Sustainability means opportunities for those firms acting globally to help meet their clients' demands
Marc Epstein likes to talk about the Toyota Prius. Not the car itself, but more Toyota's strategy behind the development and the delivery of the first mainstream electric/gas hybrid car. In an incredibly forward-thinking moment, Toyota's leadership brought together a team to develop what it was calling "the car of the 21st century" way back in 1993, long before it was fashionable to think of an automobile's impact on the future. Even more innovative, perhaps, was the team Toyota assembled to work on the car. The traditional hierarchal model was replaced by what Epstein calls "an equal-access system of communication," which included leadership, designers, engineers, marketers and production plant crew chiefs.
"The Prius was a huge risk, but it has been an absolute bonanza for Toyota," says Epstein, author of Making Sustainability Work: Best Practices in Managing and Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts. "And it got first-mover advantage in the marketplace and with consumers, which led to Toyota controlling over 50 percent of the hybrid market even though there are more than 25 hybrids out there right now."