Horizons

How can 9.5 billion people live well with the resources of one planet? This is how the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) think about sustainability where they believe they have a mission to accelerate business-led innovation to improve quality of life and grow a sustainable economy. Given this aim, we asked ourselves what a ‘sustainable economy’ should look like and embarked on a journey with Forum for the Future to really understand this. The result is Horizons.

Horizons describes the safe environmental limits an economy must operate within, the social and political foundations that enable our societies to flourish and the essential needs for humans to survive and thrive. These factors will drive market changes and without taking those into account, investments are more likely to fail.

To find out more, visit www.horizons.innovateuk.org

The team at The House London were responsive, hard working and great to work with. Their full-service skillset meant we ended up with a very professional product in the form of Horizons. Everyone at the Technology Strategy Board is really happy with the results!
Mike Pitts, Lead Specialist, Sustainability - Technology Strategy Board

What was the problem?

Forum For the Future and the Technology Strategy Board were using a set of analogue cards to successfully inspire and educate businesses (and internal teams) on sustainability thinking. So the logical next step would be to find out ways of scaling this great work to create far-reaching impact and also finding a way of presenting deeper information about each topic. In other words, what was the digital solution?

And how did we solve it?

Enter The House – we worked out how to brand, package, communicate and deliver this great asset in a digital format. Using the principles of service design and agile methodology, we worked on a six month cycle – which included two prototypes, workshops with key stakeholders throughout and then the final beta version. We prefer to work this way, as it reduces wastage for the client and also produces an outcome that has more iterative testing than tradition Waterfall product development practices.

We dealt with every single detail, taking the analogue representation of the Sustainable Economy Framework and:

Rebranded it to Horizons
Designed a new identity
Redesigned the framework diagram to make it more intuitive
Designed and developed a responsive digital tool
Designed and developed an intuitive CMS system for the client
Created and produced a short animation intro video
Created and produced a film called ‘Think Future’ with six business leaders

Deborah Meaden – Entrepreneur and Investor
Jonathon Porritt – Founder, Forum For The Future
Mark Pettigrew – Agricultural Sustainability Manager, PepsiCo
Karen Hamilton – Vice President – Sustainability, Unilever
Ben Reed – European Engineering and NPI Manager, Caterpillar
David Bott – Director of Innovation Programmes, Technology Strategy Board

At the end of it, we launched the tool at the UK’s main innovation conference – Innovate at the Business Design Centre in March 2013. We can happily say that the client loves the product and most importantly, they’re receiving very positive feedback from users of the tool.

If you’re running a business, you should really be using Horizons to get ahead – give it a try at horizons.innovateuk.org