Product Eco-Design
Raquel's Rebelo de Mira
Delivering sustainable innovation
Meet Raquel Rebelo de Mira, Program Lead within the Product Function (R&D) team at Philip Morris International (PMI) and a passionate champion for sustainability. With over 25 years of experience in driving innovation and circularity, Raquel is at the helm of PMI’s Eco-Design program, embedding sustainability principles at every stage of product design and
development. Her work is transforming how products are created, with a focus on reducing
environmental impact and promoting responsible innovation. At PMI, Raquel is a change-
maker, aligning her commitment on reducing negative environmental impact with PMI’s
sustainability goals to drive real, measurable impact.
About Philip Morris International (PMI)
Philip Morris International (PMI) is one of the world’s leading tobacco companies. Led by science and innovation, and with the right regulatory encouragement and support from civil society, PMI is working to replace cigarettes with smoke-free products.
Sector: Tobacco product producer
Geography: Headquartered in the USA with global operations and multiple brands
Employees: 82,000+ globally
Website: Philip Morris International | Delivering a Smoke-Free Future (pmi.com)
Challenges
faced
As the lead for sustainable product design, Raquel is focused on integrating eco-design features into PMI’s smoke-free electronic devices and overseeing product sustainability initiatives for PMI’s consumables and accessories portfolio. Her role plays a crucial part in aligning product development with the company’s commercial strategy and sustainability goals.
Deploying Eco-design in a corporate setting is a complex, yet vital, journey that requires a holistic, end-to-end strategy and a unified product sustainability framework. At its core, successful Eco-design doesn’t just involve isolated changes in product development; it demands a tightly woven alignment across commercial goals, consumer expectations and experiences, and sustainable innovation.
One of the key challenges lies in balancing ambitious commercial objectives with consumer desires for products that are both sustainable and high performing. Eco-design must integrate sustainability into features that drive consumer acquisition and brand retention while also enhancing the overall brand experience. This requires deep collaboration between Design teams, Product Development and commercial functions to ensure that sustainable design features resonate with, and add value for, the user.
To support this downstream consumer focus, upstream innovation becomes critical. Eco-design calls for reshaping and streamlining product development processes, such as integrating eco-design requirements into project briefs.
Another key aspect for deploying Eco-design is to foster partnerships with suppliers. Building capabilities within our supply chain is essential, ensuring that partners can meet new standards and adapt to quality validation practices geared towards eco-designed solutions.
The formalization of these steps into a design processes, from the initial concept through to production, and offering sustainable solutions to the consumer during the user phase is what ultimately enables scalable impact. By creating a cohesive framework for design, quality, and sustainability, we aim to continuously drive progress toward a portfolio that meets our commercial ambitions and answers the rising call for reducing the environmental impact of our products.
Actions
taken
Under the leadership of Raquel, PMI’s Eco-design Program was advanced and further embedded in PMI’s end-2-end consumer centric Product Sustainability strategy.
To successfully embed Eco-design into product development, PMI have taken actions that are reshaping the organization’s approach to sustainable innovation.
At the foundation of the product sustainability strategy, several tools and mechanisms were established. For example, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Program with a supporting digital tool to track the environmental impact of PMI design decisions, the development of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to be accurate and bring transparency about our electronic devices impact and a dedicated PMI Index of Repair to generate insights on repairability decisions. These tools give PMI critical insights into the environmental impact of each product. By identifying the hot spots and opportunities to improve, data driven decisions are enabled.
By streamlining our internal processes to PMI’s Eco-design ambitions, we ensure that Eco- design principles are consistently applied, making it simpler to incorporate sustainable practices across all stages of development, starting at the very beginning aspiration setting.Raquel and her team also worked on integrating eco-design features into product briefs, ensuring that sustainability principles like sustainable materials and recycled content, repairability, and recyclability are considered at the earliest stages of product development.
These eco-design specifications are now subjected to the same feasibility assessments as other product ambitions.
We’re also establishing strong cross-functional relationships that bridge departments, creating a powerful ecosystem of collaboration. This means bringing together teams from R&D, engineering, supply chain, and commercial functions to work as one. We’re fostering a close, ongoing collaboration with engineering teams to ensure these principles are embedded into the design and engineering validation of our products.
These actions drive PMI toward a more sustainable future, transforming our processes, products, and partnerships. By weaving Eco-design into the fabric of our company, we’re aligning our innovation with meaningful sustainability ambitions and meeting the expectations of responsible market demand.
Resonance
of impact
Raquel and the cross functional team have helped embed sustainability more deeply into PMI’s product development process.
Through our commitment to Eco-design, we are progressing, both in terms of the maturity of our sustainable practices and future product pipeline. Each step taken—from implementing dedicated tools to building cross-functional frameworks—has led us closer to embedding sustainability at the core of our business.
One of our achievements is the pipeline of products developed under this framework that will be available in the market during coming years.
Our focus on transparency can be demonstrated with the publication of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), which provide clear, data-driven insights into the environmental impact of our recently launched IQOS Iluma i in Japan.
This transparency aims at strengthening trust with our stakeholders, empowering consumers to makeinformed choices while enhancing stakeholders’ confidence in our commitment to a sustainable future.
Moreover, our approach enables us to anticipate and stay ahead of evolving regulations,ensuring that our products are not only compliant but set the guideline for what responsible product development can look like.
Ultimately, these achievements demonstrate Eco-design maturity within PMI. We’ve created a foundation that allows us to drive the reduction of the environmental impact, respond dynamically to market and regulatory shifts, and lead with purpose. Each new Eco designed product, each EPD, and each cross-functional milestone resonates outward setting the stage for a sustainable, innovative-driven future.
However, there is still more work ahead. Raquel remains focused on further expanding the maturity of our Eco-Designed products, focusing on enhancing the first life of smoke-free electronic devices in a combination of optimal design and consumer experience.
What Raquel found useful during her ESG journey
The development of tools for PMI such as the Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) tool, and the Repairability Index for PMI product categories.