Using Product Innovation as Eco-Branding to Encourage Sustainable Lifestyles – An Exploratory Student Approach to Business Strategy

Paper in proceeding, 2011

Recently, new market demands and customer expectations have forced companies to expand their commitment to sustainability and to offer new eco-friendly solutions. It is therefore of increasing importance for companies to expand their product portfolio with new sustainable and innovative designs. New product solutions have the ability to change how we as individuals live and use resources in our everyday life. This offers great opportunities for companies and designers to use creative technology innovation as a tool to promote new sustainable lifestyles. This paper discusses the challenge of using product innovation as eco-branding and how an exploratory approach to this has been used in a number of student projects. Based on in-depth analyses of different brands and their existing products, students created ten new brand, product and service concepts. The sustainability aspect was particularly stressed both in the created concepts and in the accompanying business and brand strategies. In the paper, we report on the overall description of the project as well as the overall results. Finally, we will describe one case in more detail and discuss the project approach in regards to the actual result and contribution to the student learning experience and insight on eco-branding.