Just Undo It: Nike, NASA partner on waste innovation challenge

Nike is joining with NASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Department of State to identify 10 “game changing” innovations that transform waste systems in both developed and developing countries. It’s a group of seemingly strange bedfellows — at least until you understand the motives behind their madness.

努力是一系列努力的第四个发射, a nonprofit whose mission is to “identify and support the innovative work poised to contribute to a sustainable future and accelerate solutions to meet urgent challenges facing our society.” That may sound like so many other groups — business plan competitions, cleantech accelerators, angel investment groups, and the like — but this one’s a bit different: the 10 winners don’t get cash or other prizes, but rather the chance to engage in a collaborative process with some of the world’s smartest and most connected people.

The goal of the发射：超越浪费challenge is to identify companies and organizations that have innovative designs for zero waste solutions, waste elimination, waste transformation, and waste mitigation technologies, “as well as waste reduction-focused education, business, and financial strategies that have the potential to reduce and/or eliminate waste at a household, community, office building, campus, or industrial level,” according to the program overview (download – PDF).

10名获奖者将在加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳举行为期三天的论坛，7月18日至22日，在那里他们将通过一系列集中的协作过程，其中一群不同的高级领导者跨越一系列专业知识来识别关键挑战以及将其公司和技术推向市场的机会。

“发射是由抵消而不是另一个可持续发展论坛，”该组织执行董事Victor Friedberg最近告诉我。必威体育2018他说，一个原因是，论坛不是这个过程的结束，而是为10名获奖者中的每一个参与的开始。在7月论坛上，一项结构化的协作过程将导致每个企业的加速行动计划，这将成为一个六个月的过程的基础，其中发射创建了与创新者有助于帮助的“理事会成员”的生态系统他们在成功的道路上。

The Beyond Waste Challenge is Launch’s fourth such efforts since 2010; the previous three challenges covered water, health, and energy. I asked Friedberg, who previously ran NextFest, the global showcase of innovation produced annually by WIRED Magazine, to describe some of the fruits of those labors.

He told me of Gram Power, a company out of UC Berkeley that participated in last November’sLAUNCH: Energy挑战。该公司已创建可充电电池单元，可用于印度和其他国家的离网社区。Gram Power通过其六个月与发射委员会成员进行了六个月的敬意。弗里德伯格说，安理会已经发现了一个投资机会，以获得印度成立的公司，并设立测试网站以证明技术和市场需求。理事会成员之一甚至是直接投资。“他们正在离开和跑步，”他说。

I was curious about the four organizational partners — Nike and the three federal agencies — and what they're roles are. According to Friedberg, NASA was first — “they’re very interested in looking at sustainability, being part of that conversation. A group of us started a conversation with NASA about what was going to become Launch. NASA was founding partner, and we built from there. Each of the four has a different objective and purpose for their engagement with Launch, but collectively their mission is to showcase and support transformative innovations that can address global challenges.”

发射’s website describes how each of the four partners aims to benefit from the waste challenge:

• US AID旨在解决发展中国家的挑战,浪费reaching Base of the Pyramid populations through scalable technologies or “behavior change/communication program models.”
• NASAaims to accelerate efforts to deploy advanced systems and components in space produced through green engineering practices to reduce mass, decrease power consumption, and design for zero waste. An additional goal is to eliminate or mitigate orbital debris.
• TheState Department旨在为全球公民和环境的健康和福祉做出更多有效的废物管理实践，从而帮助减轻源于资源不平等和贫困的冲突。“
• AndNikeaims to find solutions that contribute to the greater efficiency, sustainability and stability of waste elimination, reduction and mitigation management systems across global supply chains.

I wasn’t able to talk to Nike in time for this post, but it’s well documented that the company has long been sprinting down a path of innovation in the design, manufacturing, supply chain and end of life of its products. (See herefor the company’s description of its strategy and practices, and here for a video ofmy interview with Hannah Jones，耐克的可持续业务和创新的副总裁，在2011年Greenbiz创新论坛上。）“发射浪费是他们专门为他们的一个伟大计划，”弗里德贝格说。“它与耐克感兴趣的顶部问题交谈。”

It will be interesting to see how Launch breaks through the barriers of design, manufacturing, distribution, recycling, and all the other parts of the system that tend to reduce incentives for companies to create less wasteful or waste-free products. And, of course, it’s not just companies: the materials cycle begins at the mine, forest, and well and goes all the way to the landfill — or, hopefully, some higher-value disposition. All parts of the system will need to be engaged to create the kinds of nonincremental breakthroughs Friedberg and his colleagues are seeking.

但这正是我觉得关于发射的引人注目。“We’re looking for truly transformative, inspired, creative, out-of-the-box companies and organizations that might otherwise not get attention because they have a higher risk portfolio, or because a lot of different components have to come together in order to get them into the market,” says Friedberg. “We work very diligently and passionately with each of these innovators to make the strategies and opportunities move from being a brainstorm to a reality.”

That’s a recipe for success, if ever I saw one.