Metrics for Assessing Inclusivity and Empowerment of People for Supporting the Design of Inclusive Product Lifecycles

Abstract: Design of an inclusive product lifecycle is important for empowering people (stakeholders) with their meaningful inclusion in lifecycle processes. The aim is to use this as an enabler for transition to sustainability by balancing the power relations among the stakeholders. Design of an inclusive product lifecycle for empowerment requires that the nature of inclusion of stakeholders in the lifecycle is such that it leads to their empowerment. Empowerment processes provide opportunities for people to increase their power to sustain the development of inclusive product lifecycles. Analysing power relations is to balance the amount of power of stakeholders with their inclusion in different functions in an inclusive lifecycle design. Inclusivity addresses the context of the lifecycle process to determine who can be included in which phases of the lifecycle and the diversity of people to be empowered. We apply a novel empowerment and inclusivity framework to a series of real-life case studies from literature to identify the major dimensions of empowerment and inclusivity. By analysing the relationships between the dimensions of empowerment and inclusivity, we propose specific metrics for inclusivity and empowerment that have strong causal connections, indicating the kinds of inclusion that should lead to greater empowerment in product lifecycles.