I have borrowed this African proverb from Al Gore. It seems relevant to my eco-innovation experience last week, when I participated with some 20 key stakeholders in Philips's Sustainability Innovation Day in Eindhoven, Holland. The purpose was spelled out in the invitation letter: “Let's listen to each other and start an ongoing dialogue to envision innovative solutions. Our goal for this event is to share knowledge and further the process of co-creating a future that will truly make a difference for the generations to come.”
We discussed sustainability and Philips's latest innovations on its High Tech Campus. The campus itself has a very interesting concept of “open innovation”. I found a concept description by Rick Harwig, CTO of Philips Electronics: “It is better to build an ecosystem in which companies find one another. Open innovation makes companies less susceptible to market fluctuations. It allows them to focus on core competencies and substantially reduce time-to-market when industrializing technology into products. This is a major advantage in a market driven by the slogan: first, fastest and fittest. And this is exactly what happens on the High Tech Campus Eindhoven.”
The Campus left me with a very good impression of Philips compared to many companies' closed and often very secretive research centers.
I have borrowed this African proverb from Al Gore. It seems relevant to my eco-innovation experience last week, when I participated with some 20 key stakeholders in Philips's Sustainability Innovation Day in Eindhoven, Holland. The purpose was spelled out in the invitation letter: “Let's listen to each other and start an ongoing dialogue to envision innovative solutions. Our goal for this event is to share knowledge and further the process of co-creating a future that will truly make a difference for the generations to come.”
We discussed sustainability and Philips's latest innovations on its High Tech Campus. The campus itself has a very interesting concept of “open innovation”. I found a concept description by Rick Harwig, CTO of Philips Electronics: “It is better to build an ecosystem in which companies find one another. Open innovation makes companies less susceptible to market fluctuations. It allows them to focus on core competencies and substantially reduce time-to-market when industrializing technology into products. This is a major advantage in a market driven by the slogan: first, fastest and fittest. And this is exactly what happens on the High Tech Campus Eindhoven.”
The Campus left me with a very good impression of Philips compared to many companies' closed and often very secretive research centers.
We saw many new innovations and were able to share our views on them. The CEO of Philips Research said that sustainability is becoming an important innovation driver. Philips has identified three types of market. Consider a chart with the human development index on one axis and ecological footprint on the other.
Philips sees three major markets types with different sustainability characteristics:
- For developed economies, help people maintain or even improve their well-being by using cleaner technologies
- For emerging markets, help them leapfrog existing technologies with greener technologies, thus not expanding their ecological footprint
- Developing countries need work and low-cost clean technologies and services
Philips shares the long term vision of “one planet living”, where all countries would fit into an area of the graph with a high human development index and a low ecological footprint. With my EEB lens, I was most interested in Philips' energy business.
We know that lighting accounts for about 19% of total global energy use. Philips' new light sources use between 40-80% less energy than the old lighting technologies like the incandescent bulb. Even more can be gained when also introducing smart light management systems. That is a step change!
Here we have a tremendous potential for improving energy efficiency in our homes, schools, offices, all commercial buildings and streets. Initial costs are higher but payback is short. With a joint effort by governments, civil society and business we should be able to speed up change.
However, at the same time we need to address the very important issue of recycling these new lamps in order to manage the mercury component.
We had good discussions and I felt the African proverb above, used by Al Gore in his Nobel Prize speech, fits well.
Except, we want to go far, quickly!
I really like that proverb. Thanks for sharing it.
Posted by: alzack | 07 June 2008 at 09:00 AM