Eco-Innovation: The Next Business Megatrend

Eco-efficiency and eco-innovation are two concepts with a growing presence in the world of corporate sustainability. Marc Stoiber highlights two companies – Domtar and Replenish – at the helm of this trend.

Corporate sustainability is gathering momentum in North America. Companies like Wal-Mart and GE are indisputably proving the business case for efficiency with an environmental slant, and unprecedented numbers of corporations are jumping on the eco-efficiency bandwagon. Although it is still early days, indicators are that this trend could become a megatrend, influencing not only our economy, but our perspective on how companies should behave.

As eco-efficiency gathers steam, however, we are seeing signs of another trend on the horizon. Eco-innovation appears to be the next iteration of eco-efficiency, but with greater potential for both brand and revenue building.

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The Treatment High

What happens when recovered addicts go back
to work, groceries, getting the car fixed, and
boring conversations about the playoffs?

Frances Bula – writer of our August cover story on B.C.'s booming addiction treatment industry – asks: Are addicts simply swapping the narcotic rush for the ecstasy of treatment?

When I told one guy who works in the addiction field that I was writing a story about the treatment industry, he laughed and said, “Oh, it’s not an industry. It’s religion – and addiction specialists are the new voodoo doctors.”

I’m not quite that cynical. There is a lot of interesting science research being done on addiction and that research is filtering out to the treatment field. But I had to admit that he had a point about the religious feel to the programs.  

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BP's [re]Branding Challenge

Is the damage to BP's brand too grave, or can
the company revive its name and image?

Is the BP name tarnished for good, or can the company revive its brand after one of the worst oil spills in history?

It's been a hundred days since the Deepwater Horizon exploded. Today the oil cap is in place, Tony Hayward has been exiled to Russia, and we're rolling up our sleeves for a cleanup of mind-numbing magnitude.

While it appears BP has stemmed the flow and the spill won't get any worse, there are still many unknowns. One of those is the fate of BP's now infamous 'Beyond Petroleum' brand. Any brand would take a drubbing in a catastrophe like this. But BP has been hammered exponentially harder because of the company's greener-than-thou repositioning in 2000.

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The BP Oil Spill: Spawning Innovation or Just Spoofs?

What will it take to inspire change amid the
chaos of the BP oil spill?

The BP oil spill has stirred up controversy, debate and mockery, but what about innovation?

A week ago reporters arrived at my office looking for an opinion on a new Greenpeace contest to redesign BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’ logo to something “more suitable for their dirty business.”

The reporters pointed me to a Flickr site with hundreds of contest entries – some amateurish, others clearly done by professional art directors and graphic designers.

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Eco-Innovation Highs and Lows: A Review

Looking at four categories of eco-innovations,
and whether they're worth anything

Creative destruction, eco-frivolity and 67 other innovations I saw this week.

For anyone with even a passing interest in innovation, the Trendwatching Brief should be considered mandatory reading. Apart from providing a refreshing perspective on international creativity, the brief challenges you to rethink consumption, values and human behaviour. Plus, of course, it’s a fun read.

So it was with great interest that I opened the latest brief titled Innovation Insanity. It presented 67 innovations from around the world that were ‘on trend’ – perfect for living better, saving the planet or just plain looking cool.

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What Your Employees Know About Green Innovation That You Don't

While working on a global launch of a green household product, I had the opportunity to speak to the project chemist about the product’s truly revolutionary ingredients.

"It’s incredible that you could come up stuff like this – it’s so much less harmful for the planet, and works as well as the old stuff. How long did it take to develop it?" I asked.

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