Ximin (Natalie) Huang
Georgia Institute of Technology
Design Implications of Extended Producer Responsibility for Durable Products.
We analyze the product design implications of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)-based take-back legislation on durable goods. We posit that durable goods producers can respond to EPR by making their products more recyclable or durable, where the former (latter) will reduce unit recycling costs (volume). However, these two design attributes may involve an inherent trade-off that has not been explored to-date. In that case, product design implications of EPR can be contrary to common intuition: Relatively low recycling targets may drive producers to design for recyclability at the expense of durability. However, further increases in recycling targets drive producers to switch to design for durability at the expense of recyclability. Collection targets, on the other hand, have the opposite effect: Relatively low collection targets may imply more durable, yet less recyclable product designs. In contrast, further increases in collection targets imply more recyclable, yet less durable product designs.
Biography
Ximin (Natalie) Huang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Scheller College of Business at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include sustainable operations and supply chain management. Her current research focuses on sustainable business strategies driven by environmental legislation and market challenges. She addresses interdisciplinary problems that lie at the intersection of Operations Management and other fields such as Marketing, New Product Development, Economics and Industrial Ecology. She holds an M.Phil. and a B.Sc. degree in Applied Mathematics from The University of Hong Kong.