The new age of sustainability is like a three-legged stool, and over the last couple of weeks I've discussed my ideas for the first two legs, including customers and energy or transportation. The third leg involves products, and this idea takes some thinking to fully comprehend.
Most of us don't think a lot about products because they are ubiquitous. Unless you lived in the old Soviet Union, the concept of bare store shelves makes no sense. In the old CCCP, basic commodities were in short supply, and for everything from bread to shampoo, you stood in line. If you wanted a car or a better apartment, you could wait years. In a market economy, there are always products in the stores, and our conundrums are usually more over what to select.
The aforementioned commodities are things that, in a market economy, are abundant and cheap, and they are usually of decent quality because their manufacturers long ago figured out how to make a profit on large production runs with the necessary quality. But market economies thrive on what's new and innovative. It's the new products that are in relatively short supply, because their innovators have difficulty keeping up with demand. This shortness contributes to premium pricing. So what happens when the innovation engine sputters?
