Modern companies have to deal with an increasing need for innovation resulting from the ever faster pace of change, unexpected events and a growing pressure for a shift towards a greener economy.
The process of implementing deep changes is governed by paradoxes. Therefore, companies which are excellent at daily operations might have major difficulties in developing ground-breaking innovations.
In the context of green transformation, we cannot afford to make mistakes. A possible error would impact much more than a company’s market position or its long-term perspectives. It could have a bearing on our lives and that of the future generations.
Products will soon need to be both the best and sustainable. The effective way to create such products is through cooperation and ecosystem building.
Despite growing awareness, circular and sustainable transformation is advancing very slowly. It comes up against many obstacles, however, few of them are of purely technological nature. Most of the obstacles are systemic, related to rigid mindsets and attitudes towards innovation.
Sustainability can be understood in two ways.
The first meaning refers to building an organisation with a positive impact on its environment — both natural and social. The second, not less important understanding, refers to the need for constant business development driving a positive balance sheet, economic viability and a secure market position.
Data shows that in both aspects, companies are far from being effective. Now companies feature on S&P 500 for less than 20 years as compared to 60 years in the 50s of the XX century. Furthermore, studies like Circularity Gap show that only a few percent of the world’s economy is circular.
What puts organisations at risk is not so much external factors but the short-sightedness of their own leaders, who chose the easy path of incremental innovation. But this time, faced with the climate change, it’s not about a company’s survival any more. Now, it’s about the humanity’s survival.
The circular economy in many aspects runs contrary to competition. The competitive advantage, just like in the case of innovation, stems from the ecosystem of cooperation fuelling the value chain with new partners and solutions.
We need a new mindset focused on cooperation and ecosystem building that would result in systemic changes to value chains, consumption models and company development strategies.
● Get to know and understand the paradoxes of innovation, which despite efforts and investments, keep companies standing still. It’s a place where you need to run for your life to stay exactly in the same spot.
● See that the same thing blocking innovation in companies also stops the shift toward the circular economy. As a result, the companies concentrate on sustaining their activities instead of being sustainable.
● Listen to a story of cooperation and ecosystem building supporting the circular economy. Hear that business models must be transformed as they are weakened by incremental innovation geared towards fighting competition.
● Learn about the tools you can use to change attitudes in your company so that you can build strategies, change value chains and transform from an organisation aimed at sustaining its current model to an innovative company which develops sustainably.