Sustainable Thinking - Smarter, Cleaner, Cheaper

On the fifth day after Copenhagen (Christmas Day), a new mantra came to me...

Design thinking is all the rage these days in executive suites and product planning sessions these days. The 1.4 million Google hits for the phrase and in over 1,000 scholarly publications in 2009 are a testament to the attention being given this creative process that attempts to apply empathy and “out of the box” thinking to meet user needs better and drive business success. This emphasis makes sense in markets where commoditization combined with years of focus on six sigma, supply chain management, lean manufacturing, outsourcing and low cost production have both raised quality and squeezed the margins out of many product categories. This design thinking philosophy feels like an improvement while being regressive at the same time. I recall the Volkswagen ad from the 1960’s, where the jingle “longer... lower... wider... the ’49 Hudson is the car for yoooOOOoooOOOuuuu” has stuck in my head all these years. In this ad, VW contrasts “marketing thinking” of Hudson, Studebaker and Packard with its own more sustainable (in the micro-economic theory of the firm sense) “value thinking”. In the 1980s with the microelectronics, quality and globalization revolutions, the pendulum swung to “better, faster, cheaper”, a value-based philosophy that has led to too many bland, look-alike products. I see design thinking trying to bring these two opposing forces, “marketing thinking” and “value thinking” together to drive business success (revenues), as well as benefit of users. The challenge is related to the classic Porter-ian question of profits, “Does the uniqueness of the product or service create enough value such that the firm can charge a premium and that the higher price covers the incurred in offering the unique features?”. In many cases, perhaps not.

At the same time, the emerging sustainability trend will impact this balance moving forward. Macro-level environmental and sustainability demands are shifting the value proposition from product/service features of “better, faster, cheaper” to those of “smarter, cleaner, cheaper”; smarter use of scarce natural resources, cleaner (less wasteful) products/processes and lower costs that will accelerate adoption and allow penetration of Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) markets. William McDonough among other has been a proponent the life-cycle based design for many years which has seen growing adoption a number of corporations and industries. Now with the advent of the Low Carbon Economy, sustainability thinking, i.e. smarter, cleaner, cheaper has reached a tipping point and will be the mantra the permeates every element of every product, service and industry form here forward.