Make sustainable products, sell, repeat

"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. Laurel: From MIT Technology Review, I'm Laurel Ruma, and this is Business Lab. The show that helps business leaders make sense of new technologies coming out of the lab and into the marketplace. Our topic today is sustainability, but on a global scale, from factories to supply chains to sustainable development goals for all the countries in the world. It's possible to design for sustainability, get a return on investment, and help fight climate change. My guest is Corey Glickman, who is the vice president and head of the sustainability and design business at Infosys. Corey is an expert in strategic design, digital transformation, customer experience strategy, and the use of visualization applied to the development of innovative products, processes, and services.