3A MODEL: SMART PATH to

DEVELOP SUSTAINABLE
PRODUCTS

Sharanarthy Jaswanth
2011BLP036
School of Inspired Leadership
Abstract:
The 3A model is developed by Gregory Unruh, professor, director of Lincoln centre at Thunderbird
school of global management & author of Earth Inc & Richard Ettenson associate professor at
Thunderbird School of global management. This strategy predominantly gives corporations a smart path
to produce sustainable products. The strategy is to Accentuate, Acquire and Architect sustainable ways
of producing products.

Introduction:
Despite its use since early 1990’s, the word “sustainability” has not become an integral part of our
language. Business houses don’t actually consider how much extractions are done from mother earth
when they process, & then dump back on the mother earth once its life is over. As consumers become
more cognitive on the purchases, seeing what material is used in producing that & such. Now business
houses across the planet have taken sustainability as the important ingredient in their process. Though
it is late business houses are trying to become more responsive to this cause. The organizations are now
totally shifting their systems to achieve triple bottom line results. For this to take place companies
should not end their work by only planting trees, but to embrace 3P’s in the business model People,
Profit, Planet. The business houses are in the brink of adopting strategies to achieve profits which
advocate economics, environment & social. So to achieve this Gregory & Richard formulated
Accentuate, Acquire & Architect 3A strategy to develop products in a sustainable way. Already business
houses like ITC imbibe one or other sustainable practices as their integral part to derive profits. But this
strategy clear gives 3 ways of making the organization a sustainable one.

Accentuate:
This strategy is to concentrate on the existing or potential green practices of the current portfolio of the
organization. This is the easiest & fastest way to achieve the sustainable products. This can be done by
emphasizing on the attributes which the organization already has, Paper boards & Packaging a business
of ITC Ltd follows this practices. Paper manufacturing requires pulp as the major raw material, so to
meet the requirement without disturbing the ecology they have developed FARM FORESTRY. Farm
forestry is process of commercially growing trees in farm system. ITC enjoys its vertical integration
through social/farm forestry by planting 433 million saplings in the area of 1, 03,466 hectares majorly
wasteland by employing 46.56 million people*. Thus the business arm of Paperboard & packaging of ITC
is seeing profit involving People of poor household with environment as an imperative.
The other way this strategy works is by re-engineering the current portfolio of what the business already
has with the available resources. This can be done in any part of the value chain of the business.
Changes in any of the value proposition should contribute to baseline, having environment & people in
mind. Honda is very good example, right from the day total planet started discussing on green products
Honda engineers have been seriously trying to come out with changes in the way products are made.
Honda has been very recently in spree of launching hybrid variety of vehicles which are environmental
friendly. Then the whole supply chain is now getting a new face with sustainability in mind. Fig 1**
shows the changes in supply chain.

Optimize
transportation
Improving
efficiency
Colloboration
with other players
for trasportation
Green Logistics
Reducing the use
of packaging
material
Use less
packaging
Introducing
returnable
containers

So this strategy of ACCENTUATE can be done as the first step to reach the “sustainable way”.

Acquire:
When business do not have such green attributes to posses or when business do not have such expertise
to develop or re-engineer, then the business can acquire a brand to position themselves in green zone.
Mahindra & Mahindra’s M&M move to buy 55.2% stake in Reva Electric Car Company (RECC)*** shows
that M&M sensed the future & accordingly strategized the move. So this strategic alliance gives a M&M
a better chance join the global race to develop electric car & RECC gets an advantage to smartly market
their product, on which it has been struggling these years. So this deal is win-win strategy deal. M&M is
now working on electric versions of core vehicles like mini-truck, researching on hybrid vehicles with
technology of RECC. RECC is now all set to launch a new version of passenger car with the finance &
marketing strategy of M&M.
Architect:
Organizations with Innovation in their DNA right from the top management to frontline managers then
they can follow this strategy of ARCHITECTING. Architect as the name says is to design a project to
deliver a product in a sustainable way. The product designing should be right from the scratch. So this
strategy is time consuming, heavy monetary requirement with high risk. But with all set, if the product
clicks with green marketing techniques then organization will see flying colours in the future. One great
example is what camper shoes of Spain, created a high concept hybrid shoes. Hybrid shoes are
manufactured from different material & technique to meet 21 st century needs with aim of
SUSTAINABILITY. The shoe lace is made of PET, recycled plastic. The body is made of Eco muffler leather
which is processed in non-polluting & clean environment & it is hypo allergic. The heal of the shoe is
made from organic cotton lining. The EVA insole is made of cork shavings. All the materials used in this
are recyclable & purely sustainable****. There has been lots of researching been into this for
ARCHITECTING such a green product.

Conclusion:
Nature is at its best in productivity which has created microscopic organism like amoeba to city sized
coral reef. So it is high time for us, the business houses to follow the nature’s way of getting products
done. For this to happen, the green revolution should start from organization which use fossil fuels as
their resources to reduce dependence on fossil fuels & adopt new processes to attain the new heights
called sustainability.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we have borrowed it from our children”
References:

1. Growing green article by Gregory unruh & Richard ettenson in the HBR of June 2010.
2. Earth Inc – A book by Gregory Unruh which gives insights on building organization with
sustainability in mind.

Citations:

*Cited from ITC portal page of farm forestry http://www.itcportal.com/rural-

development/forestry-01.htm, on 19.07.2010.
**Cited from worldwide green initiatives of Honda corp http://world.honda.com/green/, on
19.07.2010.
***Cited from Forbes magazine June 18 2010 issue, page no: 40, article by Cukoo paul & Mitu
Jayashankar.
****Cited from website page of hybrid shoes of camper shoes
http://www.camper.com/#/en/hybrid/, on 19.07.2010.