5

Innovate for sustainability

Almost daily, new scientific data become available, suggesting that humans will need to tread significantly more lightly on the planet to meet our future needs sustainably. In short, all signs point toward present modes of production and consumption being unsustainable. This issue is especially critical for U.S. consumers whose lifestyles are the least sustainable on the planet and, to boot, are emulated or aspired to by billions of other consumers in emerging economies and developing nations. According to the U.S. EPA, in 2006 American households threw away more than 251 million tons of trash. The bulk of this waste ended up in landfills, consuming vast quantities of energy to transport and potentially adding toxic leachate to underground water supplies, not to mention using millions of pounds of raw materials that will take untold quantities of new resources and energy to replace. Some experts go so far as to estimate that, to achieve significant reductions in our energy and natural resource use over the next several decades, we will need to radically alter our entire means of production and consumption by a factor of four. One way to address this critical problem is through innovation.

Innovating for sustainability brings with it exciting opportunities for businesses to help grow their top-line sales and even evolve and transform their business models – indeed, their entire company – to better compete within the rules of a more sustainable future. That this represents a opportunity for marketers to lead the way is unquestioned. Brand managers and marketers – those responsible for the development and communications of products and services – are closest to their brands and often the lead the way toward creative new products that can best meet their consumers’ needs. This chapter is aimed at managers and marketers who want to understand how the quest for sustainability can help them discover the next big idea leading to meaningful new products and more satisfied consumers.

Beyond eco-design to eco-innovation

It is one thing to use the most authentic green design principles, such as those described in Chapter 4, to create products with a lower impact. But the rules are quickly changing. To stay competitive and meet the challenges of sustainable development, forward-thinking businesses will need to combine innovation with ecology, through the power of what’s known (especially in Europe) as “eco-innovation.” Eco-innovation can be defined as innovating at the concept stage, or developing entirely new products and services (including materials and technologies) capable of performing the same function as existing ones only with significantly less environmental impact. As will be seen in many of the examples to follow, it represents the opportunity to at once solve pressing environmental issues while superbly meeting consumer needs, and even to transform one’s company – profitably.

Figure 5.1 Sustainable product innovation

Source: TNO Science and Industry, The Netherlands

As can be seen in Figure 5.1, denoting the progression of three “S” curves of sustainable product innovation, existing products can only be tweaked (eco-designed) so much before it becomes necessary to leap to an entirely new product concept in order to meet the same consumer need with significantly reduced environmental impact. At the end of even the most thoroughly executed process, greening a product by making adjustments in raw materials, packaging, and so forth, leaves you, by definition, with pretty much the same concept as when you started. Your toothbrush is still a toothbrush, but now uses recycled materials. Your water bottle is still a water bottle, only the shoulders are a little shaved off, or it is made from aluminum instead of plastic. Even at the end of a series of multiple iterations aimed at greening, at some point you will find yourself at the end of the first “S” curve labeled “Type 1: Product redesign,” unable to achieve greater environmental improvement; you are limited by your product concept.

In order to achieve significant, not just incremental, reductions in eco-impact, you must jump-shift to an entirely new product concept. This is called “eco-” or “functional innovation,” represented by the second “S” curve labeled “Type 2: Eco-innovation.” To develop new product concepts that perform the same function as existing products but with significantly less impact, start by questioning fundamental assumptions. For instance, to further reduce the environmental impact of a toothbrush, first consider modifying the task from merely “greening a toothbrush” to, let’s say, “cleaning teeth without a toothbrush.” This might trigger a new product concept such as a specially treated chewing gum that will clean teeth without the need for a toothbrush (and also the toothpaste, water, and the packaging!).

To proceed from the second to the third “S” curve labeled “Type 3: Sustainable technology development,” you must redefine your task more radically – for instance, from “cleaning teeth” to “preventing the plaque from forming in the first place.” This might lead to developing, say, a benign food additive that would accomplish the task. Moving up and across the three “S” curves in this graph starting with a product concept of a toothbrush made of recycled materials, then evolving to chewing gum, and finally to a food additive, shows how eco-innovation can inspire new products and new business models with significantly reduced environmental impact – and economic benefit as well.

