Master thesis: Environmental Impact Reduction through Eco-Design & Circular Strategies

Job Description

Background:

Actia Sweden is committed to integrating Design for Environment (DfE) and circular principles into product development and manufacturing.

The company has set an ambitious sustainable goal to: “Integrate Design for Environment (DfE) and circular principles into all aspects of product development and manufacturing to achieve a 20% reduction in Scope 3 environmental impact from designed and manufactured products by 2027.”

All of our future hardware development projects will start with a life cycle assessment (LCA) through our specific EcoMatrix tool, in order to establish a baseline of our product’s environmental footprint.

While these baselines will highlight hotspots and areas with the largest environmental impact, Actia sees a clear need to move further: translating analysis into action. The company wants to identify which design, manufacturing, and process changes are most impactful, feasible, and aligned with business objectives.

Scope:

The purpose of this thesis is to support Actia Sweden in identifying, evaluating, and prioritizing concrete measures to reduce environmental impact, based on the results of the baseline LCA and additional analysis.

The work will focus on both:

• Product-level improvements for future products
• General improvements to Actia’s product development processes and ways of working, ensuring DfE and circular principles are embedded across the organization.

Challenges:

• Engage with the lifecycle assessment (LCA) work carried out by Actia’s team:
• If timing allows, contribute to the LCA process (data collection, analysis, interpretation).
• Otherwise, use the baseline LCA results as the starting point.
• Identify improvement opportunities for our future products lifecycle (design, materials, manufacturing, logistics, use-phase, and end-of-life).
• Evaluate these opportunities against multiple criteria:
• Environmental impact reduction potential
• Cost and financial implications
• Technical feasibility and maturity
• Timeframe and implementation complexity
• Risks and trade-offs
• Prioritize recommendations for interventions that can realistically contribute to achieving the 20% Scope 3 reduction target for our future products.
• Identify general improvement opportunities applicable to all Actia products and processes, focusing on:
• Integration of Design for Environment (DfE) principles
• Application of circular economy strategies
• Enhancements to Actia’s internal processes and ways of working
• Develop a practical roadmap for both product-specific and organizational improvements, including short-, medium-, and long-term measures, and propose a decision-making framework that Actia can apply systematically in future projects.

Benefits of working with us:

• Engage in cutting-edge automotive technology development.
• Collaborate in a dynamic and innovative team environment.
• Contribute to significant advancements in automotive system reliability.