Strategy
Global Race for the Future
“The future is not something to be feared or predicted but rather something to be imagined and created. “
01 Scenario planing
Solution
Businesses are setting long-term goals for 2050, and it is crucial to consider how to transform our systems to meet these goals. Navigating the risks and disruptions heading towards 2050 should be part of a longer-term strategy. This means that strategy is not a straight line but rather multiple scenarios that develop simultaneously. All focus on the long-term goals but via different flexible routes.
Future opportunities
Planning in scenarios instead of predicting makes a company more flexible and agile. A high degree of disruption and the rapid growth of technology creates opportunities for data-informed models or digital twins. These can monitor all elements of the business, such as costs, and the broader world around it, such as geopolitical tensions, and can test and find possible solutions. A company's strategic thinking becomes more important, with a vision of what you want to be in 5-10 years and how to create a positive impact in the broader world.
Monitoring systems
HEAVY.AI is an American-based software company, that uses graphics processing units and central processing units to query and visualize big data. This can help to simulate large-scale systems faster and make time-sensitive, high-impact decisions more efficiently.
Instead of trying to predict the future, scenario thinking can broaden our horizons and allow us to imagine a world that is different from the current one. Stories and science fiction are tools to explore the human dilemmas for living a healthy and more fulfilling life.
02 Circularity
Solution
Circularity can mean that a product is completely biodegradable and returns to the Earth or that the materials can be used repeatedly. In a circular economy, companies are the owners and responsible guardians of the material. When everything stays in the cycle, the complete product portfolio combines your history and future innovations; it constantly evaluates everything you created, learning from the past and developing for the future.
Future opportunities
Circularity also means extending the life of products, creating good quality products that can be used and passed on for a long time. Digital passports allow users to see the products' source, production and heritage. Each product will have a digital passport that shows the product's origins and possible previous owners. Resell requires a new attitude from brands. A change from thinking about the consumer's moment of purchase to a vision of the lifelong use of the product.
Circular natural sportswear
Circle is a French sportswear brand that creates circular technical clothing for running, yoga and training. The SoftWood_Tech collection is made the 100% recyclable material, Tencel, which is made from wood scraps and is locally made.
Circularity means that a product is created with its end-of-life taken into account. To develop true circularity, our systems will have to change but also our relationship with products and with the users of the products.
03 Systems thinking
Solution
Sustainability can be better achieved by applying a systems thinking approach that enables businesses to understand the socio-political and natural ecosystems they operate in. It can be challenging to think about the multitude of possible long and short-term systemic impacts of a new solution, but inactivity is more expensive than action. Legislation and company values can encourage conscious behaviour and decarbonization of production, energy, and materials.
Future opportunities
Before introducing any new product, service, or innovation, businesses need to understand how the system works to be responsible for its impact. Innovations can provide new and better ways of doing things, but long-term systemic impacts need to be considered in the process. Systems thinking can help businesses make the right decisions and achieve their goals while minimizing their impact on the larger systems they operate within.
Proactive change
In 1994, years before sustainability became the most important topic in design (the Cradle to Cradle book is from 2002), flooring company Interface was already laying the groundwork for positive change. Interface has developed Mission Zero, a long-term commitment to eliminating negative environmental impacts. Stating that it is not enough to do no harm, their strategy is to do better and restore the environment proactively.