Among its many attractive business and green marketing opportunities, eco-innovation represents the potential for significantly enhanced consumer benefits. In the case of the chewing gum, one can imagine significant cost, convenience, and even efficacy plusses (not to mention ending the problem of getting the kids to brush). Rather than simply focusing on eco-efficiency and its desirable but less exciting effect on the bottom line, moving along these “S” curves of sustainable innovation represents the potential for changing the rules of the game, and, as GE experienced with its Ecomagi-nation initiative, the ability to project an image as a leader, innovator, and socially responsible corporate citizen, all rolled into one. Finally, many sustainably innovative companies gain competitive advantage by anticipating future changes in the market. Innovating for sustainability before it reaches the radar screens of others in your industry allows companies to anticipate market changes. Eco-innovative products, such as the ones described in this chapter, put their developers, designers, and producers way ahead of the curve, often yielding a first-mover advantage that neatly translates into a better brand image for their products and companies.

Five strategies for eco-innovation

There are several strategies that forward-looking companies can use to eco-innovate. Let’s take a closer look at five of them.

1 Innovate at the system level

No one is an island, and no product stands alone, either. Products are part of a larger system from which they draw resources and deposit by-products and wastes. The most successful businesses understand, appreciate, and leverage the system in which their products operate. Changing the system in which products are developed and/or delivered allows innovators to expand their business and redefine their industry. Following are three of many ways to change a product’s system in order to minimize its environmental impact: changing the elements in a product system, dematerializing the product, and creating a new product system.

Change individual elements within an existing product system
Changing a product system is a big task – but starting small and rethinking the individual elements of an existing product system not only gets you started, it can also achieve some pretty big results in and of itself. For example, a lot of water is still used even if consumers use low-flush toilets and turn off the water while brushing their teeth or washing their hands. But if one first considers the fixtures in a bathroom as working together in one unified system, rather than as individual standalone units, exciting new business opportunities arise.

AQUS greywater recycling system
Take the AQUS system by WaterSaver Technologies of Louisville, Kentucky. This ingenious technology makes use of a concept called “greywater”. Runoff water from the bathroom sink feeds into the toilet, and is then used for flushing. The water works twice at no additional cost! Given that about 40% of all water used in households is used to flush toilets, combining the sink and toilet in such a unique new product system saves the typical two-person household between 10 and 20 gallons a day, or about 5,000 gallons per year.

Soladey toothbrush
Japanese company Soladey took a step back and decided that the tooth-brushing system as we know it didn’t need as many elements. So they built a photocatalytic titanium dioxide rod into the handle of their toothbrush. Brushing teeth with this toothbrush in a bright room causes chemical reactions to break down tooth plaque, eliminating the need for toothpaste.¹ By combining two elements of the toothbrush product system, Soladey has created a streamlined system with the potential for significantly reduced environmental impact.²

gDiapers
According to the EPA, in 2005 approximately 3.5 million tons of diaper waste, representing about 20 billion disposable diapers, were dumped in U.S. landfills, where they will take an estimated 500 years to decompose.³ Two concerned parents invented the gDiaper, capitalizing on new materials and a systems-oriented product view to invent a radically new alternative.

Conventional disposable diapers are composed of an inner diaper made from wood pulp and an outer lining made of plastic, both of which are thrown away with every diaper change. The gDiaper’s advantage is that the inner and outer components are detachable, so that the outer lining can be washed and reused while the inner diaper can be flushed down the toilet. This ensures that the bacteria-laden human waste winds up in the sewage treatment system where it belongs, rather than in a landfill where it can leach into the underground water.⁴ Representing a feasible and convenient alternative to both cloth and disposable diapers with a measurably reduced environmental and material impact, the gDiaper is poised to take significant market share from conventional disposables.

Dematerialize

Reconceive a product so that it requires significantly fewer material inputs (and, consequently, outputs). Ask: can a product perform the same function by using only a fraction of its original materials? In many cases, the answer is yes.

