Green Product Design: Innovative, Customer Focused – and Profitable

Global warming, rising oil prices, Al Gore… environmental concerns are at the forefront of consumer awareness. Many companies are realizing the benefits of investing in new and energy efficient solutions: better, more profitable products and positive societal contribution. The challenge is in making sure that the processes, energy, materials, facilities and technology used not only meet environmental standards, but - most importantly – that the products themselves meet key customer needs.

Management Roundtable's exclusive new audio-session Green Product Design: Innovative, Customer Focused – and Profitable on Wednesday, January 16th from 1:00 - 2:30pm ET features John Bradford, VP Research and Development, InterfaceFLOR Commercial – a company which has been on the sustainability journey for 13 years. Not only has the sustainability focus been a market differentiator for InterfaceFLOR, over the last five years the core business has more than doubled and the valuation of the company on the NASDAQ has increased more than five times.

John has helped reduce the company’s environmental footprint by more than one third over his 10-year tenure; the company’s stated goal is zero footprint by 2020. In this audiosession he will share the lessons learned from his in-depth experience with the multi-functional aspects of green product and process development.

Specifically he will discuss:

• Business reasons to go green. The concept of environmental health as a leading indicator of business health vs. a trend in consumer awareness.

• How the company had to move outside its typical internally-focused development process in order to create an end result that would be effective - and accepted - in the field.

• A format for collaborative ideation on the foundation of ‘Biomimicry,” their unique Out of the Box process.

• A suggested method for measuring options using Life Cycle Assessment. How to evaluate decisions on the premise of environmental health in a visual way that simplifies the complexities of LCA. How this measurement system coupled with the traditional measure of economic return and social wellness combine to form a complete and balanced scorecard for the corporation.

As sustainability and environmentally-conscious product development are becoming imperative for all companies, this 90-minute session (including 30 minutes Q&A) is not to be missed. Recommended for product development teams, including those responsible for design to launch.

Frequent opportunities for questions and answers will provide participants with guidance on their unique concerns and challenges. The session also includes:

• Hardcopy of presentation slides sent to your office prior to session.

• Your questions answered by an expert 

Invite your whole team to join you - the fee is the same as long as you are on one line, just put it on speakerphone!

Can't make the time and date of the call? Join FastTrack and receive the transcript and download the mp3 of this and other audio sessions.

John Bradford
VP Research and Development
InterfaceFLOR Commercial

Holding 16 years’ experience in research and development, and several patents, John Bradford has helped drive InterfaceFLOR Commercial’s status as a leader in innovation and sustainability. An engineer by trade and expert in both product and process development, Bradford has helped the carpet manufacturer reduce its environmental footprint by more than one third over his 10-year tenure; the company’s stated goal is zero footprint by 2020. He is the company’s connecting point between technical research and conception, product development, manufacturing, marketing and product introduction to the marketplace. This effort has resulted in new product categories for the industry as well as significant technological breakthroughs that are helping Interface distance itself from the petroleum well head.