Episode 052 | April 17, 2023 | 31:57
Guest: Simon (saabyemedia)
Published: April 17, 2023
Duration: 31:57
Description
Frederik van Deurs and Simon, the producer of the Sustainable Healthcare Podcast, discuss sustainability projects and how to build a convincing business case for clients. They cover Green Innovation Group’s work with clients on procurement decisions and LCA analysis, and why taking time for yourself is important. Learn how to break down larger goals into smaller tasks.
Full transcript
About this transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain inaccuracies, typos, or mistranslations. Episodes recorded before 2024 were transcribed by an on-site model and may have a higher error rate. The content reflects the original conversation to the best of our ability. For the authoritative version, please listen to the audio episode.
Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Healthcare Podcast. My name is Frederik van Deurs, CEO of Green Innovation Group. We are a management consultancy dedicated to decarbonization of the healthcare sector. Today Simon, our producer, interviews me about what we actually do in this consultancy.
Simon: Simon is our producer who has recorded more than 40 episodes — flying on the wall in all those conversations. How does a company go about looking into “we have a problem, we need to do something in the sustainable area”? What is the first contact you have?
Frederik: Context dependent. When a company reaches out we usually do a quick-and-dirty maturity assessment. We define where they are on the journey: a fully mature client has sustainability strategy, implementation strategy, roadmap, awareness across the org, and competencies to execute. Typically they’re not there. Then we figure out the operating model, where the gaps are — goal exists, strategy exists, resources allocated, staff have some competencies but they struggle to make it everyday.
On day zero we ask: what budgets are available, which decision makers can we access, what are they willing to do, what timelines, how many people do we engage. Sometimes the client has done their own maturity assessment — “we need to fix packaging” or “all our factories need to become circular” — and the assignment is more concrete.
One recent assignment: a support organization in a global pharma company. They were already sustainability experts. Their problem: staying up to date with current state of affairs in sustainability. The field develops quickly — if you last updated in 2018-2020, a lot has changed. I have been saying for five years biodiversity would be the next big topic — that has now happened in 2023, but nobody knows what to do.
We were tasked with helping this department become a learning organization. We conducted anthropological research — fieldwork in the department, participant observation, listening to conversations. We concluded they were already a learning organization — they just did not know it. When facing tasks they would research what they needed, but they did not call it learning because no diploma was attached.
We worked on changing the self-understanding of employees as knowledge workers. Instead of fetishizing a database of resources that gets dusty and stops being relevant, we proposed seeing the organization as a body of knowledge with living human computers. They constantly acquire new knowledge and stay up to date. Source-critical people. In consulting we often say “if the client knew what the client knows, there would be no need for us.” But if we equip the client with the tool to know what the client knows — we call it the snowballing methodology — call Anja who is the expert on waste, who tells you to talk to Klaus (it’s always a Klaus), and in two hours you become an expert on cardboard waste sorting.
We mapped the department’s level of expertise down to the individual level on three topics in scope. Visual knowledge maps showing: this is the subject of water, here are the resources, here is the regulatory knowledge, here are the staff at various levels. The department got language and KPIs and methodology to activate learning as an activity. It becomes part of the employee development plan — the direct manager knows how to guide a person on the journey toward expertise.
This project took about four months. It depends a lot on how mature the client is in the purchasing decision. With need, budget and timeframe set, the job becomes scoping. Other projects take much longer — we had a conversation going for two years before it materialized. Mostly because sustainability projects have under-priorities budgets historically. We always need to build a solid business case so they can see the money’s worth — value at stake, money left on the table if you don’t hire us.
We try for consultants to have no more than two assignments at once because switching cost is high. I as CEO do many things at once but try to allocate one or two full days for deep work.
A project close to my heart now: developing an operating model for sustainable transformation of seven factories across four continents for a global pharma company. Tying corporate sustainability strategy into the production sites’ transformation strategy. To become world leader on water sustainability in production: level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — we are at level 2, we have checked level 1. The worker on the floor knows working on level-2 items does not make sense because by integrating other technologies we could leapfrog to level 5. Hopefully we will then work with procurement to integrate LCA methodology into procurement decisions — so every time they buy they know the sustainability impact, not just unit cost. Becoming more sustainable buyers reduces Scope 3.
Another exciting one: helping a hospital system and a med-tech company co-create a demo project showing how to reduce surgical procedures per patient. Buy one device instead of three, do the procedure in one setting instead of three. Dramatically improved patient experience, lower CO2 footprint, higher success rate per academic evidence, and you handle more patients. Facilitating dialogue between private and public sector is exciting.
How do you know enough across MedTech, hospital rules, anthropology, etc? You need to be a curious dead cat. Our superpower in Green Innovation Group: we are not afraid to look stupid and ask questions that might sound dumb. That opens the body of knowledge much faster. Just be honest about the limits of your knowledge.
That’s also why we do this podcast — to share knowledge with the world. We do it as philanthropy to mature the industry. Sometimes that maturity also matures future customers who later understand the problem and how we can help.
Thank you so much for making this podcast. Hello and thank you for listening to this episode of the Sustainable Healthcare Podcast.