Tricycle’s SIM simulated carpet sample
One company that is taking a swipe at the estimated 1 million pounds of carpet samples that end up in American landfills each year⁵ is Tricycle, a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based design firm. Most carpet swatches used by designers and showrooms are discarded after a single use – and since an average order of carpet samples uses more than seven gallons of oil, the environmental and financial impacts of these swatches can really add up.⁶

Thinking outside the box, Tricycle devised SIM, which relies on an inventive technology that prints images on swatch-sized pieces of paper that simulate the exact colors and textures of a particular section of carpet, but with 95% less water and energy and 100% less oil than conventional swatches. Add to that, traditionally produced swatches may take days or weeks to be delivered from carpet factories, but SIM reduces the wait time to less than 24 hours.⁷

In 2005, SIM clients were shipped about 34,000 paper samples⁸ – saving manufacturers 70% of the costs associated with samples, or about $5 million per year.⁹ For its efforts, Tricycle won a Gold IDEA from the Industrial Designers Society of America for 2006.

E-readers
Suddenly they are everywhere. Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Sony’s Reader, and Apple’s iPad. People are fast abandoning newspapers and books and turning to these and other exciting new e-readers – handheld devices that electronically deliver the content of printed books but with many additional features. With a screen about the size of a paperback book and wireless connectivity that allows users to read their favorite newspapers, magazines, and blogs within moments of publication, users can wirelessly purchase new releases at a significant discount from hardcovers. Books take less than 60 seconds to download, and more than 1,500 titles can be stored at a time, making an e-reader an attractive option whether traveling, commuting, or at home. And the environmental benefits of using e-readers to read electronic books (ebooks) are compelling: the Cleantech Group projects that in 2012, 5.27 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions will be prevented due by ebooks.¹⁰

Create a new system
Sometimes the most effective way to cut down on eco-impacts is to abandon a product concept altogether and create an entirely new system. This requires a business to learn from the larger environment in which its products function. It takes the efforts of cross-functional product development and marketing teams that can interpret information from the full range of product life-cycle phases and synthesize new ideas.

Holistic to the core, systems thinking holds that every employee and citizen has something significant to contribute. It may also entail cooperating with manufacturers of complementary products, reaching out beyond one’s corporate borders to stakeholders in the local community, and even bringing perspectives as diverse as those of children into the process. But the rewards are potentially the most significant because of the inherent potential to change the rules of the game.

Admittedly, the challenge of creating a new system can be daunting if stakeholders feel the ultimate eco-innovation may threaten an existing business; for these reasons, eco-innovative activity needs the full support of the CEO and others responsible for long-term strategy. It is best carried out in a “spin-off” or “incubator” mode or by a start-up with no pre-existing stake in the current system. Within established businesses, potential enemies need to be converted into allies by demonstrating how they can benefit.

Better Place recharging stations
Demand for plug-in hybrid vehicles like Chevy’s Volt and Nissan’s LEAF is projected to skyrocket to 600,000 vehicles by 2015. The drivers of all of those new cars will benefit from an innovation being pioneered by the start-up Better Place, based in Palo Alto, California. They have invented an entirely new system that overcomes the range limitations of electric vehicles.

Rather than making drivers of electric cars wait to recharge their batteries at home overnight, Better Place shifts the paradigm, offering multiple “fill-up” stations where drivers can either exchange their battery for a newly charged one, or opt to charge their battery within the network of charging stations, wired parking lots, and battery replacement stations that Better Place has built throughout their Israeli test market. By the end of 2010, there will be a station every 25 miles – and Better Place also sells the electric cars that can be charged at those stations.¹¹ The company aims to have tens of thousands of electric cars on Israel’s roads by 2011. With the projected costs of battery-powered car ownership as much as 50% lower than a comparable gasoline-powered car, Better Place provides an alternative that is convenient and cost-effective – as well as environmentally sensible.

2 Develop new materials

There are currently thousands of different materials on the market for consumer, commercial, and industrial use, from the softest fibers to bulletproof plastics and metals and everything in between. Each of these materials is particularly suited to meet specific needs or functions – and each bears an environmental impact. Promising new materials are in development, leading to sustainable advances and an ever-growing opportunity for innovation. One particularly exciting material with the potential for a wide range of applications is bioplastics. Now growing in volume between 20% and 30% each year, bioplastics are derived from renewable resources such as corn or sugar cane, contain no toxins (unlike petroleum-based plastics), and are generally compostable in municipal facilities and often backyard composters. Considering that only about 5% of the 30 million tons of plastic used in the U.S. annually is recycled, biodegradable bioplastics have emerged in recent years as a viable method to reduce waste from petroleum-based plastics.¹²

