Every product is designed to do a job. Crafted to solve a specific customer pain point or fill a gap in the market. Our culture of ‘take-make-waste’ sees companies manufacture products from raw materials, with consumers buying and using the product, then disposing of it when it becomes redundant. This cycle can and must be broken.
Global material shortages, coupled with increasing pressure from governments and consumers to adopt sustainable business practices, are pushing manufacturers to think differently. Many are moving to a circular mindset, less focused on consumption of precious, finite resources, and more willing to design out waste and reuse materials to prolong a product’s typical lifecycle.
If we put circularity and sustainability front and centre, we can achieve revolutionary product innovation and take customer experience to the next level. When solving a particular customer problem remains a given, the sweet spot is in providing other tangible benefits that add value.
A Different Way to Innovate
Customers demand excellence and embracing sustainability and circularity does not mean that product quality must suffer. Instead, it pushes organisations to be more inventive, to create multi-purpose products designed to defy disposal.
Can your smart thermostat also manage energy access for all your smart appliances, ensuring that they only consume solar energy? Both reducing your energy bills and impact on the planet? Yes, it can and it should. Can your circuit breaker become free from harmful gases, such as SF6, or oils? Yet continue to do its electrical safety job, with a design to mirror the exact same size and shape as the old one? It must.
Products designed with sustainability in mind, such as these, provide a different type of purposeful innovation, and, ultimately, help us overcome much bigger challenges than the product’s been originally intended to solve. This design evolution may take longer, but when the solution is brought to fruition, with the latest digital connectivity features built in as standard, it makes for a radically different customer experience.
Modern technology is at the heart of helping us solve climate change and halt global warming without having to sacrifice our experience or lifestyles. In turn, it also brings better customer experience and more cutting-edge tech adoption.
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