Innovation and Technology 

 

Predicting the future is a dangerous game – the future is never a straight, linear extrapolation from the present. Unexpected innovations and events will conspire to trip up the best-laid plans, but it’s still better than not thinking about the future at all. To help you understand our ever changing marketplace, we provide insights from Futurist Richard Watson from his 2010 trend blend predictions for the next 40 years and the

2009+ Predictions – the 10 Trends: Predictions and Provocations prepared by Now and Next. It’s also worth looking at Richard Watson’s various Books on current and future trends.  They will prove indispensable to business planners and strategists, and anyone else that is curious about the future or needs to stay ahead of the game.

 

1996 – 2015 US EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award Winners

US EPA, Market US, Years 1996 – 2015

Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous substances and aims to significant environmental benefits, innovation and a strengthened economy. Be inspired by past winners!

 
Harvard Business Review: Surviving Disruption

Harvard Business School, Market: Global, Year: 2012

Disruptive innovations are like missiles launched at your business. For 20 years we’ve described missile after missile that took aim and annihilated its target, and all along we’ve prescribed a single response to ensure that when the dust settles, you’ll still have a viable business” Develop a disruption of your own before it’s too late to reap the rewards of participation in new, high-growth markets.Download Here

 

 
Citystates II: The Case for Corporate Leadership in Urban Sustainability

SustainAbility, Market: Australia, Year:2015

Daunting challenges – from climate change to food and water security, from nutrition and public health to inequality and social exclusion – confront global cities today. But an exciting range of solutions – from distributed power generation and multi-modal transportation networks to compact development, urban farming and smart cities – is emerging also. Bringing these and other innovations to scale will be crucial for ensuring both the future of individual cities and broader sustainable development… Read more

Fiber-Based Solution to replace plastics

Monadnock, Market: Australia, Year:2015

Monadnock Paper Mills, Inc., a manufacturer of specialty papers for the technical, packaging and printing markets, has launched EnviPortfolio® – a Fiber-Based Solution to replace plastics across a broad range of applications and end-uses in retail, hospitality and other consumer-facing markets such as gift cards, beverage labels, tags and environmental graphics… http://mpm.com/products-and-capabilities/envi-portfolio/ Read more

 

 
Advancing Sustainable Packaging Technologies

Brynn W.Mcnally, Sustainable Brands, Market: Australia, Year: 2015

The Coca-Cola Company and Liquid Light, a technology company focused on converting carbon dioxide into major industrial chemicals, have come together to accelerate production of mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) – a component used to make Coca-Cola’s plant-based PET PlantBottleTM. The core technology is its low-energy catalytic electrochemistry, which converts CO2 to multi-carbon chemicals. This technology has the potential to reduce both the environmental footprint and the cost of producing MEG… Read more

 

 
Prawns found to be key in stopping the spread of deadly parasite in West Africa

Sustainable Brands, Market: Australia, Year:2015

Stanford researchers in Senegal, West Africa, has found that freshwater prawns can serve as an effective natural solution in the battle against schistosomiasis, a potentially deadly parasitic disease that infects roughly 230 million people. The prawns prey on parasite-infected snails, while providing a marketable, protein-rich food source. Because prawns cannot support schistosomiasis’ complex life cycle, they do not transmit the disease themselves… Read more

 
Case Study

2012 UK Guardian Sustainable Business Awards

The Guardian Sustainable Business in the UK has some great case studies from their annual Sustainable Business Awards. Check out the 2012 Innovation Winners.

 

 

From Parisian catwalks to your home, 3D printing is democratising fashion

The guardian Market: Global, Year: 2014

While these industries have been radically transformed by the DIY ethos imbued in technology, the clothing retail model remains ‘undisrupted’. However, some designers and developers working in 3D printing are envisioning the day when consumers will download their favourite designer’s fall collection and print a tailored-fit piece in their home, rather than purchasing a standard size on the high street. Read more…

Fashion meets renewable energy – clothes that charge your smartphone

The guardian Market: Global, Year: 2014

From fibres that convert sunlight into electrical energy, to uploading your kinetic energy to a green energy bank, the worlds of fashion and technology are merging

Discover how…

Pee Power. How going to the loo can recharge a smartphone.