Coke’s PlantBottle
One exciting application for bio-plastics is Coca-Cola’s “PlantBottle,” made from a combination of traditional petroleum-based plastic and up to 30% plant-based materials such as sugar cane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production. A life-cycle analysis conducted by Imperial College London shows the “PlantBottle” represents up to 25% reduced carbon emissions compared with 100% petroleum-based PET. Also, unlike some other plant-based plastics, it can be recycled without contaminating traditional PET.¹³

Metabolix’s Mirel bioplastic
If two big companies have their way, we’ll see a lot more plant-based bottles in the future. Metabolix, a joint venture with Archer Daniels Midland called Telles, and NatureWorks, a Cargill subsidiary, are both staking our big positions in bioplastics. As of this writing, Telles is about to start shipping its Mirel plastic pellets from a new plant in Clinton, Iowa. One of the first products is resin for a $1.25 biodegradable Paper Mate pen made by Newell Rubbermaid. Paper Mate says advance demand is strong. The pen, however, does cost more to make. Metabolix charges about $2.50 a pound for its green plastic, around twice that of traditional feedstock. The good news is that Paper Mate’s pens use so little plastic that the pen maker needs to reduce its margins by only a couple of percentage points compared with its regular pens.¹⁴

Natureworks’s Ingeo bioplastic
Natureworks’s Ingeo brand of bioplastics is made from 100% polylactic acid (PLA) produced by the fermentation of corn. Ingeo’s versatile functionality – like traditional, petroleum-based plastics it can be molded into a variety of forms: opaque, clear, flexible, or rigid – is already being leveraged for a variety of food packaging. Catch it keeping muffins fresh at Target, in use for food serviceware, and in the lining of the Ecotainer, a compostable paper-based cold drink cup, a joint initiative between Coca-Cola and International Paper.¹⁵ Other sustainable brands who have incorporated Ingeo into their products include Noble Juices, for the first juice bottle and shrink sleeve label made from Ingeo, Method’s compostable cleaning wipes, and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ compostable coffee bags. Ingeo polymer can also be converted into a fiber-like polyester, which can be used as fiberfill bedding for use in pillows and comforters. Most recently, it is being used in baby diapers such as the Huggies Natural line.¹⁶

Like all greener products, however, Ingeo has its trade-offs. It is compostable, but will typically only readily break down in industrial composters – taking much longer in backyard compost piles if at all, and there are only about 100 such facilities in the entire United States. Also, PLA products can contaminate the recycling stream when mixed with products made from PET, a look-alike petrochemical resin, thus requiring special labeling and sorting at the PLA products’ end-of-life stage and educating mainstream consumers about proper disposal techniques.¹⁷ A collection and composting system is being developed by the Bioplastics Recycling Consortium to address these issues.¹⁸

3 Develop new technologies

Many people argue that most of our modern-day environmental woes are a direct result of industrialization. However, new eco-innovative technologies can mitigate the problems of the past and pave the way to a more sustainable future. Such technologies can be high-tech, expensive, and complicated, but they can also represent simple, low-tech solutions of comparable efficacy. Three particularly good opportunities exist in the areas of high-efficiency lighting, portable renewable energy, and alternative automotives.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
Just as consumers are getting used to CFLs as a replacement for incandescent lamps, an even more exciting alternative is here to take its place: light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Projected to represent 46% of the $4.4 billion U.S. market for lamps in the commercial, industrial, and outdoor stationary sectors by 2020, LEDs are more efficient and last twice as long – typically 50,000 hours – as CFLs.¹⁹ Also, in contrast to CFLs, LEDs do not need a ballast and do not contain toxic mercury, so they are safer to dispose of.

Historically, prices for these wonder bulbs were an impediment to market acceptance, but thanks to recent innovations affordable LEDs are fast making their way to retail shelves. One standout is EcoSmart LED light bulbs sold exclusively in Home Depot. Retailing for $19.97, compared to over $50 for other 40 watt incandescents, the bulb uses about 80% less energy and is expected to last more than 22 years. Also, it is dimmable, completely recyclable, and offers outstanding quality of light – and will pay back its initial investment in less than two years, accounting for energy and replacement savings.²⁰

