Resiliency as innovation strategy: Sustainable well-being in a changing world - by Nadine Cino

As defined by 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), urban resilience is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. The 100RC is a program by the Rockefeller Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization based in New York City.1

A chief resilience officer (CRO) is largely thought of in the context a city, and acts as the city’s point person for resilience building, helping to coordinate all of the city’s resilience efforts.  Communication and collaboration are essential for functionality in this role, and the CRO acts as a liaison between distinct actors such as government agencies, local businesses and civic groups as well as a conduit for best practices and other ideas shared by other cities.1

Taking this concept of “resiliency as innovation” down to the level of the built environment and privately held companies, how does this broadened scope of responsibility impact the role of the chief sustainability officer (CSO or CSR)? Historically, this role has been focused on compliance, measuring social/environmental impacts, recommending ways in which to mitigate risk, and communicate outcomes to marketing department for purposes of dissemination.

A new way to think about the CSO/CSR is as a change agent and innovator, a person who is concerned about sustaining the well-being of the company in a changing world.  Someone who, in collaboration with other C-Suite officers, meaningfully contributes to strategy and innovation, while maintaining vigilance over its historical role of compliance and risk mitigation. This expanded role can be viewed as a blend between a traditional CSO and a CRO, and potentially, can be developed into a profit center rather than a cost center.

In an article about what CSO’s do by Forbes, Serafeim says, “It’s the person who sees how the future is developing, how social expectations are changing, how regulations and the business environment are changing in the future. The CSO is the ambassador with the vision, the person who decides what needs to change when it comes to how the company is interacting with the communities and the broader societal context in which it operates.” 2

A good example of resiliency as innovation is Humanscale. Basic science indicates that global warming is accelerating as a result of human activities. Oceans filled with discarded plastic debris are unhelpful.  

Recognizing this factor, Humanscale recently introduced “From Ocean to Office,” a chair made from discarded fishing nets in partnership with Bureo – an emerging venture developing innovative solutions to prevent ocean plastic pollution.3

It’s a A Net Positive Product (your guess – pun intended or not?) Per Humanscale: “Smart Ocean is the embodiment of our commitment to sustainable manufacturing. Each chair incorporates almost two pounds. of recycled fishing net material and is Living Product certified — meeting the most rigorous sustainable manufacturing criteria to date.”3 

In the Netherlands, a waste cleanup company, Plastic Whale, describes itself as the world’s first plastic fishing company. With respect to a recently launched Circular Furniture project, Plastic Whale has partnered with furniture maker Vepa and the Lama design studio to make a high-end office furniture collection comprised of a boardroom table, a chair, lamps and acoustic wall panels. All items in their collection incorporate more materials than waste plastic, and are inspired by whales. Their office furniture has been designed in such a way that, at the end of its useful life, it can be broken down for reuse or upcycled to make something new.4

These two examples of resiliency as innovation serve to identify a starting point from which each of us can develop innovative strategies that have the potential to add to rather than subtract from the bottom line.

As further food for thought, consider how, like design thinking, any idea below can spark “Resiliency as Innovation” thinking – Enjoy! 

1. Power: Localize energy storage can be portable-on-site units perhaps in tandem with co-gen units at building site.

2. HR: The gig economy can be cultivated to become a vast network of talent redundancy allowing reserves of people to maintain operations and fill gaps left by a disaster.

3. Data: Backup servers – use of blockchain for immutable recordkeeping; could be useful “anti-confusion” tool in the event of a disaster. 

4. New Product Development:  Other Circular Economy type products.

5. 3-D Printing: Can be a backup to maintain manufacturing operations

Footnotes:

1. http://100resilientcities.org/what-a-chief-resilience-officer-does/

2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2014/10/08/what-do-chief-sustainabilty-officers-do/#68e6747533ab

3. https://www.humanscale.com/smartocean/    

4. https://newatlas.com/plastic-whale-canal-trash-office-furniture/53821/

Nadine Cino LEED AP, is CEO and co-inventor of both TygaTrax and TygaBox, New York, N.Y.