Current legislative frameworks reflect a societal consensus to prioritize sustainability, incentivizing industries to integrate environmental goals into strategic objectives. Embedding sustainability into product development requires appropriate methods and tools. Technological advancements enable the utilization and analysis of operational machine data to support the development of new generations of sustainable systems and the conduction of Life-Cycle-Assessments. This research presents a method to support data-driven product development to reduce the environmental impact of new product generations of complex mechatronic systems during operation, addressing key factors such as the technical system, organizational infrastructure, and regulations. The application of the method resulted in multiple proposed design changes able to enhance machine sustainability and operational efficiency.

To enable a truly circular economy in product engineering, the development of products in generations must be considered. Thus, we strive to enable a forward-looking circularity approach, proposing the integration of system generation engineering (SGE) with circular economy principles. By analysing the qualitative interrelations among product generations driven by distinct value preservation strategies on various value creation tiers ("R-strategies"), we extend prior SGE research to advance model theory and support practical application of circular product engineering.