Distributed renewable energy
Demand for alternative energy is exploding, and will continue to rise along with consumer concern over climate change and other threats. Thanks to advances in technology, the cost of wind power has fallen by 80% over the past 30 years to between 4 and 6 cents per kWh,²¹ making it competitive to oil (5 cents per kWh) and natural gas (3 cents per kWh).²² In fact, wind power now provides 1% of energy in the U.S., or about enough energy to power 4.5 million homes.²³

Solio solar-powered charger
Long confined to rooftop solar panels and windmills, renewable energy sources are ready to hit the road. They are now accessible via hip, portable consumer products such as Solio, a hand-held, solar-powered charger for small electronic devices such as cell phones, iPods, and digital cameras. Fully charged after a bath in direct sunlight for 8–10 hours, a Solio can run an MP3 player for up to 56 hours.²⁴ Working on the same principle, tote bags and backpacks produced by Voltaic Systems²⁵ and Reware²⁶ power small electronic devices such as cell phones and even laptops via solar panels woven onto the bags.

Swift wind turbine
Who needs the grid? Some consumers are producing clean, renewable energy themselves with the Swift Wind Turbine, designed by the UK-based company Renewable Devices, and produced in the U.S. by Cascade Engineering of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Perched on a rooftop, this small $10,000 turbine sends the 2,000 kilowatts of free electricity it generates each year directly to the consumer’s electric system. Considering that the typical American household consumes between 6,500 and 10,000 kWh of electricity per year, the Swift Wind Turbine can cut a home’s electrical demand from the grid by one-fifth to one-third. A $1,000 federal renewable energy tax credit can defray part of that already reduced cost.²⁷

Human-powered products
A limitless and clean energy resource that is literally available at our fingertips is kinetic energy – and it’s powering a growing number of products. Referred to as human-powered products, these items can be conveniently small – for example, the Ventura digital watch that is powered by the motions of the wearer’s wrist²⁸ – and they can put the power of charging small electronic devices literally into your hands. Consider the Aladdin hand generator that charges cell phones, iPods, or even a portable DVD player with just a few squeezes of a handle.²⁹

Just think about all the kinetic energy produced by bicycles and treadmills! This notion dawned on the owner of a string of gyms in Hong Kong, who rigged cycling and cross-training machines to power a gym’s lights and store extra energy in batteries for later use.³⁰ The Human Power Trainer, made by Windstream Power LLC of North Ferrisburg, Vermont, works on the same concept. It mounts a bicycle on a frame so that the rear tire can turn a turbine that generates power, which is stored in a 12-volt battery which, in turn, powers household appliances. An average person can produce between 100 and 150 watts over the course of a typical workout³¹ – enough power to run a pair of speakers, an electric hand mixer, or a small television.

Alternative automotives
Watch out, Toyota Prius! Gasoline-electric hybrids are getting the attention now, but eco-innovative electric cars with zero direct emissions are driving into town. General Motors hopes to reinvent itself behind the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that will be released in the U.S. for the 2011 model year.³² With a range of 40 miles from a single charge, it can successfully navigate the average (33 mile) daily round-trip commute of most Americans – using zero gasoline and producing zero direct emissions. Unlike a conventional hybrid vehicle that has a second, gasoline-powered engine, the Volt has a gasoline-powered engine that powers a electric generator which kicks in after the battery is drained, so the car is powered exclusively by electric motor.³³ Priced at a hefty $41,000 base cost, up to $7,500 in federal tax credits are available to jumpstart the mainstream market.

What may surpass even electric cars in the long term are vehicles powered by fuel cells. Although electric cars are emission-free, they are still responsible for indirect atmospheric emissions generated by coal- and gas-fired power plants. However, cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells, such as Honda’s FCX Clarity, have the potential if the hydrogen can be generated without emissions, since its production requires natural gas. (Experiments going on in Iceland are currently producing hydrogen using geothermal energy.) Hydrogen fuel cells harness the power created by a chemical reaction between hydrogen gas and the oxygen found in ambient air. The sole by-product of this reaction is pure water.³⁴ The biggest limitation to widespread adoption of fuel cell cars is the lack of hydrogen filling stations, so when Honda rolled out the Clarity in late 2007 it did so only in Southern California, where it had also built refueling facilities.³⁵ Honda has calculated the Clarity’s fuel consumption to be the equivalent of 68 miles per gallon in a gasoline-powered car. With a travel range of 270 miles,³⁶ test drivers report that the Clarity is also a dream to drive.³⁷

4 Develop new business models

Eco-innovative products and services can end up being more expensive than their conventional counterparts because they lack economy of scale, or because they use new materials or technologies. But new business models can surmount these hurdles to acceptance, creating a win-win-win situation for businesses, the environment, and consumers.

