Forget predictions, here are three powerful questions for 2024 instead.
If it's Business As Usual, you're doing it wrong.
Humans are pretty bad at predicting things. Bear that in mind as you scroll past this year’s crop of predictions.
So rather than offer-up the same bland forecasts, we’re proposing three powerful questions for you to wrestle with in the year ahead instead.
“The usefulness of the knowledge we acquire and the effectiveness of the actions we take depend on the quality of the questions we ask.” David Gurteen
Rather than rely on predictions, Francis Briers friend of Eden and Leadership and Learning expert, suggests that we '“Set an enquiry, and use that as a focus of your exploration”.
Enquiries are more open-ended and emergent than goals, that are too narrow and too defined to be useful beyond the lifespan of a task list.
With that in mind here are three big enquiries for you in 2024.
1. What does your post-carbon business look like?
The post-carbon world is already here, it lives alongside the dying carbon world.
And so the most powerful and most strategic question for any business leader today is; what does my post-carbon business look like?
Mostly businesses aren’t asking that question let alone answering it. Instead they’re trying to tinker with the current business in the hope that they can gently slide down to Net Zero.
But we’re starting to see company after company missing their reductions targets as they hit the wall. They have gone for the low-hanging fruit of emissions reduction and found it isn’t sufficient.
Expect to see more firms like Mars pledge an additional $1bn to achieve net zero by 2050, after disclosing limited progress in meeting their reduction target.
If you can’t see a realistic way to achieve net zero, you’re not thinking radically enough.
A neat trick is start at the other end, i.e. 2040, or 2050, and work out what the world will be like and how you can actually do business in that environment. Its very freeing and provokes radical new thinking.
Ask us about our Post-Carbon Futures product that helps you prepare for possible and preferable futures and then walks you step-by-step through a business model design process to help you develop future-fit products and services.
“Edenlab brought a welcome provocation to how we were thinking about long-term innovation; helping us creatively to frame the challenges and opportunities with a multifunctional team, and bringing us an alternative, objective lens with plenty of cross-industry experience. The outcome has been some really exciting new directions in R&D capability.” Director, R&D Homecare, Unilever
2. How will you deliver Demand Switching?
Demand Switching is the upgrade to the carbon world’s Demand Generation.
It is switching demand from unsustainable, carbon-intensive products and services to clean, green ones – or indeed to not buying anything physical at all.
This is the core of the work we do at EdenLab and in doing so, we’ve identified the six ways to deliver demand switching.
Everyone thinks about supply-side sustainability; materials, manufacturing, distribution and reporting.
Almost no one is thinking about Demand-side Sustainability.
That is the development of platforms, CX and customer value propositions that switch demand by:
Delivering on performance, on price AND on sustainability (hence No Compromise). Think EV’s, train travel, oat milk etc.
Reducing impact by shifting from things to experiences, from materials to software, from new to refurbished, from owned to shared.
We specialise in developing ‘NoCo’ sustainable value propositions. Our process, adapted from agile software development, provides clients with the confidence and quantitative evidence that there is a way to capture clean green demand at scale.
When the pivot comes will you be ready?
When will the pivot come? 2030? 2028? This Summer? Suffice to say that the hot new CXO job title is 'Chief Heat Officer'.
Sooner or later we're all going to have to accept the reality we're in.
By 2035 the people who care most about sustainability will be the primary consumer group (GenZ, source: EY). So all companies are going to have to figure out how to reach them and if they don’t they simply won’t have a viable business.
We don’t buy the argument that because ‘people say they want to buy sustainably but don’t actually do it’ that there’s no market for it.
No sane person wouldn’t choose the sustainable option all other things being equal, especially price.
The need is there, it’s huge and latent but it isn’t currently being met. That’s a market failure. AND market opportunity.
No one wants to be a liar.
When our values and behaviours don’t align, it creates a powerful tension that winning firms help people resolve.
We start each of our projects by forecasting future demand. It helps by creating a commercial argument for change because we show the size of the prize available. We can even assess your current share of the clean, green market.
For example, the global sustainable tourism market, valued at $3.3 trillion in 2022, is projected to skyrocket to $11.4 trillion by 2032—a remarkable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% from 2023 to 2032.
Talk to us about how we can forecast future demand in your market and show you what it actually looks like in terms of behaviours, products and business models.
What is EdenLab?
At EdenLab we have a ruthlessly simple and realistic logic:
If companies can’t make money by becoming more sustainable they won’t do it.
And if they don’t do it, we’ve all had it.
So we help them make money by being clean and green.
We make big companies more sustainable and sustainable companies bigger.
EdenLab is a green growth and sustainability innovation company. We help businesses create new business models, sustainable value propositions and go to market strategies to make them resilient and successful in the post-carbon world.
We’re working with big corporates and ClimateTech start ups to remove and prevent 5 million tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere over the next 5 years.