Good question, Adam. It starts today - you can download the part and redesign it, and see the rules and judging criteria. The submission site opens a week from today, on Friday 4/29, and will be open through midnight (Eastern) June 30th. That's in the rules, but perhaps I should make it more explicit on the Contest Details page. Thanks!

Joseph, you are right - a choice of material can have systemic effects on the overall product design. If you optimize materials on each individual part for minimal environmental impact, this could still lead to missing the global min -- your point about better fuel economy is an excellent example. That's why I'd like to see Sustainability used as a *design* tool rather than just a material tool. This overall product effect is factored into the product's Use phase, where you indicate how much of a consumable (gasoline, diesel fuel, electricity, natural gas, etc.) the product uses over its lifetime. If you used aluminum rims that caused the car to use 4,000 gal of gas over its lifetime (25 mpg for 100,000 miles) over steel rims leading to 5,000 gal consumed (20 mpg for 100,000 miles), this huge reduction in fossil fuel usage would drastically outweigh the minimal added material impact of a few pounds of aluminum over steel.

That's great to hear, Glenn! I'll keep doing what I can to support you guys and get the world rolling with SolidWorks Sustainability.

Burrell, I'd love to chat as you explore the use of SolidWorks Sustainability to guide your green design decisions. Perhaps we can connect offline!

Thank you all for your comments... it was indeed a great conference! Sustainable Life Media knows how to put on a good show. I'll try to keep up the live-tweeting and blogging at future sustainable design events!