Sustainability Through Open Innovation: Carlsberg and the Green Fiber Bottle

Henry W. Chesbrough, Marcel Bogers, Robert Strand

The case follows Danish brewer Carlsberg as it develops the Green Fiber Bottle, a beer bottle made of wood pulp, in collaboration with a startup, a small-to-medium sized enterprise (SME), and a Danish University. The case has a dual focus. First, it demonstrates how a company can successfully innovate by leveraging the concept of open innovation. Second, it shows how sustainability - and relatedly, the idea of purpose - can be a powerful motivator to drive open innovation efforts. In this respect, this case serves as one of the first formal documentations of how open innovation can effectively drive innovation activities to address a stated sustainability objective. This co-mingling of sustainability and open innovation has the potential to become a domain in its own right (perhaps under a moniker such as "Sustainable Open Innovation").

Learning Objective

1. Showcase open innovation in action: provide an example of how the concept of open innovation is put in practice and the benefits that follow. 2. Give an example of how sustainability can effectively drive open innovation activities. 3. Provide a specific example of how a perceived challenge of open innovation can be overcome. 4. Explore how addressing a sustainability challenge can be a motivating factor for collaboration and innovation activities independent of the potential of an immediate business case. 5. Consider how the Nordic context in which Carlsberg operates - which includes the comparatively cooperative business environment and a corporate ownership structured around the Carlsberg industrial foundation - may have contributed to the outcomes of this particular case, and how these lessons may be applied in another context. 6. Illustrate one instance in which open innovation driven by sustainability is being used to address a grand societal challenge - that of plastic waste.

Details

Pub Date: Oct 1, 2018

Discipline: Social Enterprise

Subjects:

Cooperative strategies, Corporate social responsibility, Open innovation, Organizational values, Packaging, Partnerships, Social responsibility, Sustainability

Source:

UC Berkeley - Haas School of Business

Product #: B5922-PDF-ENG

Teaching note: available

Industry: Alcoholic beverages, Bottling & distribution, Packaging, cartons & containers, Retail & Consumer Goods

Geography: Denmark, Sweden

Length: 21 page(s)