Is your product completely sustainable?

Source: Instagram @batman_ogatomorcego

The goal of this article is to bring the following reflection to you. When we think about the sustainability of the company, the supply chain, and the product, why we do not thing about the negative consequences?

Not long ago, I went with my girlfriend to the pet shop to buy hygiene sand to her cats. We bought a sand that was biodegradable, but later we realized that it could not be discarded through regular waste management ways. So, we would have to discard in a regular garbage.

In summary, every time (and this is an almost daily routine) we have to clean the sand of the cats, we would use a plastic bag to collect and discard everything.

On the consumer point of view, this product is not ideal since it makes the discard process harder than with the products we had already been using.

On the environmental point of view, the product is also not ideal since, even though it is biodegradable, we need to use a plastic bag to collect the sand and the waste and the plastic, even if biodegradable, still take years to decompose.

The reflection about the negative points may even be more essential than the reflection of beneficial points of the product. Why? It gives you more perspectives of the risks and the issues regarding the company, its supply chain, and its products.

For example, why produce clothes with sustainable materials if many times factories use workers in poor conditions (similar to slavery) to produce those? This is one of the major fronts that has been discussed on the issue of sustainability in the textile industry. The companies cannot simply say that the clothes are sustainable only because they use natural or more sustainable materials if there are still social and environmental problems in the supply chain.

When I was doing my MBA at Cornell University, one of the most interesting classes I took was Designing Technologies for Social Impact. The class gave me another vision on how we should reflect upon the design and creation of products and technologies.

One of the cases we discussed was the design of a sustainable laptop to use in African schools, in which it used solar energy to generate energy for its battery and the parts where much more sustainable and economic than the standard computers at the time. The cost of the product was lower, and the use was more efficient.

What the designers did not think about was the external environment of the product. Do these African countries have a good infrastructure to keep the computers working with good internet so the learning on the schools is not jeopardized? Probably not. Do the schools and the students have enough money to buy and keep this equipment very well conserved through the years? Probably not. The schools might have money to buy one or another equipment, but not enough to keep a school system with many students in the need for it.

Though, this computer project was important for the innovation it brought. Today, many computers and laptops are produced with the principles used in this African project, since it brought many sustainable and efficient benefits.

Therefore, it is important to reflect upon the positive and negative issues that the products and technologies have or may have in the supply chain and its use by the consumers. Going back to the first example, we are not going to buy that sand of the cats, we are going to find another one that is better, that is sustainable and has a practical use, and the company is losing a client.

When there is a product that is completely sustainable, from its conception, until its use and discard, this will attract more clients and consumers, and we will have a more sustainable world.