S1.E15: Sustainable Commerce - Part 7: Services

Products and services will need to shapeshift radically in a sustainable world. It will no longer be acceptable or successful to follow the old approach of producing widgets and flogging them to a market brainwashed by advertising, whilst ignoring the damage they cause along the way. The new generation of sustainable products and services will focus on adding value over their entire life cycle. In so doing, they will incorporate design characteristics inspired by the genius of Nature. In fact, many products will become obsolete as they are replaced by ‘leased benefits’ instead. There are various manifestations of this new philosophy, including life cycle assessment (LCA), eco-efficiency, supply chain integrity and take-back schemes. While these are mainly aimed at the environmental elements of life cycle accountability, supply chain integrity auditing begins to address social impacts as well. But the biggest shapeshift has less to do with new methods or models, and more to do with inspiration. That is the potential for products and services to be inspired by the genius of Nature.