Virtually every company on the planet, if they haven’t already, will soon have to tackle the challenge of sustainability. We may soon (or already have) hit peak oil production for the world, global warming is real, and the era of cheap resources is rapidly coming to an end. If we want to survive on this planet we need to drive sustainability through the fabric of our society. That’s a monumental task. It’s no understatement to say that success in sustainability will ultimately require the reinvention of technologies, cities, food chains and lifestyles.

In response to such an overwhelming problem, companies, universities, and governments have begun to invest heavily in green energy technologies, praying that one of them will save us, be it solar, wind, hydrogen or something yet more exotic. As ambitious and inspiring as these efforts are, such an approach on its own will never be enough.

The reason for this is simple – no idea ever makes an impact upon its inception. The first microprocessor went on sale in 1971, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that American lifestyles were transformed by the use of personal computers. The first functional automobile was demonstrated in 1801, but cars came to redefine the culture in the 20th Century, not the 19th. The electric light took a century to take hold in the American home. Quite simply, no single innovation conquers the world all at once. Prices of initial ventures are always too high, performance inevitably underwhelms, and people take a long time to warm to genuinely new-to-the-world ideas.

To achieve the necessary changes in society – and make money in the process – our opportunity today isn’t simply in the development of new technologies. Instead, it might be more important to drive the adoption of existing sustainable solutions. In so doing, we can make a major impact on our environment, create jobs, and reduce the costs of promising innovations.

In late 2007, growth strategy firm Jump Associates defined six design strategies for creating products and services optimized for success at different points in an innovation’s diffusion. Now, we’re ready to offer guidance on designing for the adoption of green products and services. In this paper, we provide best practices for companies in two very different situations: legacy players trying to understand when and how to green an existing category and pioneers seeking to accelerate the adoption of a completely new product or service. By following these strategies, companies can make green technologies profitable more quickly, renew differentiation in existing categories, and make the world a better place.

Things Take Time – An Introduction to Adoption Theory

Adoption theory is a well-established body of research into how ideas catch on. It owes its origins to communications theorist Everett Rogers’ seminal work The Diffusion of Innovations. In that text, Rogers charts the rise and fall of ideas, technologies, products and nations while teasing out the insights and principles needed to apply adoption theory to new fields.

The adoption of new ideas follows a standard bell curve. Anyone who engages with a given innovation fits into one of five categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Each of these groups has unique psychographic characteristics that cause people to be more or less likely to adopt a particular idea at a particular point in time. By understanding the needs of each group on the adoption curve, we can understand how to make an idea more appealing to different types of people.

Related posts:

1. Design Strategies for Technology Adoption
2. On Air: Design Strategies for Technology Adoption
3. Sustainability as a Tool for Reinvention