By Contributor Harper Collins India Sarwant Singh
Zero. What would we do without it? Unique, ubiquitous, and utterly indispensable.
From its early use as a placeholder in Mesopotamian and Mayan civilizations to being ascribed value in seventh century India, from being embraced by China and the Middle East in the eighth century to finally reaching Western Europe in the 12th century, zero has become the foundation without which the modern world could crumble.[i]
In with the changing needs of the 21st century – 20 centuries each of 100 years (plenty of zeros here as well) – zero is transforming. It is still very much at the core of everything, except now as the lynchpin of an entirely new set of ideas.
Innovating to Zero
Source: Harper Collins
If the last decade was all about digital computing and the binary digit, i.e., the bit, then the coming one will be about quantum computing and the quantum bit, i.e., the qubit. Unlike the bit, which can be either zero or one, the qubit can be both zero and one, simultaneously, until measured. Much like the wealth of opportunities this opens, zero too is unveiling astonishing possibilities – a Vision Zero, if you will.
What is this Vision Zero? What began as a goal of making roads safer – zero fatalities, zero road accidents, zero serious traffic injuries – has now grown in scope and scale. Today, the Vision Zero World is all-encompassing, embracing manufacturing, retail, cities, individuals, corporates, governments, work, home, leisure, products, performance, processes, and more. It is about a philosophy that pivots around safe, smart, and sustainable practices. Beyond the objective of achieving carbon neutrality and net zero, it is about consciously building a better world. A world free of errors, defects, and negatives.
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So think: Zero emissions. Zero accidents. Zero waste. Zero crimes. Zero hunger. Zero poverty. Zero illiteracy. Zero diseases. Zero carbon, factories, countries, and, possibly, Earth.
Realizing this ambitious vision requires innovative mindsets, technologies, business models, strategies, and solutions. Which invariably brings us to the question: How does one ‘Innovate to Zero’?
Fascinated by this evolving Mega Vision of “Innovating to Zero”, I devoted considerable ink to it in my second book, Innovating to Zero : A Zero Vision Strategy for Consciously Creating a Better World, published by Harper Collins India.
Today, Zero Vision is being transformed by two major shifts. First, technology has advanced to a point where we can practically conceive of eradicating, not just minimizing complex societal and industrial challenges. Second, there’s a growing understanding that innovation isn’t only about profit or performance, it’s equally about purpose where the priority is to rebuild our world for the better. That’s the core idea behind my new book. It explores real-world applications of this philosophy and, beyond that, offers a practical roadmap for how organizations can adopt and implement zero-target strategies at scale.
From Zero Emissions to Zero Hunger: Sector-Wide Transformations
“Innovating to Zero” has gone mainstream across industries. In retail, we’re talking about Zero Waste packaging, Zero Inventory business models, and even Zero Discrimination in customer experience. Offices are beginning to operate with Zero Paper workflows, Zero-Based Scheduling, and frictionless hiring systems and looking to a future where processes are simplified, sustainable, and systemically fair.
In manufacturing and industry, the concept is proving even more disruptive. Think: Zero Overproduction, Zero Pollution Plants, Zero Design-to-Shelf time, Zero Defects in production lines. In automotive, it translates into Zero Congestion, Zero Emission Vehicles, Zero Road Fatalities, and even Zero Driving Stress through autonomous and connected mobility solutions. In the energy sector, the vision is of decarbonized, decentralized, digital, and democratized power, a future of near-zero cost, renewable energy.
Healthcare, too, is entering a zero-driven revolution. Zero Surgical Errors. Zero Wait Times. Zero Preventable Deaths. Emerging innovations are making these formerly unimaginable outcomes possible, from AI-enabled diagnostics to non-invasive surgeries and telemedicine. This Zero Vision even permeates nutrition and wellness: Zero Sugar foods, Zero Calorie beverages, Zero Waste pharmaceuticals. And it doesn’t stop at industries.
Across societies, Innovating to Zero means targeting major social and developmental gaps—Zero Hunger, Zero Homelessness, Zero Income Inequality, Zero Waste, and Zero Child Poverty. Even areas like education and justice are being reimagined with a Zero Achievement Gap and Zero Racial Disparities as tangible goals. The beauty of this philosophy lies in its versatility: challenges aren’t just removed, they are reframed as innovation opportunities.
How to build a Zero vision Strategy – A structured approach
In essence then, ‘Innovating to Zero’ manifests in multiple ways at multiple levels in multiple areas from cities to countries, cars to crime, buildings to bras (In 2011, UK multinational retailer, Marks and Spencer (M&S) launched what it advertised as “high street’s first-ever carbon neutral bra), factories to food, health to hunger, and even the opera (historic East Sussex opera house Glyndebourne has pledged to halve its direct carbon emissions by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050) to oenophilia (raise a toast to California’s, Fetzer Vineywards the world’s first Zero Waste certified wine company).
The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we can truly conceive of this aspirational vision translating into real world products and services? Can we use it to inform business and corporate strategies? If so, how can businesses and society as a whole benefit? And, perhaps most importantly, in a profit-driven environment, can a compelling business case be made for implementing a Zero Vision strategy?
For me, a Zero Vision strategy has two sides: on the one side, it is about eliminating the wrongs, the evils, the negatives and, on the other, it is about championing the rights, the good, the positives. It is about sparking sustainable innovation in environmental and economic spheres and being committed to balancing business and social imperatives. I find it a remarkably powerful concept that holds promise of alleviating massive social inequities and enhancing quality of life indices by tackling apparently intractable problems like pollution, poverty, and violence, among others. I believe it can foster new paradigms that herald inclusive, sustainable, responsible growth. All very well, I know – in theory. But what about practice? How does one get around to the brasstacks, of implementing this Zero Vision in what is essentially a chaotic world full of contradictory pushes and pulls?
To start with there is a need for a clearly defined and structured approach. This is a pre-requisite. It will begin with articulating what, why and how this vision is unique to you or your organization, what value you believe these new ideas can add and how they can impel your goals. For businesses this will mean something as fundamental as identifying and understanding customer expectations and unmet market needs. Imagination, entrepreneurship, creativity, ingenuity, intelligence, and endurance – without these attributes, any idea is bound to crash before even take-off. But equally, I will add, the virtue of pragmatism that will allow you to assess whether these ideas can be viably translated into real world applications, what their potential impact might be, and how they might align with the Big Picture. Once the wheat has been separated from the chaff, will come the stage of trialing prototypes/pilots in real world scenarios and, subsequently, implementing only the most promising ones. At this stage, it will be critical to establish key performance indicators that track progress. The ability to scale successful implementations and continuously adapt based on new insights and changing dynamics will be pivotal for a Zero Vision to survive and thrive. And, finally, I will repeat that adage that you learn more from your failures than you do from your successes. Failures will be inevitable but if we see them as opportunities for learning, course correction, and refining action, our march to Zero Vision will merely be delayed, not ended.
[i] What is the origin of zero? How did we indicate nothingness before zero? – Scientific American
This article is taken from a book titled, Innovating to Zero, published by Harper Collins India
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