Reinventing its own business should be of strategic relevance for every corporation. For both the design of sustainable products and the development of new business models, the innovation process needs to consider sustainability evaluations and metrics at various stages in the process. We will present a framework for innovating in a sustainable way.
A lot of companies have an innovation process in work. Usually, it includes design thinking elements at the beginning for the idea researching and idea validation (e.g. the double diamond method), and is followed by the lean start up method which helps to incrementally improve the previously validated product or venture idea. As sustainability becomes a major driver for our parent Viessmann and us, we integrated sustainability measures into each stage of the innovation process. On all process steps, sustainability criteria can be applied.
We present what we learned along the way and make it feasible with real life project examples. For idea researching, we will demonstrate how the boundaries of idea identification can be adapted to comply to sustainability. For idea validation, we will not only present how the desirability, viability & feasibility of an idea can be addressed, but also demonstrate how sustainability can and should be a major decision driver to continue with a product or venture idea or not. Finally, also software development itself includes multiple ways to make products more sustainable, ranging from the design choices, infrastructure provider choices & tracking scope.
As the innovation process (double diamond & lean start up) is best practice among innovation units among different industries, and all of want to make an impact on respectfully treating our planet, Bits & Bäume’s audience will gain inspiration on how we can make sustainable innovation work. With our roots from Viessmann, which has an upright agenda to scale heat pump and solar infrastructure implementation, wattx also brings along the required authenticity to present this approach.