The economist Market: UK, Year: 2014

The BioEnergy Team of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) in Britain, are hoping to profit from working with urine and faeces. They have developed a new technique to turn urine into electrical power-or urine-tricity as they call it. Some may think this is very yellow – but it’s actually is VERY blue!

IT guru says every successful strategy is a people strategy

Jennifer Pahlka/Greenbiz.com Market: Global, Year: 2014

The late leadership guru Peter Drucker once wrote, “In any organization, regardless of its mission, the CEO is the link between the Inside, i.e., ‘the organization,’ and the Outside – society, the economy, technology, markets, customers, the media, public opinion.”

Last year, Code for America executive director Jennifer Pahlka took those words to heart and headed to Washington, D.C., for a one-year “fellowship” as U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Her goal: to better understand the public sector agency that the organization’s private-sector technology experts are trying to serve.Discover how every strategy needed to be a people strategy

 

We will let the sun shine.

The Australian Institute Market: Australia, Year: 2014

A new report by the Australian Institute shows jobs in the solar sector having recently eclipsed the coal-fired energy sector and is likely to become a huge job creator with another 8000 jobs expected to be created by 2018.

Company unlocks secret to making plastic out of air

CBS News Market: USA, Year: 2014

The plastics industry creates 1.8 trillion pounds of carbon emissions every year, but now one company has figured out a way to take the pollution and turn it into plastic you can hold in your hand. This is a blue game changing innovation! More…

Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles

World Resources Institute Market: Global, Year: 2014

The Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers Principles frame the challenges and common needs faced by large renewable energy buyers. Twelve corporate signatories developed these principles to spur progress on resolving the challenges they face when buying renewable energy, and to add their perspective to the future of the U.S. energy and electricity system. WRI and WWF facilitated their efforts.

10 Questions to Ask About Electricity Tariffs + 10 Questions to Ask About Integrated Resources Planning

World Resources Institute. Market: Global, Year 2014

10 Questions to Ask About Electricity Tariffs and 10 Questions to Ask About Integrated Resources Planning aims to build the capacity of electricity sector stakeholders-government agencies, regulators, utilities, the private sector, civil society, and others -to design and participate in policy making and implementation processes.

Creating Healthier Furniture and Building Materials by Minimizing Chemical Emissions

Source: UL Environment, Inc Market: Global, Year: 2014

This white paper provides an introduction to IAQ issues in relation to furniture products and building materials, and discusses how certification programs support manufacturers’ efforts to substantiate legitimate claims for their products with a review of the causes and effects of poor IAQ, and the common types of VOCs that can adversely impact human health.

 

Business Pulse. Exploring dual perspectives on the top 10 risks and opportunities in 2013 and beyond

Ernst & Young. Market: Global 2013

It’s not surprising the biggest opportunity between 2013 – 2015 is innovation in products, services and operations. Read the Full Report.

 

Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy

McKinsey Global Institute. Market: Global, Year: 2013

This report cuts through the noise and identifies 12 technologies that could drive truly massive economic transformations and disruptions in the coming years. The report also looks at exactly how these technologies could change our world, as well as their benefits and challenges, and offers guidelines to help leaders from businesses and other institutions respond.

 

Faster, Smarter, Greener: The state of City Innovation on climate change and other urban challenges

Climate Group. Market: Global, Year: 2013

Municipal governments around the world are facing challenges of increasing complexity, including climate change and the need for sustainable, resilient and low carbon development. This report presents the findings from a survey and case study analysis of 50 diverse cities to understand how they are identifying and communicating their challenges; finding solutions to these challenges; and what barriers they faced in implementing these solutions.

 

Fortune Favours the Brave

Business in the Community. Market: UK, Year: 2013

Fortune Favours the Brave details the opportunity for UK businesses to unlock around £100 billion a year in value from new innovation opportunities that address social and environmental challenges

 

Redefining Value: The New Metrics of Sustainable Business.

Sustainable Brands. Market: Global, Year: 2013

This white paper frames the conversation and provides key takeaways from New Metrics of Sustainable Business Conference in 2012 in the form of reflections on recent lessons and forthcoming opportunities. It examines new forms of value, or newly-quantified existing economic, social and environmental impacts, on three fundamental levels: Product & Service Value, Organizational Value and Societal Value.

