Sustainability isn’t just about corporate responsibility anymore – it’s a powerful lever for product innovation, operational efficiency, and long-term profitability. With the right approach and the right tools, sustainability becomes a business advantage.
Forward-thinking manufacturers are discovering that sustainable design can lower material costs, reduce waste, improve product quality, and open new market opportunities – without requiring a total overhaul of their existing workflows.
It comes down to working smarter: Leveraging connected data, cloud collaboration, and modern design tools to make better decisions earlier in the product lifecycle.
According to PTC’s Product Sustainability for Dummies eBook, roughly 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined during the design phase, giving engineering and product teams a critical role in driving measurable change.
Design is Where Impact Begins
Creating more sustainable products starts with smarter design decisions – and that means using tools built for modern design teams. Cloud-native CAD and PDM solutions are transforming how engineers work by enabling real-time collaboration, centralized data access, and seamless version control – without the limitations of traditional file-based CAD systems.
This is where Onshape by PTC stands out.
As the leading cloud-native product development platform that combines CAD, PDM, and real-time collaboration in a single environment, Onshape gives teams the flexibility and speed they need to make smarter choices early – when they matter most.
Because Onshape runs entirely in the cloud, teams can iterate faster, collaborate from anywhere, and avoid costly delays caused by version control issues or hardware constraints. The result? A more agile, efficient, and sustainable design process from concept through production.
Smarter designs mean smaller footprints – and Onshape makes this easier than ever.
How Onshape Drives Sustainable Design
Modern CAD platforms like Onshape are helping product teams build sustainability into their workflows by:
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Reducing material use through advanced simulation and modeling
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Swaping in recycled or lower-carbon materials with real-time data
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Streamlining product variations using modular, configurable designs
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Designing for durability, repairability, and reuse from the start of the design phase
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Integrating software to replace mechanical parts
Because Onshape is built for speed, agility, and real-time collaboration, these sustainability-focused choices can be made confidently and early – without slowing down development.
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Regulations Come with Opportunity
New global regulations – especially the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) – require manufacturers to track and reduce environmental impact throughout the product lifecycle. However, with the right tools, compliance becomes an advantage, not a burden.
Onshape integrates with PLM tools like Arena, PTC’s cloud-native PLM solution, which helps teams monitor and manage:
- Material origins and embodied carbon
- Supplier emissions
- Operational energy use
- Product end-of-life data
Together, Onshape and Arena create a strong digital thread across the product lifecycle, giving teams full visibility to make smarter decisions and support them with data.
Circularity By Design
Recycling is important, but it’s not the goal – it’s the fallback. True sustainability comes from designing products to stay in use longer, through repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, or reuse.
Onshape’s collaborative, cloud-native environment helps teams iterate on circular design strategies in real time – without file-checkouts, version headaches, or compatibility issues that often come with traditional file-based CAD. With everyone working from a single source of truth, it’s easier to design with the full lifecycle in mind.
Ready to explore how your product teams can make it happen? Check out the full guide: Product Sustainability for Dummies, PTC Special Edition
Sustainability Is a Business Strategy – and Onshape Makes It Possible
Today's consumers and B2B buyers are demanding greener products, and many are willing to pay more for them. At the same time, companies are achieving real business benefits through sustainable design: lower costs, new revenue streams, better resilience, and stronger brand equity.
It all starts with design.
With Onshape, sustainability becomes just another design input – alongside cost, performance, and manufacturability. And since Onshape is cloud-native, teams can move faster, collaborate better, and deliver smarter, more sustainable products – without infrastructure roadblocks.
The Outcomes Speak for Themselves
By embedding sustainability into your design process with Onshape, teams can:
- Lower material and production costs
- Increase revenue through durable, differentiated products
- Strengthen supply chain resilience
- Access new markets and sustainability initiatives
- Enhance brand loyalty and trust
Sustainability is good for the planet, and on top of that, it’s smart business. With Onshape, it’s never been easier to design for both.
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