By Wayne Visser
Part 9 of 13 in Wayne Visser's Age of Responsibility Blog Series for 3BL Media.
CSR 2.0 responsiveness goes beyond traditional partnerships
and CSO effectiveness; it is also about innovative ways to collaborate. I want
to flag several Web 2.0 inspired experiments in responsiveness that are opening
up sustainability and responsibility solutions to the public. One is a platform
called the Eco-Patent
Commons, which allows companies to share their intellectual property
for the common good. The Commons was launched by WBCSD and covers issues like
waste, pollution, global warming and energy. ‘The premise of the Commons,’ says
Björn Stigson, president of the WBCSD, ‘is that the free sharing of these
patents leads to new collaborations and innovation aimed at helping others
become more eco-efficient and/or operate in a more sustainable way.’
The Eco-Patent Commons’ publicly searchable database already
contains over one hundred eco-friendly patents from companies like Bosch, Dow,
DuPont, Fuji Xerox, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes, Ricoh, Sony and
Taisei. Xerox, for example, has eleven pledged patents that cover a process
that cuts the time it takes to remove toxic waste from soil and water from
years to months, as well as a patent that covers technology that makes magnetic
refrigeration less harmful to the environment.
Dr. John E. Kelly III, IBM Senior Vice President and
Director of IBM Research, believes that ‘innovation to address environmental
issues will require both the application of technology as well as new models
for sharing intellectual property among companies in different industries ...
In addition to enabling new players to engage in protecting the environment,
the free exchange of valuable intellectual property will accelerate work on the
next level of environmental challenges.’
Similarly, Donal O’Connell, Director of Intellectual
Property for Nokia, thinks that ‘environmental issues have great potential to
help us discover the next wave of innovation because they force us all to think
differently about how we make, consume and recycle products.’ Nokia have
pledged a patent designed to help companies safely re-use old mobile phones by
transforming them into new products like digital cameras, data monitoring
devices or other electronic items. ‘Recycling the computing power of mobile
phones in this way could significantly increase the reuse of materials in the
electronics industry’, concludes O’Connell.
Even more significant than the individual patents that have
been added is the shift in thinking that this signals among some of the largest
companies in the world. It is true none of them are exactly ‘giving away the
family silver’ – they are not opening all their patents – but they are
demonstrating responsiveness on a scale never seen before. They are recognising
that the global problems we face are larger than whatever individual solutions
can accomplish. If we are truly going to be effective in tackling our most
intractable challenges, we will need the wisdom of crowds and the collective
efforts of millions of entrepreneurs.
A similar, more recent initiative is GreenXchange, a collaborative platform
initially launched by Creative Commons, Nike and Best Buy. Partners include
2degrees, nGenera and Salesforce.com. The fact that Creative Commons – a
non-profit organisation that previously developed licensing programs to help in
sharing creative and scientific content – has branched into the environmental
arena is good news, not least because it brings a sophisticated understanding
of the legalities of proprietary content, yet combines this with a commitment
to open-source sharing.
The main difference between the Eco-Patent Commons and
GreenXchange is that companies that contribute patents to the GreenXchange will
have the option of charging users a fixed annual licensing fee and can also
restrict any licensing by rivals or for competitive use. In addition, even if
no annual fee is charged, patent users must register so there is a record of
who is using what technology. The
structure is more complex than the Eco-Patent Commons, but John Wilbanks,
GreenXchange coordinator and vice president for science at Creative Commons,
believes it will yield greater numbers of high-quality inventions. ‘We don’t
depend on altruism,’ says Wilbanks. ‘This system helps the environment while
enabling a firm to make money from patents in applications outside its core
business.’
Wilbanks cites a fictional example for illustration
purposes: Nike’s air-bag patent for cushioning shoes is crucial to its core
shoe business, but may have environmental benefits in other industries —
perhaps in prolonging the useful life of tyres. GreenXchange could enable Nike
to license the air-bag technology selectively to noncompeting companies.’
Although this example may be speculative, Nike’s commitment to the concept is
not. According to Kelly Lauber, a global director in Nike’s Sustainable
Business and Innovation Lab, by sharing its water-based adhesive technology and
working with footwear makers, average levels of environmentally harmful
solvents used by Nike’s suppliers decreased significantly.
Nike has issued a GreenXchange booklet in which it lays out
the challenge: Will the pursuit of sustainability create the new Google? The
new Nike? The new disruptive view of business models, markets, profits and
consumers? The answer is almost certainly yes. The conclusion is that ‘it’s
time to dust off the research, the assets, the knowledge, the innovation you’ve
developed on sustainability. Imagine the impact it could have if we gifted it
to the world.’
Whether it is the Eco-Patent Commons or GreenXchange or some
other platform for open-sourcing sustainability and responsibility that
eventually prospers and becomes the new collaborative standard, the genie is
out of the bottle. The idea is out there that, when it comes to technologies,
processes, products and services that have potentially life-saving or
earth-saving impacts, there is a moral obligation to share these with humanity.
No doubt these collaborative platforms have started in the environmental space
because, as was the case with reporting, green issues are easier to quantify
and design solutions for. But we can expect them to spread rapidly to the
social space as well. And as they do, they will shine a spotlight on those
companies that are truly embracing the CSR 2.0 principle of responsiveness.
Article reference
Visser, W. (2012) Open Sourcing Sustainability: Web 2.0
Meets CSR 2.0, Wayne Visser Blog Briefing, 3 April 2012.
Source
Extracted and adapted from Visser, W. (2011) The Age of
Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business. London: Wiley.
***
Part of the WAYNE VISSER BLOG BRIEFING Series
Copyright 2012 Wayne Visser
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