Assessment of Sustainability Value and Dignified Well-Being in Inclusive Product Lifecycles

Abstract

Sustainability is a concept mainly assessed by the features of a product that are considered as specific metrics for sustainability in an engineering context. However, sustainability is a comprehensive process for improvement in sustainable development that can be structured with the influence of inclusivity of empowered people. We define sustainability value, which measures the merit of the process to contribute to sustainable development. Sustainability is interrelated with the well-being and dignity of people; we propose a formula for dignified well-being to evaluate the benefit of dignity and well-being in an inclusive product lifecycle. This study uses the framework for assessing inclusivity and empowerment to correlate the influence of inclusivity of empowered people on sustainability value and dignified well-being. Based on the strength of the correlation, we can support the hypothesis that the inclusivity of empowered people can influence the sustainability value of the process and the dignified well-being of stakeholders. Due to the integration of qualitative methods in our approaches, we tested it with an intercoder reliability test with three coders. Results show high coder agreement and the generalisability of the framework.