**1. Introduction**

With an overpopulated planet, hungry for electricity and resources, sustainability will be one of the biggest challenges in the future. Present production and consumption patterns are causing serious environmental and human problems and cannot be sustained in a world with rising human aspirations. The challenges and opportunities for sustainable innovation are immense, and the time horizon is shrinking. Going green isn't just about saving the planet; it's about finding a dynamic equilibrium between human and natural systems, be‐ tween saving the environment, making profit and enhancing all stakeholders' quality of life. Companies, designers and engineers can play an important role in this transition process to‐ wards a sustainable and smarter society with an improved 'quality of life'.

The very early phase in the product innovation process, the so-called front-end of innova‐ tion (FEI), is the stage of the innovation process where product strategy formulation, oppor‐ tunity identification, idea generation, idea selection and concept development take place and decisions about new product development are taken [1]. These first phases in the engi‐ neering design process have the largest impact on the end result of the project [1, 2] and the highest payback to one's investments [1]. Accordingly, the front-end of innovation is often described as being the root of success for any company hoping to compete on the basis of innovation [2].

Notwithstanding the logic behind integrating sustainability in the early stages of an innova‐ tion process, in practice it is flawed. Front-end innovation is a hot research topic, but there is still little research done on its relationship to design for sustainability.

This chapter addresses the existing knowledge in the field of sustainable product innovation and its relation to the front-end of new product development. The research in this chapter

© 2013 Dewulf; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 Dewulf; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 Dewulf; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

aims to contribute to the understanding and implementing of sustainability in the early stages of an innovation process. A short overview of the used research method is presented in the first part. Secondly, the concept of the front-end of new product development is intro‐ duced by its different definitions. The section also describes the importance of the FEI, dif‐ ferent types of innovation processes and the functions, activities and characteristics of the Front End. The third part looks to the concept of Sustainable Product Innovation (SPI) to‐ gether with its drivers and barriers. Furthermore, it reflects on the current practice of the use of Sustainable Product Innovation tools. Next, the importance of integrating environmental considerations in the Front-End stage is presented. Different research results, insights and challenges are discussed in the penultimate part in order to identify successful patterns. At the end of this chapter, a summary is presented.

**3.1. The Front End of new product development**

and when an idea is judged ready for development' [7].

**•** What: the description of the project to be developed.

**•** When: describes the timing of the project

velopment (NPD) starts'.

pre-project activities [13].

ment.

primary questions: whether, what, why, who, when and how.

**•** Why: what is the strategy behind this new product development?

**•** Who: describes the human resources necessary to perform the development

**•** How: describes all the product requirements regarding the new development

The Front End (FE) is considered as the first stage of new product development, which roughly concerns the period from the idea generation to its approval for development, or its termination [4].Moenaert et al. [5] define the Front End as the process in which an or‐ ganization formulates a product concept and decides whether or not to invest resources in that concept. Khurana and Rosenthal[6] note that the FE begins when an opportunity is first considered worthy of further ideation, exploration and assessment and ends when a firm decides to invest in the idea, commits significant resources to its development, and launch the project. The FE includes product strategy formulation and communication, op‐ portunity identification and assessment, idea generation, product definition, project plan‐ ning, and early executive reviews, which typically precede detailed design and development of a new product. One of the many other definitions of FE was formulated by Kim and Wilemon [7]; the Fuzzy Front End begins when an opportunity is first consid‐ ered worthy of further ideation, exploration, and assessment and ends when a firm de‐ cides to invest in the idea, commit significant resources to its development, and launch the project' or shortly;the FE is the period between when a opportunity is first considered

Sustainable Product Innovation: The Importance of the Front-End Stage in the Innovation Process

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Crawford and Di Benedetto[8] describe that the process in the FEI gives an answer to the

The decision is made whether or not a product innovation project passes to real develop‐

We can detect some small variations in the above-mentioned explanations of the Front End. The definitions differ from author to author. Similar to Jacoby [9], we define the FE phase as 'all initial innovation activities, prior to development and ends where real new product de‐

In contrast with new product development, there is no common terminology in academic literature and design practice as how to denote the early stages of an innovation process.

Different synonyms for the Front End can be found in literature; Fuzzy Front End [1], Front End of Innovation [10], pre-development [11], Phase zero, Stage zero, pre phase zero [12] or

Cooper [11] introduced the term "pre-development" in 1988. Smith and Reinertsen first popularized the term "Fuzzy Front End" in 1991 [14]. Later on, in 1997, Verganti [12] descri‐
