Sustaining an Advantage

The 3 ideas above are rapidly catching on in the world of "competing in the future". No longer on the fringe of anything, sustainable thinking is a unique selling proposition (USP) for many companies. A core fundamental of design thinking, developing sustainable approaches to making products, services and packages, is an imperative in this new decade. Consider the direct opposite, the phony "planned obsolesce" movement of days past, the impact it had and the seriousness with which it was taken. Sustainability in our moment is many times more important and impactful, honest and meaningful. The idea that good design is good business these days can be supported with increasing frequency by the metrics of growth and profitability.

Apple, Dyson and Nike, clearly all design driven, will soon be joined by other companies leveraging design as their primary competitive advantage. But sustainable perspectives and the business advantages they bring need not wait for whole companies to be born in order to be employed. Sustainable approaches to creating products need to appear tomorrow in the places they don’t currently exist. Thinking seriously about sustainability can result in smart strategies on both the shopping floor and the manufacturing floor. It’s not a matter of creating a future advantage so much as staying around and competing at any level.