EcoFlight

Keeping eco-design and circular economy principlesintegrated in technology development.

A structured guide for everyone involved in aerospace product and technology development, to help understand eco-design and circular economy principles, operationalize the right methods at the right stage, and defend sustainable intentions through every decision gate.

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Phase 01

Phase 01 — Awareness

Understand
the landscape

Learn the structural conditions that filter out eco-design and circular intent across TRL stages. Before you can act on circular criteria, you need to understand what barriers are operating — and why they persist across every stage of development.

Enter Barrier Guide

Phase 02

Phase 02 — Operationalize

Identify
and act

Diagnose which barriers are active at your current development stage and find the right methods and tools to address them — before the design window closes and intent becomes impossible to embed.

Methods & Tools

Phase 03

Phase 03 — Defense

Defend
and translate

Reframe circular criteria in the commercial language that survives gate reviews and program handovers. Learn from the organizational conditions that have protected circular intent in real projects.

Best Practices

Eco-Design

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The integration of environmental criteria into the earliest stages of product design, before decisions become costly to reverse. In aviation, environmental impact is dominated by the operational use phase — making weight the primary measurable eco-design criterion, since every kilogram saved directly reduces fuel burn across the aircraft's service life. Eco-design is the method through which circular economy goals are made actionable in practice.

Circular Economy

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A resource management model that keeps materials in use for as long as possible. Rather than replacing components and discarding materials, the circular economy prioritises recovering their value — through reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling, in that order of preference. In aviation cabin development this is not yet standard practice: most end-of-life treatment currently amounts to downcycling or energy recovery. The goal of this playbook is to help push that further up the hierarchy.

Technology Readiness Levels

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The nine-level scale used in aerospace R&T to assess and communicate the maturity of a technology, from initial concept (TRL 1) to proven deployment (TRL 9). Gate decisions at each level determine whether a technology advances. These gates were built around technical performance, safety, and cost — not environmental value. Understanding where you are on the TRL scale determines which circular criteria are still designable, which barriers are most active, and which methods are available to you.

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Keeping eco-design and circular economy principlesintegrated in technology development.

Understandthe landscape

Identifyand act

Defendand translate

Talk to theassistant

Understand
the landscape

Identify
and act

Defend
and translate

Talk to the
assistant