Client
The World Wide Fund for Nature Australia is part of the largest and most influential independent conservation organisation in the world, operating in over 100 countries.
Galvanised during the 2019-20 Australian bushfire season, Greening Australia and WWF Australia are collaborating on a climate-ready restoration partnership with the primary goal to mainstream innovative, nature-based and scalable solutions that will build nature’s resilience in a changing climate.
Challenge
The potential of nature-based solutions for climate change has yet to be unleashed. We believe that we can overcome some of the challenges faced by the environmental sector delivering nature based solutions by applying product innovation, aiming to transform complex environmental science and research into commercial ‘products’ so that we can better scale solutions to meet the challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. By adopting and adapting a combination of Design Thinking, Lean and Agile methodologies, we can develop a replicable productisation process.
The two challenges identified as part of the climate-ready restoration partnership:
- Green Firebreaks: How might we design and apply a process that helps us bring to market and test bushfire resilient planting design.
- Alpine Ash: How might we test and scale interventions that may help Australia’s vegetation adapt to climate change.
What we did and delivered
Green Firebreaks are planted strips of lower-flammability vegetation that are strategically placed in the landscape to reduce fire spread and minimise the risks to people, biodiversity, and assets.
As the Innovation Product Design Lead on the team, I was responsible for the 'innovation' component of the project, involving development of a validated MVP in market with an attractive, replicable financial model as well as a process to productise Nature-based Solutions that is replicable, adapting and applying Design Thinking, Lean and Agile Innovation practises.
In anticipation of understanding the effectiveness of Green Firebreaks and understanding if in fact they are suitable as a fire management tool through scientific modelling, we want to be ready to roll out Green Firebreaks and scale them. We are engaging with a diversity of expertise to understand the bushfire management space, in order to understand stakeholders and their needs as well as uncover potential constraints, such as financial viability.
Key Activities
•Qualitative research interviews to fill gaps in data / knowledge and for Audience definition, pains, needs
•Co-creation (workshops) to define hypotheses, concepts and prioritisation
•Value Proposition, Product objectives & KPIs
•Sprint topic definition and Sprint planning
•MVP Definition, Prototyping & Testing
•Develop a ‘Nature-based Solutions Productisation’ playbook
Impact
The project is ongoing, with the scientific modelling yet to be completed. Next will be establishing the demonstration sites in order to further gain evidence.
