How Coronavirus Could Change the Products We Use
The culture and financial shock of Coronavirus / Covid-19 and how deeply it has changed daily life for millions around the globe may be a wake-up call for how climate change could alter our society. If so, consumers can help solve the problem by demanding products with greater resource efficiency. Companies will need to prove the “cradle-to-grave” impact of their products and demonstrate a path to increasing the value delivered per resource used. One solution to this demand for products with greater resource efficiency lies in new materials.
It’s an open question whether the 2020 pandemic will cause widespread understanding of the risks that climate change poses, and ultimately generate dramatically increased action to beat this next challenge. If this comes to pass, many more consumers will view the climate challenge as a personal responsibility (and a personal risk) and will seek to contribute to the cause. Beyond choices of profession and workplace, consumers can make choices with the products they buy and the companies they buy from.
The tools to make these choices today are not yet robust, but they will advance. Between Energy Star ratings, miles per gallon (or kilowatt) and other common efficiency metrics, there is a good basis for consumers to evaluate energy consumption for their products, homes, vehicles and other significant purchases. The same basis does not exist in a widespread manner for the resource efficiency of a given product. Resource efficiency involves not only the energy consumed in operating a product, but also the materials and energy to produce and distribute a product, the recyclability or end of life options for a product, and whether the product’s operation has any negative externalities (such as releasing toxic chemicals into the environment for current waterproof clothing).
When robust personal incentives (I pay less money for gas with a car that has better mileage) and strong trackable metrics exist, they give rise to a market for products with greater resource efficiency. Competition in this market will drive down the resources used per unit of value created and innovations that deliver this advantage will be adopted.
There are several examples of this already in motion. All Birds, a sustainable footwear company, showed outstanding leadership in this area by recently deciding to label their products with a carbon footprint metric. If this enters mainstream thinking in the footwear or apparel space, brands will factor carbon footprint heavily in making product design choices as it will directly influence consumer purchase decisions. Bolt Threads is another example, launching a replacement leather that can be produced in a lab; reducing the need for land, animals, and time required to produce current leather — an impact that is explicitly part of the value proposition. Impossible Foods, a sustainable meat producer, goes even further and will show you on their website the number of trees saved, carbon emissions avoided, and water use avoided by choosing to eat artificially produced meat. These companies are innovators today, defining tomorrow’s expectations for products we regularly use and consume.
One common theme through these and many other present-day examples is a re-examination of the materials used in a product and how those materials are created. Why is this the case? Why does a shift towards resource efficient products in our society accelerate new materials adoption? Because materials are impactful twice-over: they can improve the performance, lifetime, or output of a product, and can change the lifecycle possibilities for that product, from production techniques to use to end of life. Those who invest and pursue materials that enable products with greater resource efficiency have the opportunity to emerge from this crisis as the leaders of a new paradigm.