 

Renewables 2013, 2014: Global Status Report

REN21. Market Global, Year: 2013, 2014

REN21s Renewables Global Status Report (GSR) has grown to become a truely collaborative effort of over 500 authors, contributors and reviewers, and is today the most frequently referenced report on renewable energy market, industry and policy trends. It provides testimony to the undeterred growth of electricity, heat, and fuel production capacities from renewable energy sources, including solar PV, wind power, solar hot water/heating, biofuels, hydropower, and geothermal.

 

The Critical Decade: Australia’s future – solar energy

Climate Commission. Market: Australia, Year: 2013

report identifies the enormous, but largely underutilised, potential for solar generation in the world’s sunniest continent. It provides an overview of the rapidly changing solar industry, including international developments and opportunities for Australia to better utilise and benefit from solar resources in the future.

 

The SE4ALL: Global Tracking Framework Report

World Bank. Market: Global, Year: 2013

This unique report, written by a multi-agency team led by the World Bank, identifies countries with most potential to make “high-impact” progress on sustainable energy and specifies policy measures to scale up action. It puts numbers to SE4ALL’s three objectives (universal access to modern energy services, doubling of both the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix) and identifies what needs to change where and how to do it. The report also calls on countries, international organisations, private sector investors and civil society to increase energy investments focused on the three objectives by at least $600 billion a year until 2030, more than doubling the current estimated $409 billion.

 

Everything you’ve always wanted to know about innovation but were afraid to ask!

Fast Company – Richard Watson, What’s Next. Market: Global

If you work in Innovation and Change Management – this thought leadership piece by Richard Watson is well worth reading.

Frugal Innovation by Social Entrepreneurs in India

Serco Institute. Market: India, Year: 2012

Over the last 60 years, innovation in India’s public services has frequently emerged in the absence of state involvement, with social enterprises stepping in where the government has failed.

 

“Frugal Innovation” is the idiom applied to this sweeping revolution in public service design and delivery. The term is used in India and other developing economies to describe innovation that minimises costs by creating frugal solutions to deliver improved or previously non-existent public services. Frugal innovation has given more people access to a wider range of services.

This paper provides insights into how solutions developed from the bottom-up in some of the most challenging public service environments can better meet the needs of citizens. It investigates a range of new perspectives applied to services by over 40 social enterprises in India. It challenges the notion that uniformity in delivering public services driven by a top-down centralist ideology translates into good value for money.

 

Global Outdoor LED Trials

The Climate Group. Market: Global, Year: 2012

LED outdoor products can cut energy consumed by lighting by more than half, LED products have now reached technological maturity for applications such as street lighting.

Get the report

 

Renewables 2012 Global Status Report (GSR)

IREN 21. Market Global, Year: 2012

Renewables now around half of new additions to global electricity projects. The http://www.map.ren21.net/GSR/GSR2012_low.pdf REN21s Renewables Global Status Report reveals the world has changed how it sources energy. 118 countries have now implemented RE targets .GSR is issued to emphasise the importance of renewable energy and to generate discussion of issues central to the promotion of renewable energy. It provides an overview of renewable energy market, industry, investment and policy developments worldwide. The report covers recent developments, current status and key trend which is design.

 

Leadership for a Clean Revolution

Climate Group. Market: Global, Year: 2012

The Clean Revolution requires a massive up-scale of clean technologies that will improve the efficiency and use of our natural resources to create jobs and boost economic growth. But to drive this change we need bold, transformational leadership. Leadership for a Clean Revolution aims to inspire the world’s most influential business, government and thought leaders to take transformative action on climate change, creating a tipping point for the low carbon economy.

 

LED Lighting for Cities

The Climate Group. Market: Global, Year: 2013

The Climate Group have conducted a range of pilot studies of LED street lighting under the global LightSavers project. Final technical reports for the cities that participated and a technical summary for lighting managers prepared by the Canadian Urban Institute and The Climate Group are now available. The full report for policymakers and Lighting the Clean Revolution, are available at

http://www.theclimategroup.org/led-trial-final-reports/?dm_i=6R6,1QKFV,LURWN,66QWY,1

 

Mobilizing for a resource revolution

McKinsey and Company. Market: Global, Year: 2012

Economic advances in emerging-market economies dwarf the pace and scale of the Industrial Revolution. Over the next quarter century, the rise of three billion more middle-class consumers will strain natural resources. The race is on to boost resource supplies, overhaul their management, and change the game with new technologies. This report explores some of the implications.

