Product, Service & Design Innovation
The latest products, services, design approaches and business models that are helping organizations of all sizes deliver on their sustainability ambitions and establish a new business as usual.
Report: We Must Move Beyond Plant-Based Products to Ensure Sustainable Food Future
Cross-Posted from The Next Economy. New analysis from Forum for the Future explores the public commitments of 132 leading food companies and outlines a five-point plan to get businesses on track towards a more sustainable global food system.
Life Cycle Analysis: Revealing the Unexpected Truth About Product Impacts
Cross-Posted from New Metrics. Typically, the stages in a product’s life cycle that have the greatest environmental effects also are the ones that present the best opportunity for sustainable innovation. If sustainability is part of the innovation process, then LCA should be conducted to ensure the avoidance of unintended consequences.
SB Oceans Showcases Solutions Aimed at Restoring Our Aquatic Abundance
AI, a conscientious credit card, social plastic and underwater forests are just a few of the solutions showcased at SB Oceans that can help us restore their abundance.
The Biosphere’s Guide to Foolproofing Sustainability, Part 5: Sustainable Product Platforms
Biosphere Rule #4 is about taking your value cycle, built with parsimonious materials and a power-autonomous energy system, and creating a production platform upon which you can build a whole suite of products — producing profit-amplifying economies of scale and scope.
The Biosphere’s Guide to Foolproofing Sustainability, Part 4: Power Autonomy
Cross-Posted from Cleantech. Nature has discovered that if you want to sustain your value cycles for billions of years, they need to run on free flows of solar energy. Our products and processes need to do the same.
Chilean Startup Eliminating Packaging Waste, ‘Poverty Tax’ in Latin American Product Market
Cross-Posted from The Next Economy. Algramo’s unique, refillable packaging system allows customers to buy as much or as little of a product as they want, in reusable containers, with no difference in the price per gram — then recycles all packaging at the end of its life.
Foolproofing Sustainability, Part 3: Value Cycling
The model we use to teach MBAs about production is the value chain. But there's a problem: It imagines a linear world in which materials can be constantly pushed through an assembly line with no consequence.
While Climate Policy Catches Up, Here’s Some Groundbreaking Cleantech to Be Excited About
Cross-Posted from Cleantech. The remaining barriers to a climate-resilient future are political, rather than technological. Much of the tech required to transition to a low-carbon economy already exists — here are just a few to look out for.
SB’19 Madrid Offers Tasting Menu of ‘Moonshot Thinking’ for the Future of Humankind
Cross-Posted from The Next Economy. At SB’19 Madrid last week, a diverse array of innovators in various fields demonstrated the notion that asking the right questions and being willing to use imagination to find solutions to the climate crisis and other pressing global issues can turn a Moonshot into reality.
Foolproofing Sustainability, Part 2: Materials Parsimony
The amazing diversity of life is founded on dramatic materials parsimony; almost everything in nature is built out of just four elements. Whereas, what we humans have gotten since the Industrial Revolution is *materials proliferation.*
How Kohler Has 'Tapped' an Internal Flow of Entrepreneurial Ideas
Cross-Posted from Organizational Change. To help address the need to provide access to clean water and sanitation around the world, Kohler launched an internal “Shark Tank”-style social innovation competition — and many of its 38,000 employees are loving the chance to share their big ideas.
Beyond Global Thinking: NASA’s Jim Adams on Ensuring Humanity’s Future
Ahead of his upcoming keynote at SB’19 Madrid and 50 years after the Moon landing, we spoke with Jim Adams — recently retired Deputy Chief Technologist at NASA — about the moonshot thinking humanity now needs.
Evolving Consumer Palates Demanding Better-Made Beverages
As we see greater attention to the growing climate crisis, plastic pollution and other global sustainability challenges, beverage makers who do more to reduce their impact stand to gain, while those stuck in a tone-deaf, business-as-usual model will be left behind.
Sea Change: How to Spark Sustainable Innovation in an Old-School Industry
Cross-Posted from Finance & Investment. Many people and organizations, as well as broad market and social trends, contributed to sustainable seafood’s arrival at this place. Everyone who engaged helped build the network; and because they did, our oceans and plates are going to be healthier.
With New Absolute-Reduction Strategy, Unilever 'Gets Drastic on Plastic’
Cross-Posted from Waste Not. By 2025, the CPG giant says it will eliminate more than 100K tonnes of plastic packaging, and collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells. This makes Unilever the first global CPG company to commit to an absolute plastics reduction across its portfolio.
Trending: Collaborations Fostering Next-Gen Solutions for Coffee Cups, Paper Packaging
Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. Environmental NGO Canopy rallies apparel brands around better paper packaging; and six graduates of the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator prepare to bring their their sustainable coffee cup solutions to market.
Ask First, Give Second: The One-for-One Giving Model Gets a Revamp
Ideally, Western companies should adopt an attitude of *Ask First, Give Second*. We’d all benefit if we empowered those who will receive the donations to determine what they need most, rather than making that decision for them.
New Chocolate, Ingredients from Barry Callebaut Utilize Whole Cacao Fruit
‘Cacaofruit Experience’ eliminates 70% of waste in cacao processing while addressing consumer demand for tasty, nutritious, whole foods; WholeFruit chocolate is a fresh, fruity chocolate made from 100% pure cacao fruit, is available for chefs and artisans.
There Is No ‘Silver Bullet’ For Resource Management in the Climate Crisis
People have opinions about the ways we should address the climate crisis. There are many possible solutions, but however we decide to change, we have to do it now.
UPDATE: Salesforce’s Sustainability Cloud Empowers Business to Drive Impactful Climate Action
Cross-Posted from Finance & Investment. Salesforce reinforces sustainability commitments at UNGA and Climate Week NYC with stakeholder engagement, STEM investments, and a new carbon accounting product.
