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Erik: What has your environmental work at the intersection of the public and the private
sectors taught you about what makes innovation work?
Andrew: Well, I mean, the primary thing is it has to create value. There is a tendency
to want to solve the problem first, maybe create value second. Both have to equally
co-exist in the space. If there is a social need or environmental need, there is a business
opportunity but you have to make sure that it's actually creating value for the people
that are investing in it, for the opportunity to really be there. There are a lot of social
entrepreneurs out there that use tactics from the private sector in order to pursue a public
goal and I think that's a really -- that's been an invaluable innovation, I think in
its own right. I think in the private sector if you want an innovation -- an environmental
innovation to really take off, I think you have to focus first on the value creation
piece, the profitability piece and the rest will follow. You can't lead with the environmental
benefit first. Those are equally valuable things but I think those are the innovations
that belong either in the non-profit sector or they belong in the government sector but
I think we have to think appropriately where something belongs -- in the last few years
we really had a big mishmash of, you know -- we're all trying to work towards this benefit
and there are lessons we can take from the private sector and there are lessons that
we can pull from a public sector in terms of creating environment and social benefit.
It think we have to be really precise where each one of those things belongs and I think
we've been, I think imprecise in trying to lead with -- leading the private sector with
the public goal and that's probably not where it belongs. You can have the public goal be
a positive externality of a business venture but that's not gonna be sustainable if it's
not profitable; if it's not creating value.