This Low carbon building collaboration has been conducted in a value chain-wide, multi-company setup, led by Combient Pure, an engine for driving inter-organizational low carbon solution creation.
In the face of global megatrends and the need to decarbonize all sectors of the society, multi-company collaboration can accelerate the sustainable business transition of complete industries.
Large companies tend to be unfamiliar with cross-organizational collaboration as a way of working. Not often do companies team up with a supplier or a customer to innovate their business. Such collaboration can nevertheless resolve challenges that individual organizations are unable to overcome on their own.
Inter-organizational collaboration can help companies share knowledge, fast-track their product development and innovation activity, lower the costs and risks of business developmentas well as find synergies with each other. However, such collaboration must be based on mutual value definition, communication and trust. Collaborative networks are rarely self-coordinating and require some third-party organization. In this collaboration, Combient Pure has acted as a neutral organizer of the work, planning and leading the co-operation between the different companies and experts representing them.
Throughout the collaboration, Combient Pure has identified the following key factors for successful value chain-wide collaboration projects:
Setting a mutual goal between the participating companies - sharing information and brainstorming to enable mutual sense-making of what should be done together and why, as well as ensuring that the goal is on similar priority level in the companies
Ensuring leadership support for the collaboration - this ensures correct goal-setting - nevertheless, the project team should consists of experts in the subject matter to achievetangible results
Ensuring that business value is created to all participating companies with the help of a neutral orchestrator - planning and leading the project in a way that meets all participating companies' needs
Establishing a trustful collaboration environment between participating companies - facilitating active engagement between the companies through regular meetings and workshops
Utilizing available data and subject matter experts to reach impactful results - supporting the work by gathering and synthesizing information, arranging expert interviews and inviting guest speakers as well as actively engaging all relevant parts of the organizations involved
Emphasis on both external and internal communications - the learnings and results of a collaboration project should not remain within the closed project team, but disseminated as widely as possible to enable impact
How was this collaboration arranged?
For this inter-organizational project, Combient Pure planned and led the collaboration focusing on six different themes, thereby managing the work in six individual steps:
Studying together with NCC and Stora Enso low-carbon construction materials based on actual designs of a residential and office buildings
Charting the needs of property owners and investors through direct interviews and internal workshops between NCC and Stora Enso
Developing company-specific internal processes for promoting low-carbon construction
Extending the collaboration to a design firm and developing new designs for reference buildings - Ramboll joined the collaboration
Studying the emission reduction potential of massive wood based on the designs used and prepared in steps 1 and 4
Finalizing joint low carbon solutions and gathering the key findings, preparing communications and discussing their business implications
Read more about cross-organizational collaboration as a tool for solving value chain-wide business challenges here.