Sustainability is one of the hottest topics in the business world at present. There is a hunt to find a new growth engine for a business and fundamentally show the pathway to a sustainable future.
A sustainable future that mobilizes action in searching for new economic thinking. One which incorporates a more circular model of management that builds a more purposeful recycling approach that has the objective to reduce the pressures on our use of precious minerals and resources and current consumption patterns.
- A sustainable design that turns today’s promise of decarbonization into a real, meaningful one, that delivers tangible and quantifiable solutions in product and the extended supply chain
- A sustainable design that shifts our thinking into a more equality-sharing model where respect for our planet, people, and environment is central to our actions. They become the core of a well-understood value system that recognizes diversity, inclusion and community development.
- A sustainable design that recognizes the “twin” pressures of moving as rapidly to a net-zero achievement as we can. Also recognizing that our planet is under great threat in nature, our plants, animals, land and water and any sustainability focus needs clear biodiversity goals, EQUAL or greater, than our emissions goals.
Each organization is evaluating and embarking on its sustainability journey.
I would caution the many that this “sustainability journey” is not a five-year response, determined by today’s existing management but a lasting one that transforms what we do and undertakes a transformation into new economic thinking and business models that “accounts” in radically different ways, where financial numbers follow planetary concerns.
We will need to re-learn much and map it out.
Our innovation needs to become well designed as “responsible innovation” with sustainability in all that we design, build and provide.
To get to this new design, we need different thinking.
We need a greater horizon projection. For me, this can come from engaging and mapping ideas that have sustainability within them into a Three Horizon Sustainability Framework. We learn, experiment and embed sustainability into our everyday thinking.
Fundamentally, we need to reduce risks and become far more transparent in our actions and achievements; we need to strengthen society and all stakeholders to trust that the sustainability pathway chosen is well thought through and highly connected.
We need to connect today’s business with that new sustainable one in the future. To plan and expand out the transition, so new opportunities have “grounded into them” solutions that are more accessible and affordable, ones that have this circular business model as central.
A future to have ambitions that are constant improving and challenging in designs, when technology advances can bridge the digital divide, improve purpose and leverage technology to give fresh meaning to the delivery of real sustaining purpose.
Any journey needs a clear sense of purpose or governance; it needs resources and discipline to bring the ideas and concepts to fruition.
The UN Agenda for Sustainable Development has Seventeen Goals. Still, it is the ability to translate the need for sustainability into a driving force that has at its heart the following aspects.
We need to rapidly adapt and layout our sustainability journey that has real intent and purpose.
- Sustainability becomes the new core of the business
- We turn the wake-up call into a well-designed journey
- The investments made will have different ROI horizons
- Strong credentials on sustainability will be highly valued
- A new financial set of calculations will drive recognition of change
- The urgency of the journey will become unrelenting.
- Investors and stakeholders will become highly demanding on this issue of sustainability increasingly into the future.
- The goals, milestones and actions must be seen to be highly calibrated.
To achieve this set of objectives, we need to communicate in written and highly interactive, visual forms. In my opinion, the three horizon approach provides the connectivity between where we are today and where we need to get to in the future and why the middle, horizon two, is so essential.
The essential understanding of Horizon 2 becomes crucial.
Within this three horizon framework, horizon 2 becomes the critical one to understand and manage.
FYI, this was the framing of my intent on focusing on the energy transition in this post to outline where I was explaining the importance of this horizon 2 within the energy shifts that need to occur.
“The second horizon (H2) is the one you need to move through. It is the place to let go of much of the past. Yet, it also allows you to build, experiment, and validate these solutions that seem viable for the future. In this horizon 2, you identify how to draw out the nature of the tensions and dilemmas between vision and reality. You can separate the distinction between innovations that serve to prolong the status quo needed and necessary (keep the lights on, allow for a bridge from one fuel system (oil, gas, coal) to another that is more sustaining and based on technology breakthroughs and the renewables available (wind, solar, water).”
Never underestimate this traversing across Horizon 2
I wrote this post “traversing across into horizon 2 for new breaking innovation” that gives a real dose of realities to attempt this radical journey from the existing business model and its value extraction into the new one.
Horizon two poses a real challenge within any management of our organizations.
Certainly, if many of today’s solutions provide current small bases of volume to warrant a change then we need a more incremental approach in making change. If they are highly complex and expensive to change or reconfigure and will need a substantial change then a more radical re-design is required.
There is a risk perhaps that no real additional meaningful profit from the investments made but this is where the more central sustainability core is determined as the necessity, Existing and future products and services all become real points of discussion. This often can be a hard sell across the organization.
Projects that focus on future work mostly are based on ‘best’ assumptions but do need future thinking application. Sadly, executives often expect to see the same ‘hard’ metrics being applied as the existing business. We ignore significant differences or avoid making shifts in product design and then this is a huge mistake. Design in the future needs a sustaining core.
We must move our thinking beyond the here and now, and push it into the future if we want to transform our thinking and build a sustainable business “formed”on new economic values and approaches. This shift takes a very different mindset and where the three horizons framework can help significantly in balancing any sustainability aims, planning and portfolio management to undertake such a radical shift in mindsets.
I urge you to consider the three horizons as a framework that can significantly help your sustainability journey. I believe I can help guide and work with you on this if required.
*I offer a good amount of thinking about the three horizons approach, mostly for innovation.