Green Transformation

So why is Green Innovation so hard? Even as we spend so much time on ESG initiatives, reports, and suitability strategies? Is it because we do not want to solve this problem? Is there no business case? Actually, it is because we do not know how to do it, just as we did not know, at first, how to produce a COVID-19 vaccine in one year instead of 10.

But we found a way to do it. But it does not have to be like that—and humankind has proven over and over again that it is possible to build capabilities and strategies for handling the unknown. As with any strategy, building the right capabilities that are aligned with the right strategy is the key to solving the ESG challenge and implementing the environmental changes that are needed. And this has to be measured.

We must understand the interplay of the systemic major factors on the planet. They can block, or amplify, each other. Isolating them is the biggest mistake as that might not only reduce the chances of success, but actually make things worse. This is the only way to mitigate the risks, rethink our business models and value chains, and create sustainable growing industries.

Sustainability work should (arguably) be prioritized in the following order:

1. BIOSPHERE: The life support systems upon which prosperity and development ultimately rest.
2. SOCIETY: A group of people with common territory, interaction, and culture.
3. ECONOMY: The large set of interrelated production and consumption activities that helps determine how scarce resources are allocated.

Green Transformation

To move toward a regenerative state in which we restore and fix the biosphere, society, and the economy, it is imperative to create more value, not less (as some say we should). According to many surveys, less than 10% of all organizations have these kinds of innovation and transformation capabilities in place—basically making it impossible to achieve. But assessing and building the right capabilities and moving from reactive solutions to systemic ones is possible and can be a structured process. To tackle this, we have developed the SOI Sustainnovation360^TM, which groups 12 pillars into four categories that are measured and analyzed. Based on this assessment, capabilities can be built to prepare for transforming the organization, the processes, the business model, and the actual supply chain and design of products and services.

In parallel with assessing and transforming the organization, waste needs to be reduced and regenerative models implemented to go beyond net zero. For this, we apply our 4R model of four steps to eliminating and restoring (in combination with value mapping, stakeholder analysis, and innovation sprints):

1. Reducing the use of fossil fuels in line with zero-carbon practices for producing steel (e.g., in the process of refining iron), where Sweden is at the forefront.
2. Reusing (encouraged by laws that products should be repairable, which is the case in France).
3. Recycling (up to 90% in most parts of the developed world), and the 4th R,
4. Regenerating. A classic approach is to plant trees that store carbon dioxide. This is also called removal (which is, together which long-term storage, called carbon dioxide utilization).