sustainability
AndrewWinston, Harvard professor, and author of
Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge fromthe Downturn on Top, tells Ann O’Dea about the companies that are profiting fromhelping customers use less of their products
HERETICAL INNOVATION
It may seem counter-intuitive, but in today’s more envi- ronmentally conscious world,many leading companies are working with their customers to help them use less of their products. That is according to Andrew Winston, co-author of Green to Gold, and author of Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top. Winston, who has for many years been advising leading companies on how they can profit from environ- mental thinking, calls this phenomenon “heretical inno- vation”. It is a concept he deals with in Green Recovery, which looks at how the greening of business can actually drive innovation and profitability in your organisation. “When I talk about heretical innovation, I mean this
idea that we need to ask very difficult questions about ourselves, about the business, about the core way our industry or sector or company operates, and really funda- mentally question consumption,” he tells me. Winston has been looking at two US corporate giants in
particular that illustrate this fundamental shift in think- ing. “Both Xerox and Waste Management are doing something mostly unheard of,” he says. “They’re working with customers to help them use less of their traditional product or service.What’s really important is that these are not just niche product lines, but fundamental shifts in what these companies do.” According to Winston, this shift is not optional, with
both companies undergoing fundamental transformations in order to adapt to new realities. “Xerox has been navigating the shift to digital docu-
ments for years,” he says. “And Waste Management, by the nature of its business, is facing an existential threat.”
Waste to win Winston cites the latter’s CEO, Dave Steiner, who recently said: “When your company is called Waste Management, and your customers all talk about ‘zero waste,’ you better change your business model.” “Waste Management, which makes money hauling
waste, is now working with companies to help them pro- duce zero waste to landfill,” saysWinston. “Today it diverts those waste streams to recycling facil-
ities which segregatematerials to resell, or to go to waste- to-energy (WTE) plants. “Now instead of paying to dump garbage, customers
may get paid for valuablematerial, while the other stream of waste will create a potentially significant source of clean energy. In itsWTE plants,WasteManagement now produces enough energy to power one million homes, which is more than all the solar power in the US!”
Less is more Meanwhile Xerox is helping companies to use fewer printers, less paper and less ink. “This is seemingly heretical but it is the way companies need to innovate; they need to innovate their service model, innovate the kind of products they sell,” saysWinston. He explains how Xerox advises companies on how to
save money on document handling, and how it has grabbed a 48pc market share in the US$7.78bn managed print services (MPS) industry. “Part of this new strategy is an outsourcing play —
they’ll take over all your print needs for you, in order to grab share. This is clearly not a niche business. This is a
Spring 2011 Irish Director 59
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