We are living amidst a remarkable transformation. The linear, throwaway economy of today – in which we extract resources, create products, use them, and throw them away like a cheap plastic fork – is rapidly coming to a close. We are, simply put, running out of things to mine and places to trash.
A new economy is being born, one that takes this line and turns it into a circle. Resource scarcity – the overfished ocean – is the reality virtually every company is swimming in. Those managers who deeply understand and master this shift will be able to turn the new reality into disruptive innovation and remarkable competitive advantage.
Overfished Ocean Strategy offers five essential principles for developing products and services for this new reality. A business owner herself, Nadya Zhexembayeva fills Overfished Ocean Strategy with examples of companies that are already successfully navigating the overfished ocean. Unlike less-farsighted companies, they are not making "green" products as a sideline for a niche market but rather have made dealing with resource scarcity the central, driving force of their entire strategy. As these innovators ride ahead of the wave, new products, new business models, new markets, and new profits follow. You can join them, or you can be left standing on the shore.
Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva is the Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development at IEDC-Bled School of Management in Slovenia. She is an associate partner in the US-based Sustainable Value Partners, one of the oldest sustainability consultancies in the world, and is vice president of the United Nations Global Compact Slovenia. She serves as vice president of Challenge:Future, a global student think-DO-tank. Zhexembayeva earned her doctorate in organizational behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, where she also served as an associate director of the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit, now the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value.