At Philips, we strive to make the world healthier and more sustainable through innovation. Philips has  integrated sustainability requirements into business and product development. Having the diagnosis of the current ecodesign maturity profile in Philips Healthcare assessed was important to provide a confirmation of our strengths and support us in the identification of further improvement opportunities. Currently, we are implementing many of the identified improvement opportunities.

At Grundfos the maturity model was used primarily to create awareness amongst different layers of management, as there was a general perception that we already work systematically with sustainability. The diagnosis showed that this was not the case and at the same time it helped us to identify the shortcomings as well as which maturity level will be necessary to work towards, according to the new ISO 14001:2015 standard, which helped us to then create a roadmap for the way forward.

The diagnosis of the current maturity profile at Embraer enabled the identification of the main improvement areas, which were further detailed and explored in the strategic roadmap for implementation. In addition to enabling a common view in the organization, the diagnosis and roadmap also provided the prioritization of the actions to be taken based on our specific company needs and drivers

In Coloplast the maturity model has clearly pointed out strengths and weaknesses of our current setup for environmental focus in product development. The cross-functional interviews combined with thorough assessment of existing material from highly skilled third party is a very good approach and a process that also improves awareness in the organization. The results of the assessment helped us to identify the next actions to continuously improve our way of ensuring that environmental focus is an integrated part of the Coloplast innovation processes.

Within our ecodesign program at Natura, it was very useful to use the maturity model. It helped us provide an objective picture of our situation in considering environmental issues all over product innovation. Thanks to this sort of compass, we were able to identify our strengths and opportunities for improvement, which guided us toward a more effective application of environmental sustainability concerns within all the product development related activities.    

Philips Electronics was and is advanced in Sustainability activities. The essensus' maturity model has been a positive surprise due to its comprehensiveness, its in-depth analysis and the ease by which the results of the analysis can be transformed into action plans and strategies. These are the chief three items with which companies are struggling all the time. I would have wished that this approach would have come to the market earlier!

The maturity model enabled Tecumseh to better understand our current maturity profile and the best practices for the  integration of ecodesign practices into new product development processes (among others). It is an essential knowledge for a robust product strategic planning.