Beyond Plastic: Logitech’s Innovation Approach to Alternative Materials

Designing for sustainability in consumer electronics

Kicking off with Earth Day, this first article in a three-part series invites readers to learn how Logitech's design innovation culture is pushing next-level solutions with Design for Sustainability.

Setting the stage for breakthrough innovation takes more than a commitment to delivering next-level ideas. It lives deep within the company culture and starts with fostering a workplace environment that both encourages the unreasonable and nourishes employee confidence to iterate and learn through failures.

This innovation story began with an idea to keep Logitech's youngest user safe and engaged. Safeforkids and safe fromkids. The concept was to introduce a product made with materials to be proud of, be loud about, and love. One with the potential for materials to be circular, renewable, biodegradable, or possibly even a carbon sink.

Cork

More than a trendy material, cork has the potential to be an alternative to plastic in everyday life. It's a natural material well known for being very lightweight, naturally heat resistant, and impermeable to liquids and gasses. It's a favorite material for manufacturers and designers to explore. It's no wonder Logitech's materials innovation team jumped at the opportunity to think unconventionally about it.

Logitech's focus is to design smarter with less environmental impact. It embeds Design for Sustainability (DfS) capabilities throughout all aspects of its design-led manufacturing process, including prototyping with materials that reduce environmental impact. Its goal is to transcend current solutions that not only redefine new aesthetics for consumer desirability but also create a vision for the future without the use of hidden impacts.

Every project at Logitech entails research, experimenting, and physical prototyping to evaluate the benefits for People, Planet, and Brand. The idea to prototype a cork headset was chosen to learn about manufacturing challenges and scalability, less about trying to deliver a cork based product.