that there is a thorough and comprehensive understanding of environmental sustainability within the design process. The study will then progress to a three-stage empirical research methodology featuring semi-structured interviews with sustainability-based industry professionals, surveys with product designers from a variety of design sectors and a focus group. The primary aim of the study is to develop a tool, such as a framework or toolkit, to aid designers in industry in the development of environmental sustainability factors (which were identified through the literature review and semi-structured interviews) during NPD.

 

First supervisor: Professor Wei Liu

Second supervisor: Professor Jian Dai

 

More information: https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/emelia-delaney