“Innovation is an unreasonable request” says Adam Lowry, Co-founder of Method, the ground-breaking San Francisco-based company who has taken soap to heights of “coolness” normally reserved for electronics and pop culture. Lowry was just one of many business leaders in discussion at the inaugural Sustainable Corporation conference, put together recently by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and held at Oracle’s campus in Silicon Valley.
Although there were many inspiring stories of sustainability, (including the famous case study of Serious Energy's groundbreaking eco retrofit of the Empire State building), Lowry’s insights from the trenches stood out. Method is a company so centered on design thinking and product excellence, that their sustainability credentials are an after thought.
Much like software innovation, Method has created a culture and internal process heavy on proto-typing, with resin, shelf design, photography, and bottles all easily created, evaluated and modified. Method’s motto of “progress > perfection” is strikingly similar to Facebook’s “move fast and break things”. Both encourage an environment that supports creative confidence and a norm of learning and creating by the whole team. This is the Method method, which, incidentally, is also the title of a book about the company due out later this year.
Lowry’s claim that innovation is an unreasonable request hinges on the operating imperatives of a company. Because true innovation is sweeping in scope and usually impacts the core functions of a company, it is not readily embraced – no one wants to threaten the engine of a company. However, sustainability requires innovation, and for that to be possible, a company must have a culture open to change in the first place.
Lowry emphasized that the competitive benchmark of the future is the experience economy, whether the iPhone, the interior of a car, or Method soap. The “how” is the disruptive part of a product, not the what. “Green is not a differentiator,” says Lowry, “people don’t want a badge, they want a better product”.
We’re committed to sustainability here at BetterWorld. But above all, we’re committed to excellent service and world class products. Because caring for people and planet is just one facet of what a really great service and company should do. That’s the future of business.
And that’s the future of telecom too, it epitomizes the change we seek to be within the telecoms industry.
In service,
The BetterWorld Team
Posted in: B Corps Events General Blog Green Telecom
