GreenBlue Uses Value Innovation Process to Make Business Case for Sustainability

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, June 18, 2013 /3BL Media/ – Sustainability non-profit GreenBlue’s Advisory Services Group is now working with corporate clients on sustainability-focused value innovation. Based on a strategic process co-developed by former colleagues and co-authors Nina Goodrich, now GreenBlue’s Executive Director, and Richard Lee, Chief Executive Officer of Value Innovations, Inc., a GreenBlue Advisory Services team will help companies walk through a ten-step course of action that strategically links sustainability with innovation.

“Innovation and sustainability must be linked and deeply embedded in corporate culture and reflected in long-term strategy as drivers of future growth,” noted Goodrich, pointing to a recent study by Michael Barnett of Rutgers University and Robert Salomon of New York University that found that only companies that make a serious and long-term commitment to sustainability reap the economic benefits of their environmental and social endeavors. Superficial sustainability initiatives, the study showed, can actually increase cost, leave stakeholders unmoved, and impair financial performance.  

GreenBlue’s sustainability-focused adaptation of the value innovation methodology starts by helping companies identify who their most important sustainability customer group is. It continues with a series of contextual interviews with a representative sampling of the most important customer group and leads to an iterative plotting and validation of “as-is” and “to-be” value curves. These value curves serve as a roadmap to sustainability strategies and solutions.

“Our value innovation for sustainability process is a learn-by-doing engagement, designed to tie innovation and sustainability to the DNA of a company,” said Katherine O’Dea, Senior Director of Innovation and Advisory Services at GreenBlue. “While we work with our clients on an immediate sustainability issue or need, we also train an internal team to be able to repeat and reapply the process to future sustainability challenges and opportunities until it becomes standard operating procedure.” The process is applicable for large, mid-size or small companies, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. It can be applied at the strategy, product, process, or service level. “Because a key step in the value innovation process is contextual interviewing, the process also tends to generate stakeholder trust, which generally translates into maximum return on sustainability investments,” added O’Dea.

To bring Value Innovation for Sustainability to your group, contact O’Dea at katherine.odea@greenblue.org or 434 817 1424 x329.

About GreenBlue Advisory Services

GreenBlue® is a nonprofit that equips business with the science and resources to make products more sustainable. _­Through Advisory Services, GreenBlue provides one-on-one guidance to companies, industry associations, government agencies, and nonprofits using a broad suite of sustainability solutions and services.