Sustainable Innovation 2013

At Rio + 20 in June 2012 the global community re-affirmed ‘green economy’ and inclusive ‘green growth’ as a key focus for policy makers. However, Europe continues to stagnate with growing social unrest, whilst economic growth is slowing in Asia and the US has re-elected Obama as president. The one constant is change. Companies are being forced to rethink business models to adapt to the economic imperative, changing weather patterns, natural disasters and resource scarcity. In times of crisis there are often opportunities and there is a growing interest in creating new business models that deliver economic value whilst reducing negative environmental and social impacts. For example, designing ‘cradle to cradle’ manufacturing systems to retain the ownership of materials through service contracts with customers may start to become an increasingly attractive option as raw material prices continue to fluctuate. Companies may be forced to think more strategically about the management of materials rather than the buying of components, parts and raw materials and the procurement of recycling and waste management services. This may mean growing investment in infrastructure and technology to retain the ownership of products and their materials in ‘closed loops’. New information and communication technologies (ICT) are also facilitating change. Both large and small companies are starting to experiment with sourcing new ideas for low carbon and resource efficient products, services and technologies through crowd sourcing campaigns, co-developing and jamming new concepts from multiple locations and sharing unused knowledge and patents. In addition, various crowd funding competitions are being launched for start-ups and existing firms targeted at personal investors who want to support and engage directly with environmentally/socially innovative businesses. Social networking technologies are driving inter-connectedness, communication and information sharing with, for example, Facebook signing up its 1 billionth user in October 2012. Enabled by this, new models of sharing and collaborative consumption are also emerging potentially improving the utilisation of materials and embedded energy. However, the implications for sustainability of this fast paced change are complex and will unravel over the next decade as technology moves forward and ‘Generation Y’ starts to exert more influence.