Sustainable Strategies in Product Development Projects

Today, I finally release the first version of a digital publication content entitled:

Yay!

This is the story of how it all began…

While working with SMEs, I realize that it is quite challenging to start a conversation about being sustainable because there are a lot of ways to introduce the concept.

For example, I can start with the theories related to sustainability and how they evolved and connected to the concept of the circular economy. It is also interesting to start the discussion with the social and environmental aspects initiated by Victor Papanek’s book Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (1971). As much as I love talking about this, such content is impractical when you only have 30 to 60 minutes of time for the first meeting.

Potential clients are often those who are interested to delve into sustainability but not necessarily ready to commit. Regardless of their level of interest, it is a sure thing to receive these questions in particular:

“How can this approach reduce cost?”

“Can I make profits with this approach?”

The questions may not be as direct but they often revolve around cost and profit i.e money. Money is a reasonable and legit reason to be concerned. As much as we like the beautiful story about being green, including the monetary aspect in your assessment is vital to ensure the sustainability of a project.

It is what turns our world around whether we like the idea or not.

Nevertheless, there is no definitive answer to that question. The concept of sustainability is wide and complex. I find that giving one example may narrow their perception towards a particular solution that may or may not be relevant. This can diminish the opportunity to take into consideration the problems or opportunities within the context of their business and its future trajectory.

That being said, offering an overview of the various strategies and the benefits of adopting them in the business are vital to get their buy-in.

It is a tricky situation to handle. On one hand, it is essential to understand their business, examine the internal and external conditions, define problems to be tackled, and explore innovation potentials and directions. On the other hand, enabling business owners to learn about different sustainable strategies can increase their confidence and get them on board, especially when they themselves can identify certain strategies that benefit the business right away.

To do both required some kind of support system. In this case, the support is a digital publication (a type of tool) that presents 80 different strategies in 8 common phases on the product development process.

The idea of sharing sustainable strategies has been in my mind for a long time. After my talk on ‘Elements of Sustainability in Product Development Projects’ at the webinar on Innovation on Green Technology organized by Politeknik Sultanah Bahiyah, Kulim, Malaysia, I finally made the first move to start the project!

You can check out the first version via the link below.

https://mailchi.mp/bfda11524acc/sustainable-strategies-by-hint-studio

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