The data story behind sustainability
Together, digital maturity and connected data empower organizations to embed sustainability into engineering, manufacturing and supply chains
The design process matters in being more Sustainable
Embedding sustainability into the design process enables traceability, compliance and long-term value creation.
Why does sustainability start with the design process?
Industrial companies face mounting pressure to evolve operations in line with sustainability goals, driven by regulatory frameworks such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Ecodesign Directive, and the broader European Green Deal. The way a product is designed determines not only its environmental footprint and resource efficiency but also how easily a company can capture and report the right evidence for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) compliance across its value chain and beyond.
Many customers are adopting a DfX approach—Design for eXcellence—where X represents traits including manufacturability, cost, reliability, or sustainability. Here, Design for Sustainability (DfS) is our focus. At 9altitudes, sustainability is not a side project, but an integrated process embedded from supplier selection to daily operational and service decisions.
Carlos Cosials Ruiz
Industry 4.0 Manager, 9Altitudes
Embedding Sustainability from Day One: The Digital Common Thread and Bill of Materials
Rather than treating ESG reporting as retrospective documentation—costly and adding little value—the design process should lay the groundwork for evidence collection, capturing data at each stage of the product lifecycle. The Bill of Materials (BoM) is critical: by understanding products down to the component level, companies gain control over traceability, supply chain resilience, and optimization, ensuring compliance and informed decision-making.
The Digital Common Thread (DcT) strategy links product data from design through manufacturing, use, and end-of-life. It promotes a data-first initiative that leverages data value rather than relying solely on process accomplishment. This connectivity enables manufacturers to:
- Activate current data silos and systems rather than reinvent processes
- Identify and optimize the most relevant KPIs, aligning internal principles with external regulatory demands
- Document and report on ESG goals with clear, auditable evidence
At 9altitudes, we provide comprehensive IT tools to deliver this continuity and traceability, enabling due diligence reporting with relevant digital evidence.
Modular Design and Industry 5.0: Enablers for Sustainability
Modular design structures products into self-contained units that can be independently replaced, upgraded, or recycled, yielding significant sustainability benefits:
- Extended product lifecycles through repairability and upgradeability, reducing waste
- Resource efficiency via standardized components reused across multiple designs
- Circularity aligned with EU directives supporting traceability, recyclability, and responsible consumption
Industry 5.0 extends these principles, emphasizing human-centricity, resilience, and sustainability—not just operational efficiency. Regulations increasingly demand products designed for circularity (eco-design) and Digital Product Passports (DPP), enabling lifecycle traceability.
"The Digital Common Thread strategy links product data from design through manufacturing, use, and end-of-life."
Carlos Cosials Ruiz - Industry 4.0 Manager, 9Altitudes
Compliance as a Pathway to Competitive Advantage
Sustainability compliance is not merely about avoiding penalties—it's a strategic lever for innovation and differentiation. Companies should approach CSRD compliance as an opportunity to structure context, stakeholders, and timelines; perform double materiality analyses; and deploy tailored digital solutions for automated, transparent reporting.
Manufacturing-specific dashboards and reporting tools from 9altitudes—such as 9A Smart Insights and 9A Connected Factory & Insights—enable companies to visualize sustainability performance, improve audit readiness, and foster continuous progress.
Actionable Steps: Sustaining Design Principles and Evidence Gathering
To sustain a compliance-ready, sustainability-focused design approach, companies should:
- Start with the Bill of Materials: Break down products to the component level for complete lifecycle visibility
- Embed digital technologies: Automate data capture and evidence generation using existing systems
- Standardize modular interfaces: Design with future adaptability and regulatory compliance in mind
- Iterate strategically: Begin with small, high-impact sustainability projects to build momentum
- Educate teams: Foster a culture where sustainability is integral to design and development, not an external reporting function
To conclude: Designing for a Sustainable, Compliant Future
The design process is the foundation for industrial sustainability compliance. By embedding compliance and sustainability requirements from conception, leveraging modular principles, and activating existing digital infrastructures, companies create enduring value for customers and the planet.
This sustainability approach does not disregard PLM's main focus on parts reusage and engineering collaboration. Deploying an enterprise PLM like Windchill sets the foundation for a DfX strategy, providing the ground where stakeholders efficiently use product data to address industrial companies' main challenges: managing complexity and increasing reuse through collaboration between engineering peers inside and outside the organization.
Partnering with solution providers like 9altitudes ensures the digital thread runs through every aspect of product and process, providing the right evidence for ESG compliance and setting a path toward truly sustainable industrial growth.
Sustainability insights survey
The survey provided insights into the pressures organizations face to supply sustainability data. The results indicate that more than 75% either feel this pressure or anticipate experiencing it in the future. Comparing this with the level of preparation and support from digital business applications, the data suggests that many companies are not yet prepared or do not collect data in a structured manner using such tools. Given these findings, organizations may need to begin focusing on developing data capturing, collection, and reporting practices related to sustainability.