Overview

Sustainability has become a priority for most large organizations, and related mandates from customers have become increasingly common. But how can companies go about profitably improving the environmental and social impacts of their product and service portfolios? And what role do sustainable products and services play in the bigger picture of sustainability across the enterprise?

For established companies, these are challenging questions - especially those with broad product offerings, and complex or resource-intensive supply chains. Fortunately, new practices incorporating sustainability into the product innovation process are emerging – enabling companies to move beyond compliance to cost reduction, competitive advantage, increased profitability, and even new market opportunities.

Presenting in this independent online conference are Sue Burek, Manager of Research and Partnerships at Ingersoll Rand’s Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability (CEES), and Phil Metz, Senior Research Partner with AltaTerra Research, focused on Product Sustainability and Innovation. They will discuss how sustainable innovation is being systematically envisioned, organized and implemented in practice to deliver new/improved products and services.

Sue will draw from her experiences at Ingersoll Rand, a $14 billion manufacturer of diversified products serving customers in global commercial, industrial and residential markets. In April of 2010 Ingersoll Rand established its Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, bringing together a global group of experts dedicated to integrating best practices for the long-term use of energy and other resources. Recent product announcements, such as Trane’s EarthWise^TM Systems and ThermoKing’s Cryogenic powered cooling and heating units, have leveraged new concepts and approaches advanced by the Center.

Sue will zero in on the product innovation process at Ingersoll Rand, and how it is employed to move beyond compliance to make sustainability a competitive advantage. Starting from a customer vantage point, she will outline how Ingersoll Rand has embedded sustainability into its design processes to identify opportunities for differentiation:

• The process and customer-centric criteria used to define "green”
• Operationalizing the portfolio criteria through the New Product Development (NPD) process
• Driving the NPD process to product-level sustainability assessments and decisions
• Market rollout and the "Sustainability Readiness Checklist”
• The ‘Customer Connection’: meeting customer needs and exploiting untapped opportunities

Phil will introduce sustainable product innovation and its ingredients – sustainable product strategy and rapid product development – and describe the objectives, elements and implementation of each process.

In this online conference, the following questions will be addressed:

• What is the value of sustainable product / service innovation and how do we achieve it?
• How can sustainable product / service innovation be transformed from a compliance chore to a source of competitive advantage and profit?
• What are the specific processes and approaches for envisioning and implementing sustainable product / service innovation?
• What are the critical first steps? And what are advanced practices?
• What are the tools for measuring achievement and impacts on customers and across the enterprise?

The briefing will be introduced and moderated by Don Bray, president of AltaTerra Research. Don will provide a brief overview of sustainability and its impacts across the enterprise, and the increasingly important role sustainability is playing in products and markets.

Time will be reserved at the end of the session for questions and moderated discussion.

Who Should Attend