Make Sustainable Products, Sell, Repeat

Few today won’t agree that sustainability is important not only to the future of the planet and society but to business practices as well. And approaches are evolving beyond designing products to be used as long as possible. “If we’re going to design a product or use a product, we’re thinking from the very first moment what happens afterwards,” says Corey Glickman, vice president and head of the sustainability and design business at Infosys. “How do I source those materials? How does it function efficiently? And then ultimately, can it be reused? Can it be recycled?” Consumers are driving sustainability efforts as well. They’re beginning to weigh company values when choosing where to shop and what to buy. And business leaders are taking note, Glickman says. They’re looking at things like return on investment, whether they can afford to change, or afford not to change. “We call it single bottom-line sustainability, where I look at the single bottom line of all those elements, and I start attaching sustainability to it,” Glickman says. “And I start looking at changes of value and then I can build a business case for change.” As companies set sustainability goals—to be carbon neutral by 2050, for example—they’re tackling complex challenges: regulations change, supply chains are complicated—especially during the current pandemic—and integrating new technologies into legacy systems is almost always a hurdle, technologically and culturally. Glickman suggests an incremental approach—he calls it micro change, embracing the fact that sustainability isn’t a one-and-done paradigm shift. “These are things that can be done in a six-week period, eight-week period, that have tangible proof of concepts that can be measured, that can be done at different levels.” Looking at current infrastructure investments, particularly in North America and Europe, as well as the increasing interest of stakeholders, the sustainability bar is expected to rise. “For the next three years you will see a lot of investment. You will see countries or businesses that want to be leading because they see an advantage,” says Glickman. “Then you will see others have to move along in that direction also.” This episode of Business Lab is produced in partnership with Infosys.