Manufacturers and retailers sell products to consumers, who usually assume responsibility for maintenance and eventual disposal. One exciting alternative business model that is currently finding favor is selling the actual service provided by a product, as opposed to simply selling the product outright. Consumers already meet many of their needs through services: they think nothing of doing laundry at a laundromat, renting a car, or borrowing DVDs from Netflix. Take a moment to look at your product through a service lens. Can it be delivered partially or completely by a service? If it can, you may have an opportunity to significantly reduce costs and environmental impacts of your product. Consumers can enjoy the benefits they seek without the need for maintenance, and are assured access to the latest and cleanest technologies. A service-based business model helps businesses retain ownership of the materials and energy that are embodied in the products they design and produce. This helps facilitate repair, reuse, and recycling, whether prompted by regulation or manufacturing economies. Keep in mind that there are trade-offs involved with providing services, like the energy it takes to power an ebook, and, more importantly, to deliver the digital content.

Services can be offered in many innovative ways: providing the product as part of a service; replacing a product, partially or completely with an electronic service; or substituting knowledge, wholly or in part, for a physical product.

Offer the product as part of a service

Zipcar car-sharing service

Consumers don’t need to own a product per se – they just need access to the service (the functionality) that the product represents. Many car owners don’t want to give up the independence afforded by driving their own car, but they would like to skip the hassle of parking and maintenance. These are the principles that underpin the largest car-sharing company in the world, Boston-based Zipcar. For as little as an annual membership fee of $50 and about $8 per hour or $77 per day – gas and insurance included – members can pick up a car, run their errands, and return it to a designated parking spot ready to go for the next member (ever try to find a parking space in Paris or Tokyo at midday?) without the worry of insurance, loans, maintenance, or filling up the tank.⁴⁹

By promoting car sharing as a popular and hip way to avoid the hassles of car ownership, Zipcar, serving 13 cities in the U.S., Canada, and London, England, is becoming the car of choice for urban dwellers, college students, and even corporate fleets – and it has myriad environmental and social benefits, too. Projecting that they have the potential to reduce the number of cars on the road by one million, the company reports that 65% of Zipcar members give up their cars or delay the purchase of a new one.⁵⁰ Furthermore, the company estimates that each Zipcar replaces over 15 privately owned vehicles.⁵¹ Taking cars off the road can translate to less pollution, less dependence on oil, and more green space not needed for parking. And Zip-car members save money, too. According to the company, Zipcar members save more than $500 per month over the cost of car ownership.⁵² As of June 2009, the company had 300,000 members and 6,500 vehicles in urban areas and college campuses throughout 26 North American states and provinces as well as in London, England.⁵³

Vélib bicycle-sharing service
Representing the biking equivalent of car sharing, in 2007 the city of Paris, France, launched Vélib, a pay-as-you-go bicycle rental program. With over 20,000 bicycles in about 1,500 self-service rental kiosks, the bicycles are a convenient, cheap, trendy, and emission-free way for locals and tourists to get around town. Bikes can be rented for pre-paid amounts of time ranging from 30 minutes up to one week, and then dropped off at any kiosk. In the first year alone, more than 27.5 million trips – an average of 120,000 trips per day – significantly reduced car congestion and earned the city more than $31 million in revenue.⁵⁴ The concept is being emulated around the world in Barcelona, Mexico City, and London.

College textbook rentals
Product sharing isn’t limited to transportation; Cengage Learning, one of the largest textbook publishers in America, has recently adopted it. In August 2009, the company announced that it would begin renting textbooks to college students, who, upon purchase, will receive immediate access electronically to the first chapter, then receive the physical book by mail. They can then either return or sell the book after a set rental period.⁵⁵ At 40% to 70% of the sale price, the option to rent textbooks promises to defer the often-bemoaned cost of college textbooks, and is environmentally sound. Through its iChapters service, Cengage is also one of a growing list of companies who will sell students downloadable PDF chapters of textbooks, for a complete digital learning experience.

Power purchase agreements
Solar power is a clean energy source that is attractive because sunlight is free – but the time it takes to recoup the initial investment prevents wider adoption among homeowners. That’s where the power purchase agreement (PPA) comes in. Under a PPA, a provider installs (at its own expense or usually with the help of a third-party lender or a bank) solar panels on a residential rooftop or commercial property. The customer then purchases the resulting power at a fixed rate for the term of the contract, often at a lower rate than power generated by the local electric company.⁵⁶ Launched by California’s SunEdison LLC, SunPower, and REC Solar,⁵⁷ the PPA provider is responsible for maintaining the solar panel system for a set period, usually 15 years, when the customer can purchase the system or extend the PPA.

Substitute an electronic service for a product, wholly or in part
Digital media represents untold opportunity for eco-innovation by replacing material products with electronic services with superior performance. Surface mail has quickly evolved into email, newspaper content is delivered on a BlackBerry or iPhone, and a single CD-ROM can carry 90 million phone numbers. Digital product delivery lies at the heart of Apple’s iPod, one of the most successful new product introductions ever, with its iTunes database of music selections. Similarly, Netflix members rent movies online and receive DVDs through the mail, or stream movies directly from the Internet. Netflix recently signed up its tenth million member and delivered its two billionth DVD.⁵⁸

Zonbu computer service
Is there a virtual desktop in your future? If Zonbu computer has its way, traditional computer ownership will be replaced by a subscription service. In 2007, Silicon Valley’s Zonbu began selling a simplified desktop computer for $99. Users pay a monthly subscription fee of about $15 for access to Zonbu’s centralized Web-based programs, operating system, storage space, and virus protection. Should you lose your laptop or the computer malfunctions, your files are safe on Zonbu’s servers and accessible from another Zonbu computer, eliminating the hassles of computer maintenance tasks such as software updates and virus and spyware protection. Zonbu’s desktop computer (the company launched a laptop in 2008) was the first consumer-oriented computer to earn a “Gold” rating by the Electronic Product Environment Assessment Tool (EPEAT), which evaluates electronic products in relation to 51 total environmental criteria.⁵⁹

Substitute knowledge for a physical product, wholly or in part

Integrated pest management
Why make a product when your brain can do the job with no environmental impact at all? Take pest control. Integrated pest management (IPM) relies on information about the life-cycles of pests and their interaction with the environment, keeping the use of chemical pesticides to a minimum. Pest control companies use IPM to monitor pest populations and determine if and when pest control action must be taken. Most importantly, IPM programs help manage crops, lawns, and indoor areas to prevent pests from becoming a threat in the first place. IPM represents the opportunity for a profitable contract management business model; get paid to keep pests away, rather than simply apply costly and toxic chemicals once they appear.

5 Restore the environment

Eco-design and eco-innovation share a worthy goal: minimizing environmental impact. But what if one were to consider new products or services based on revolutionary new materials and technologies that could actually restore the social, environmental, and economic systems that sustain us?

BASF PremAir ozone catalyst
Consider all the pollution a car generates. Gasoline combustion creates ground-level ozone, the main component of smog that can aggravate respiratory problems such as asthma. Enter the BASF PremAir ozone catalyst, which, when attached to car radiators, converts to oxygen up to 80% of the ground-level ozone that comes into contact with the device.⁶⁰ The PremAir catalyst purifies the air as you drive, and is now standard in several automobiles, including all Volvo models and certain BMW, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, and Hyundai cars.⁶¹

PUR water purifier
Procter & Gamble’s PUR brand water purifier is a small satchel filled with powder. When stirred into a bucket of dirty water and filtered out, it removes dirt, microbial cysts (such as cryptosporidium) and pollutants, and kills viruses and bacteria, leaving safe, drinkable water.⁶² Distributed by 70 nonprofits in developing countries where it has helped to purify more than 1.6 billion gallons of water, it has now found a new market in the United States and Canada as a camping/emergency preparedness tool.

Chapters 4 and 5 discussed several strategies for greening one’s existing products (eco-design) and offered several strategies for eco-innovating -developing the next generation of products and services with the ability to significantly minimize environmental impact. With greener products and eco-innovations in hand, green marketers are prepared to develop credible impactful branding and communications, the subject of the next two chapters.