 

2010 Trends – Roadmap for 2010 and beyond.

Now and Next. Market: Global, 2010

Futurists, Ross Dawson and Richard Watson have released the 2010+ version of their popular trend blend a roadmap for the exploration of current & future trends (+ some predictions to stir things up). Using the analogy of a metro/subway map, they provide a brilliant visual representation of trends and predictions across 16 areas of interest that will affect us now, and well into the 21st century.

 

Infrastructure 2009 – Delivering Transport Solutions in Challenging Times

Minter Ellison. Market: Australia, Year: 2009

This publication by legal firm Minter Ellison is designed to address how to deliver expanded and more effective transport facilities and logistics services at a time of serious economic turmoil. Infrastructure2009-Delivering_Transport_Solutions_in_Challanging_Times.pdf

 

Energy Security and Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific

Market: Asia & the Pacific, Year: 2008

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region concerned about energy security are seeking to protect themselves against shortages of affordable fuel and energy resources. But the policies they choose will have ramifications far beyond the supply of fuels and energy resources. They will also have a profound impact on economic and social development, and on the natural environment and the global climate. This paper presents the latest data on current and prospective use of energy while also exploring the innovations in technology, finance and governance that can set the region on a more sustainable path. themstudy_-_Energy_and_sustainability_in_Asia-Pac.pdf

 

Global Case Study. How BT integrated CSR within the telecommunications industry globally.

Janet Blake – Head of Global CSR, British Telecom (UK), a global services division that concentrates on multi-site organisations which are headquartered in Europe but have global ICT and solutions requirements. Australia’s Inaugural CSR Summit. Year: 2005

Janet shares how CSR can improve marketplace performance using quantified evidence and examples from BT’s experience in both the consumer and business markets. She highlights the challenges of a fast-changing business and explain show to implement global CSR practices whilst maintaining the balance between local and global business needs. BT has some 102,000 people across 49 countries including 90,000 employees in the UK where BT is one of the largest employers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyQmBEQlFjc

 

Problem solving made easy.

Dr. Ken Hudson – Founder and Director The Idea Centre. Australia’s Inaugural CSR Summit. Year: 2005

In this final session, participants are shown a new range of practical and effective tools to

help solve problems. Why? Because CSR and sustainability is a journey and managers and

leaders need to think differently – to find new solutions to address the often conflicting demands

of the various stakeholders. These tools can be used by an individual or a group and can be used by anyone at any time for any situation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0StpkHeTSSs

 

The complexities of CSR in IT.

Janet Blake – Head of Global CSR – British Telecom (UK), a global services division that concentrates on multi-site organisations which are headquartered in Europe but have global ICT and solutions requirements. Australia’s Inaugural CSR Summit. Year: 2005

Janet Blake has responsibilities for a global services division that concentrates on multi-site organisations which are headquartered in Europe but have global ICT and solutions requirements Join Janet as she takes you through case studies and the complexities of CSR in IT.

2005_CSR_Summit_Day_3_04-Ecology_And_Environment_Janet_Blake.mp3

 

The Power of Collaborative Innovation

World Economic Forum. Market: Global, Year: 2008

Participants in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008 focused on the tools for addressing the many challenges emerging as a result of the shifting power equations in the world. The Power of Collaborative Innovation is arguably the last remedy to the stresses of intense globalization that have been evident in financial market volatility, widening income disparities, and in conflict zones around the world. Davos_report.pdf

 

California aims to ‘bottle sunlight’ in energy storage push

California, whose green ambitions helped the solar and wind industries take root, is taking an essential next step by proposing a sharp rise in energy storage to better integrate renewable power with the rest of the grid.Power from sun and wind fluctuates dramatically, so capturing it for later use makes the supply more predictable. More

 

Hyperloop: the solar-powered high-speed train of the future.

After much anticipation, Tesla’s Elon Musk reveals plans for the Hyperloop – a fast, sustainable and cost-efficient train system without rails yet topped with solar panels and propelled by both electric motor and air cushion dynamics http://www.eco-business.com/news/telsa-ceo-unveils-hyperloop-solar-powered-high-speed-train-future/ Read more…

 

Draft Summary of 2004 Award Entries and Recipients: Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program

EPA Green Chemistry, Market: Global, Year: 2004

Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous substances and aims to significant environmental benefits, innovation and a strengthened economy. The abstracts in this document were submitted in nominations for the 2004 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards.