We wish we could say that finding Eco-Advantage will be easy. But like excellence in any form, you have to work for it. We know this runs contrary to the message in many of the books and articles about “green business.” Ever since a few leaders like 3M demonstrated the .Payoffs of eco-efficiency, going green has been portrayed as a sure thing. Unfortunately, not every environmental effort produces win-win results.

Developing innovative products, bringing them to market successfully, keeping customers happy, and other elements of business success are difficult enough. Adding an environmental dimension opens  up new opportunities but adds another layer of complexity to the management challenge. Gaining an edge means learning new skills, operating in new ways, and working through some hard trade-offs. In truth, the story is even more subtle. Some initiatives “fail” by traditional measures but create intangible value for a company. It’s often hard to tell when hard-to-measure returns are worth pursuing. Read more

Companies find many ways to talk about how they handle environmental and social issues. Some focus on “triple bottom line” performance or sustainability. Others frame their work in terms of corporate social responsibility, stewardship, citizenship, or environment, health, and safety. Any of these approaches can serve to galvanize action and create Eco-Advantage. The key lies in execution—including environment and social issues in business operations. But each company needs to find the language and organizational structures that work within its own culture.

At the operational level, managing sustainability issues, no matter what the company calls them, works best with a defined focus. Thinking about environmental challenges alongside social issues such as health care, poverty alleviation, or how to serve the “bottom of the pyramid”—the untapped market of the world’s poorest people—quickly becomes daunting. Our research suggests that the skills needed to manage environmental issues and social concerns are quite distinct. For example, what’s required to ensure that a company complies with air-pollution permits, say, will have little similarity to what’s needed to develop a strong employee wellness program. Read more

When Katsuaki Watanabe took over as President of Toyota in zoo he made it clear that developing environmentally friendly technologies would be his top priority—even ahead of safety, quality, and cost. If this weren’t shocking enough, he also promised that his engineers would someday develop a car that could “cross the U.S. continent on one full tank of gas.” Talk about a stretch goal!

Goals for an organization can be splashy like Toyota’s or more concrete. Unilever, for example, set a fairly unsexy goal of zero liquid effluent from its 76 facilities in India. Watanabe himself set more realistic targets alongside his big 2oo-miles-per-gallon vision, including a sales goal of one million hybrid cars per year. Either way, fanciful or functional, stretch goals are a vital tool for provoking fresh thinking, promoting innovation, and building an Eco-Advantage. Read more

In 1997, a Conoco oil tanker and a tugboat collided near Lake Charles, Louisiana, opening up a hundred-foot gash in the tanker. Few remember this accident today for one simple reason: Not a drop of oil was spilled. Conoco, then owned by DuPont, had invested in “double- hull” tankers years ahead of regulations. One hull was ripped open, but the second held. “That spill would have been larger than the Exxon Valdez without the double hulls,” DuPont’s VP for Environment Paul Tebo told us. “Conoco would have been gone.”

What does this have to do with creating a corporate culture of environmental engagement ? Quite a bit. In 1989, when green issues were still off the radar screen of most of corporate America, DuPont’s visionary CEO Ed Woolard launched a board-level Environmental Policy Committee and established an Environmental Leadership Council made up of senior executives who met every month. Woolard’s green logic inspired fresh thinking across DuPont’s diverse business portfolio.’ Read more

In the corporate world, a handful of companies are developing new ways of approaching a thorny problem: How do we grow and prosper while decreasing pollution and conserving natural resources?

WaveRiders build a foundation for Eco-Advantage by reframing how everyone in the company looks at environmental issues. For these companies, environmental thinking is not always the final word on strategy, but it is always a consideration.

In our research, we’ve found that this new mindset is absolutely critical to managing eco-risks, driving innovation, and turning environmental pressures into competitive advantage.Above point is highlight how WaveRiders use an environmental lens to change the way they think and sharpen their business strategies. After a while, these companies don’t have to focus consciously on finding an alternative perspective. Environmental thinking becomes intrinsic to how they do business. Deeply embedded, the Eco-Advantage Mindset arises naturally at every opportunity.

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We studies dozens of companies during our four years of research. A few have not evolved in their thinking since the 1970s. They are still grousing about legislation and complying with it grudgingly. Others have begun to see the business opportunities in going “beyond compliance.” A few have embarked on bold new initiatives to provide solutions to the world’s environmental ills—like GE’s plan to sell renewable energy, efficient power generation, water purification, and much more.

The  companies who “get” the interface between environmentalism and business—the ones that are on their way to reducing their environmental impacts, or “footprints,” while generating significant profits and sustained Eco-Advantage—have no single profile. They range from global conglomerates to niche textile makers. However, we found certain patterns. The leading-edge companies go beyond the basics of complying with the law, cutting waste, and operating efficiently. They fold environmental considerations into all aspects of operations. Specifically, they: Read more

For some enterprises, a new green perspective will be trans-formative, leading to fresh thinking, new markets, profitability gains, and increased value. For others, the environmental lens may emerge more gradually and modestly, as another critical element of corporate strategy. With time, these companies may find long-term, sustained advantage, but not dramatic immediate gains, front being green. For the big, heavy industries, the gains are closer to being assured. But smaller and “cleaner” companies will find surprising benefits as well. Read more

How do companies create an Eco-Advantage? To answer this question, we first had to ask a more basic one: How do companies create competitive advantage in general?  According to  Michael Porter, from Harvard Business School, he  describes two basic categories its of competitive advantage. A company can:

• Lower its costs compared with the competition.
• Differentiate its product on quality, features, or service.

Portoer’s work on competitiveness proved a useful starting point for analyzing the Eco-Advantage strategies that WaveRiders using. Read more