Impact Assessment

SusAF helps you in assessing the sustainability effects of a product, by guiding you through steps and in that way helping you to see both the positive and negative effects that it has. You will find as much as possible of the effects and grade them based on their impact and effect. Finally, you will be able to see the big image, and how those effects are interconnected and how they affect the planet, society and each one of us. You will be able to improve your product, as the final goal is to create sustainable and responsible products.

The idea behind this phase is to warm-up. You should start thinking about the product and scratching the surface of its sustainability. Get familiar with the product, and what your team thinks about it. First of all, just try to describe the product that you will be analyzing.

What is it used for? What is its main feature, or a couple of them? Who uses this product? Why do they use it? How does the product help in any way? Do you see something obviously good or obviously bad about it?

Discuss within the team, brainstorm and write down the ideas. The following two questions should be answered in the next 20-30 minutes.

1. Describe the product with its main features and main contributions.
   1. Overall, high level explanation
   2. The first thing that you think of when you think of the product
2. What are the out-of-the-box known sustainability effects?
   1. Positive and negative effects that you can perceive in the product just by thinking of it, and having a short discussion
   2. For example, Facebook’s obvious sustainability effects are that it allows you to connect with people, to chat with friends and family, to share pictures
   3. This is what you know just by thinking of Facebook
   4. No need to overthink at this point, or to try to find causes of it
   5. Just everything that pops into your mind