New Video Points to Next Generation of Sustainable Business and Competitive Advantage

Online, January 9, 2012 (Newswire.com) - This week, dMASS.net released "Value Matters: Innovation Has Direction," a short, animated video revealing the direction of innovation and what it means for businesses and sustainable design. The video offers a simple method for companies to align business and environmental goals and a new way to think about products. It makes the case that any sustainable business must be built on the basis of increasing resource performance, or harvesting more wealth out of fewer resources.

Since its founding in 2010, dMASS.net has acted as a "scout" of sorts, tracking research and innovations for doing better with less, building a repository of advances in science, technology, design, and business strategy, and describing significant implications for business.

"What we've found is breathtaking," said dMASS.net founder Howard J. Brown. "In every industry, there are seeds of a new design revolution. Innovation is moving in a clear direction."

The new video is a follow up to the popular short "Design Matters: Doing Better with Less." "Design Matters" used a Buckminster Fuller story as a jumping off point to explain why the key to successful design, innovation, and business strategy is producing drastically more benefits for people using drastically fewer resources.

Both videos are part a larger project to help companies profitably align business and environmental goals and to help designers increase the resource performance of everything from household supplies to buildings. This past fall, Brown was a keynote speaker at a national conference for environmental and sustainability professionals and he spoke about resources and innovation at a TEDx event.

"What I tell companies is this: no one wants your products; they want the benefits from those products" said Brown. "Every business needs to be thinking about resources and benefits, not waste and products. There's unlimited opportunity here for those who understand what their customers actually want and who figure out how to deliver it with as few resources as possible."

According to Brown, recent actions by businesses and research organizations worldwide reflect the growing, strategic importance of resources. Dozens of advancements in areas from biomimcry, to cradle-to-cradle design, green building, nanotechnology, 3D printing, energy harvesting, and sustainable development are emerging and the instances of companies investing in new methods of dealing with water and materials shortages are becoming more common. Companies are seeking ways to reduce the amount of energy and materials needed to do business while continuing to grow.

Kathryn Lewis, chief executive at dMASS.net, says the company is developing methods to help businesses increase resource performance. "There are several techniques and tools to help companies think differently about what business they're really in, identify their unexpected competition, and run a business in a resource constrained world," according to Lewis. "Companies that are able to leverage new materials and methods to deliver value to customers will outlast and outperform the competition."

For 20 years, Brown was CEO of Resource Planning & Management Systems (RPM), Inc., in New Haven, Connecticut where he advised major corporations on aligning environment and business strategy. Prior to founding RPM, he taught environmental planning and economic development at Yale University and Wesleyan University, and he collaborated with Buckminster Fuller. The dMASS.net team regularly shares ideas and tools on its website, in a weekly newsletter, and through social media outlets. Find dMASS online at http://www.dMASS.net and on http://www.twitter.com/dMASS_net. View "Value Matters: Innovation Has Direction" on dMASSnet youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/dmassnet.

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