Innovation with that 'wow' factor

Innovation’s the lifeblood of the mainstream business world. Sustainability advocates are starting to give it a central role in their work too. Think ‘sustainable innovation’, though, and you might struggle for examples. So take a deep breath and think again, and into your mind’s eye might float images like BedZED, the Prius, or the PruHealth insurance that pays your gym membership fees.

Innovations like these don’t just come fully fledged to the market. A whole bunch of other stuff has to happen, often commencing years before. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the glamorous world of innovation process and method…

At Forum for the Future, we’re doing more and more work behind the scenes on practical innovation, sharing lessons between partners, sectors and industries, and encouraging further innovation for sustainability. Here are just three of the recent trends in the field that are making us say ‘wow’:

Targeting innovation – a raft of major companies announcing how much revenue and growth they plan to get from sustainable innovations. GE’s Ecomagination has famously doubled its revenue targets from green products, from $10 to $20 billion between 2006 and 2010. Proctor & Gamble and DuPont have sustainable sales targets of $20 billion (by 2012) and $10 billion (by 2015) respectively. Philips wants its Green Flagship products to be delivering 30% of its sales turnover within the next four years. This is making sustainable innovation ‘serious business’.

Co-development – companies joining forces and collaborating, rather than seeing sustainability challenges as the responsibility of somebody else in the supply chain. Wal-Mart’s Sustainable Value Network brings together actors across entire industries to tackle some of the most tricky issues. Our own innovation work, which also draws on this collaborative approach, has been instrumental in developing Zero Emissions Paint systems with ICI Paints and Carillion.

Outside in – where companies are starting to bring in external experts for innovation, just as they’ve often used external advisors to help validate or assure work. Sustainability leader InterfaceFLOR has taken this a step further, using its Innovation Networks of eight or so outsiders not only for checks and balances, but for creativity and generating ideas for new sustainable products, services and business.

This article also appears in Green Futures

Chris Sherwin is Forum for the Future's head of innovation