Sustainable Design Overview

Seamless Integration to Create Sustainable Design
SolidWorks Sustainability technology enables you to quickly and easily assess the environmental impact of your design to create more sustainable products. The software integrates powerful Life Cycle Assessment-based tools into your established design process, measuring the environmental impacts of Carbon, Energy, Air and Water. The material selection tool provides instant feedback to help you choose the most environmentally-friendly material for a particular design. Analysis of parts, assemblies, and configurations, as well as automatic saving of environmental baselines, makes for better iterative design, while one-click report generation helps you easily communicate your findings.

Sustainability Advantages

• Environmental Impact Dashboard

  SolidWorks Sustainability software measures four environmental indicators over the life cycle of your product: carbon footprint, total energy consumed, air impact, and water impact. The Environmental Impact dashboard displays a continuous, real-time assessment of each indicator with current values as well as comparisons to your baseline design. This comprehensive view makes it easy to see the environmental impacts of your design choices and incorporate sustainability as a standard part of your design process.

• Seamless Integration

  Because SolidWorks Sustainability software lives right in the SolidWorks Task Pane, it becomes a natural part of your workflow. Sustainability data is automatically stored in the model file as standard engineering information for the design. When you share the model, the environmental impact data is available to your partners as well.

• Material Selection Tool

  SolidWorks Sustainability software makes it easy to find the right material for a particular job. Until now, designers had to wade through materials databases, limiting their ability to effectively consider alternatives. SolidWorks Sustainability technology shows how "like" materials compare to the original in terms of environmental impacts as well as standard engineering properties such as thermal conductivity and yield strength. You can quickly hone in on the most environmentally-preferred material that gets the job done.

• Generate Environmental Reports

  SolidWorks Sustainability software demonstrates the real, verifiable steps you've taken to minimize environmental impacts. With a single click, you can automatically generate a report with your contact information and company branding that shows the sustainability profile of your product, before/after comparisons, multiple design alternatives, and the entire impact of complex assemblies.

• Grounded in Life Cycle Assessment

  SolidWorks Sustainability technology measures impacts over a design's entire life cycle, which includes extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, product transportation, use, and disposal. Each impact is examined using the science of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) through a partnership with PE International, a pioneer in the LCA field. PE's extensive GaBi life cycle inventory database reflects empirical data gathered over decades, and has become the worldwide standard for environmental impact data.

• The Sustainable Advantage

  SolidWorks Sustainability software removes traditional obstacles to sustainable design, making sustainability a seamless part of your design process for the first time. You can perform a thorough environmental assessment in a way that's simple to understand, apply, and explain—just like every SolidWorks product. SolidWorks Sustainability software gives both you and your environmentally-conscious company a competitive edge—and help you do your part for the planet.