This website is for users in business and commerce, their stakeholders and those in central government, its agencies and local government, who have an interest in the “profit and planet” question.

This website is also for those requiring speakers for programmes covering the “profit and planet” question and for those publishing quality copy on, or linked to, the many facets of this question.

Particularly welcome are those who, looking to tomorrow, see, or are striving to find, the business opportunities within the “profit and planet” question. These opportunities are about securing a place as an essential part of the solution to climate change etc., thereby avoiding remaining part of the problem, with its traps of rising costs and declining choice.
 

The “profit and planet” question:

How, profitably, to satisfy the needs and aspirations of  customers, consumers and shareholders today – in ways which maintain our planet’s resources and stability systems – to secure a continuing basis for business opportunity and general prosperity tomorrow?
^{© 2006-2007 Richard Poynton}

I work with you to guide your business sense as you lead your business through, or otherwise deal with, the “profit and planet” question.

I work with people to enable them to progress by resolving their business challenges. Working with me is a process of moving from Ideals to Ideas, Ideas to Innovation and Innovation to Profitability. Success is the Win Win Wins of customer satisfaction + profit + reinvestment in the “natural capital” base of your business, - i.e. operating to sustain our planet’s resources and stability systems.

I am a qualified professional, working as a consultant, speaker and writer, to guide business people and others who are ready to take up the opportunities hidden within the “profit and planet” question.

I work with you:

As a consultant, to assist you to respond effectively to the “how to” practical implications of the “profit and planet” question, as you develop your business. As a speaker, or writer, to extend the scope of your events and/or of your publications copy into this new field. 

IDEALS to IDEAS > IDEAS to INNOVATION > INNOVATION to PROFITABILITY

Working together:

I start by listening, to understand my client’s people and the context and substance of their objectives. I then identify the right questions and work with my clients to determine the best answers for today, shaping these answers where possible to allow for development and on-going value delivery tomorrow.

My purpose is to provide on-going value for my clients. I do this by providing a professional service, tailored to client needs and culture. Where possible, I enable my clients to acquire new capabilities. At the client’s discretion, I will work with the client to develop a sound working relationship of mutual trust and understanding, robust enough for us to tackle together, major changes to the client’s business.

My value to clients:

My value to clients resides first in my understanding of the links between business and our planet’s resources and stability systems. E.g. modern added value supply systems, with their constant survival need to realign to the changing demands of markets and major customers, are, in principle, similar to living systems constantly evolving (i.e. becoming ever better fitted) for their survival, in response to the changing demands of their natural environments.

Second, it resides in my bridging between disciplines to construct innovative, but relevant responses to the business opportunities which lie within every client’s perception of the “profit and planet” question. E.g. Marrying “green” ideas with non-“green” ideas to enable better business solutions.

Third, it resides in my understanding of both the science and common sense of good practice in my field. This is leavened by my long experience of change management in the consumer goods industries, having worked as a catalyst for change driving R&D projects, in practical project management with customers and suppliers and in the boardroom as a chief executive.

Success!

My success is my clients’ success. I foster success through long-term working relationships and open and ethical dealing with my clients. I run my business with a smile and to the principles and practices which I advocate.

My approach

My approach to business problems and questions, including to the “profit and planet” question, is to look for the hidden opportunities within them and to point the way for my clients to unlock the value within these opportunities. This practice results in a positive, business-sense approach to my work with clients and others.

A few introductory examples

Rethinking Process – Precise Conversion of Inputs to Added Value:

Many of our industrial processes are not set up to convert the inputs which they consume - materials and utilities etc. – precisely into added value for the customer. As a consequence, usually unintended, they convert a significant proportion of these inputs into by-products and other unwanted outputs, which add no customer value. Indeed, these unwanted materials often add considerable complexity and cost in the additional work and equipment required to separate them from the primary product.

Rethinking process to eliminate these unwanted materials optimises the conversion of inputs into added value for the customer. A generic example of my work with a client to achieve this rethinking by the use of “precise processing” techniques is available in the Members’ area of my website.

Further information

Rethinking Supply Systems – Better Value Provision, Less Cost to the Planet:

In the fast moving consumer goods sectors, competition today is increasingly between supply systems, that is groups of businesses working together to satisfy a set of customers and consumers, rather than as formerly, between individual customer-facing businesses.

A competitive supply system requires a lot of joined-up thinking and practice, but offers attractive opportunities to eliminate duplication and to reduce energy and materials usage. It also opens the way to real progress towards reducing the carbon emissions embedded in the provision of a given product or service, a new requirement, arising from retailer interest in the “carbon footprint” labelling of consumer products. Reducing the “carbon footprint” of a product or service, requires an orchestrated effort by the supply system as a whole. For a generic example of my work with a client to rethink a supply system in this way, click the link below.

Further information

Capturing Residual Value in By-Products:

Some businesses will, by choice or necessity, continue to produce by-products. If so, where cost-effective, by-product production should be configured to make the best commercial return on the process inputs which it utilises. These inputs normally being chosen and costed against the expected return from the primary product or service.

Optimising by-product configuration may mean rethinking materials selection and processing for the primary product or service, to improve returns on both the primary product and the by-product, in order to optimise the total return on the inputs required to provide value to the customers who take each product type. For a generic example of my work with a client to capture the residual value in by-products, lick the link below.

Further information