Product design scenarios for energy saving: A case study of fashion apparel

In participating in today's green movement, the development of sustainable products enables firms to drive changes to achieve business excellence and enhance corporate culture. The purpose of this paper is to develop guidelines for the design and production of sustainable energy-saving fashion products (ESFPs). A three-stage methodological approach was adopted: (1) a preliminary study using multiple sources of evidence to identify energy-saving factors for apparel products; (2) a questionnaire survey to investigate fashion consumers' behavioral attitudes toward ESFPs; and (3) an analytical study on the development of product design scenarios for sustainable fashion. Three categories of energy-saving factors were identified in the first study, four clusters of consumers were found in the second, while two scenarios were developed in the third, Practically, this study enables enterprises to obtain a deeper understanding of the green demands of their target customers and provides designers with a reference for the design and production of ESFPs to meet the specific needs of different customers. Theoretically, this study demonstrates a systematic and logistical procedure for the identification of energy factors for sustainable fashion and the development of feasible and practical scenarios for the design and production of ESFPs. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.