4-7 June 2018

SUSTAINABLE BRANDS (SB) 2018 – REDESIGNING THE GOOD LIFE

The global sustainability challenge is formidable, but not hopeless. In fact, there are multiple pathways to global sustainability which encompass open innovation and discovery-driven learning in strategic sectors.

Event Description: Sustainable Brands (SB) was launched in 2006, and has become a global learning, collaboration, and commerce community of forward-thinking entrepreneurs and sustainability professionals interested in creating a better future. The SB mission is to help businesses embed purpose-driven environmental and social innovation into their operations so that sustainability becomes a core driver of business and brand value.

Host: Vancouver Convention Centre

Background: The global sustainability challenge is formidable, but not hopeless. For example, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), reportedly contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, and is much larger than previously thought. At 1.6 million square kilometers, the GPGP is 3 times larger than France. Additionally, an estimated 44 million tons of electronic waste and 26 billion pounds of textiles are discarded worldwide each year.

VSIR Thinking Points:

  • There are multiple pathways to global sustainability which encompass open innovation and discovery-driven learning in strategic sectors (eg., clean technology, green building construction, materials management, ecological restoration, food security). Furthermore, current geostrategic and geo-economic realignments mean that global policy solutions can originate in the most unlikely places. In addition to scanning the world for next-generation policy solutions, national political and business leaders will need to start “seeding the soil” so that innovative ideas “imported” from abroad via peer-to-peer networks are able to take root locally.
  • Forward-looking cities like Vancouver view the “eco-city” model as both a competitive advantage and a social justice issue, not merely a branding exercise. Municipal leadership and innovative governance models (eg., C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group) will be critical for building the policy, design, and knowledge infrastructure in strategic economic sectors.
  • The sprint to be the next “unicorn” requires large-scale capital investments to fund innovative learning methods (eg., “gamification” of product and service offerings) that many entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs struggle to access. Nevertheless, there are workforce-centric innovations that offer low-cost ways of scaling-up knowledge “spill-overs” and frugal methods for anticipating zero-waste opportunities (eg., ocean-recycled commodities, “nose-to-tail” culinary practices, “naked” or unpackaged products) ahead of competitors.
  • Brand power, in combination with managerial foresight, can help to influence consumer behavior in ways that mitigate systemic risks to the environment. To that end, designing sustainability into the personal choice architecture and providing real-time data sharing (eg., customized digital dashboards) will enable individual consumers to align their sustainability values (eg., animal welfare) and purchasing decisions (eg., value for money).

Agenda and Speakershttps://events.sustainablebrands.com/sb18vancouver/

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