Let me tell you a story

‘Sustainability’ is a word that is given plenty of air time by business at the moment. For many companies, being sustainable means being less bad. While this is a step in the right direction, the problem is that being less bad isn’t as truly sustainable as being good.

When it comes to product sustainability too often business starts from the wrong place – meaning that the effect is one of “make-do-and-mend” rather than an ideal world solution. This is partly a necessity, since many companies – especially those smaller-to-medium sized enterprises – lack the expertise within their own workforce, and the financial resources required to really invest in sustainable innovation.

So I was interested to read about Material Short Stories, a German company set up with the specific aim of helping companies to identify sustainable materials for product manufacture. You send them a visual of your product (and 600 euros) and they send back a unique booklet that details five innovative materials that have been selected and applied as a sketch to your product.

Material Short Stories provides an outsourcing service that helps bring product material sustainability expertise to the masses, without having to have an R&D department the size of Procter and Gamble. As with many things that drive the sustainability agenda forward it is the little steps (made by lots of small companies) that will help us make many of the big leaps forward.