Green Products Strategy
ITAÚ
CONTEXT
This is the project that made me most proud of my career. It was a partnership with Itaú's Sustainability and Socio-environmental Risk teams.
The challenge was to identify the environmental theme that the bank should support to create, with the product teams, a portfolio of services consistent with the company's institutional strategy.
The sustainability team had done a study with Gartner and a trend-mapping company called BOX 1824 which exposed that, more than settling debts with the environment, companies needed to generate credits for it. People's way of thinking and acting had evolved since 2017 and there were a greater demand and responsibility from companies to do more than the basics around the world. They asked the design team for help in defining which of the six subjects would be most relevant:
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infrastructure/mobility
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agriculture
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water
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energy
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waste reduction
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carbon market
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REGENERATION
BUSINESS > ECOSSISTEM
BUSINESS IMPACT
1960
1990
equalize credits and debts
2015
offset debts
create credits
+
BUSINESS < ECOSSISTEM
MY ROLE
My role as UXer was to define a direction for the best environmental theme based on diagnosing trends, previous research, and facilitating relevant activities.
My second role was to build a framework with the 15 business departments involved using relevant tools and effective techniques that stimulate the co-creation of a potential portfolio within 30 days.
I used design thinking as a guide and the premises of agile culture as inspiration.
In three months, we had the chosen environmental theme with a portfolio based on some potential targets.
The performance as UX strategy and scrum master of a temporary squad of products focused on energy generated 16 new business opportunities. Of these 16, 10 are activated, with good repercussion in the media when communicated and great target demand.
PREMISSES:
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identify unexplored demand
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consider corporate and retail banking products
How to create a portfolio focused on green products that positively impact the place where people live and stimulate their power of transformation?
CHALLENGE
HOW WE DID IT
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3 behaviors dictated the first reflections:
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new climate level, increasingly critical worldwide
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a new way of consuming, with new ways of thinking and concerns focused on the collective
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new business mindset, concerned and being charged more for their actions
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Also in desk research, we mapped problems and impacts in the world and in Brazil related to the six environmental themes, positive and negative
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In one afternoon, I facilitated an activity with 40 people, most of them internal specialists in the subjects.
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I divided people into six groups with different themes, and I invited six other Sustainability facilitators to mediate the tables.
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At each table, there was one of six specific subjects and all created an opportunity map on each front after identifying the risks and consequences of each one, in addition to the analysis of competitors.
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After creating the map of opportunities, they defended each of the issues and all voted for the topic that they thought Itaú should choose
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After the activity, we made an analysis of what came out of each group, and then the Design, Sustainability, and Socio-Environmental Risk team chose the themes to be followed.
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Two of them stood out: energy, infrastructure, for four main reasons:
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they were the most voted during discovery activity
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all of them had a greater volume of opportunities
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all of them could be aligned with Itaú's positioning
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they're directly connected
The opportunities map shows our organization in relation to the others, being able to define directions to be followed in the next steps
HOW WE DID IT
After knowing that we would work with energy, we planned the next month and involved about 20 people to define portfolio opportunities.
TIMELINE
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Four main audiences were mapped, following the idea that materialism is getting less and less attractive (Trendwatching):
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sustainable native people
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sustainable people, but with no access to ecological products
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green tech companies with no financial education assistance
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big companies with a sustainable mindset, but consider only operational efficiency
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We split the group into three and, for each of these audiences, the groups started searching for data on consumption profile, aspirations, and pain points. We look for opportunities for all of them, being made tangible with the value proposition statement.
Our Strategy
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rapid implementation of products and services
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low operating cost
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products aligned with the company purpose
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focus on pent-up demand in early adopters
brand positioning
refinement
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refine solutions according to adherence, financial and operational efficiency
scale
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add other products and services integrate solutions
In addition to the mapped strategy, opportunities were prioritized according to the potential for impact vs. implantation difficulty All ideas that emerged and were placed in the blue quadrants were prioritized and voted on as relevant. Ideas from the field in red have been discarded.
In the first week, we've mapped potential solutions based on business impact and viability in the short, medium, and long term.
In the second week, the Sustainability, socio-environmental risk team and I shared the corporate and retail team's organization so that they could begin to validate the proposed solutions without losing the communication and collaboration of the week.
Every day, we held daily conversations to give the whole team transparency and remove speedbumps from each MVP.
Every week, they had basic planning of the deliveries considering the next 7 days.
After invalidating some points in the third and fourth week, we focused on the very short-term portfolio communication. It has already been possible to increase the detail of the initiatives' development.
In the fourth and last week, I helped to update the backlog and, together with each product manager, we created a roadmap plan for a quarter.
Each product had a card containing:
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name of the responsible department
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the name of the person who would be the sustainability or socio-environmental risk hub
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product name
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value proposition.
Final opportunities and MVP deadlines
RESULTS
After having the roadmaps validated with the bank's board of directors, Sustainability continued to monitor the initiatives with specific conversations with the design team.
Of the 16 opportunities, 10 were launched. Some had great acceptance from large companies, with positive repercussions in the media, in addition to the above-expected financial return during activities, either due to greater demand or because of the increased appetite in the market.
Financing Goals of Energy and Water Initiatives
https://www.itauassetmanagement.com.br/content/itau-asset-management/pt-br/pf/fundos-indexados/itau-index-esg-energia-limpa.html
Electric Car Financing and Credit for Solar Panels
https://epocanegocios.globo.com/Empresa/noticia/2019/01/itau-ira-oferecer-crediario-para-painel-solar-e-financiamento-de-carro-eletrico.html
https://www.itau.com.br/emprestimos-financiamentos/veiculos/
Shared Electric Cars Rent
https://jornaldocarro.estadao.com.br/carros/itau-te
Green Bonds
https://www.spacemoney.com.br/geral/itau-unibanco-anuncia-emissao-de-us-500-milhoes-em-titulos-verdes/162249/
https://www.griclub.org/news/infrastructure/green-bonds-comecam-a-ganhar-mercado-no-brasil_105.html
https://www.capitalreset.com/votorantim-cimentos-capta-r-450-milhoes-com-titulos-atrelados-a-sustentabilidade/
Solar Panels Financing
https://goinggreen.com.br/2019/02/22/projeto-de-energia-solar-do-itau-unibanco-atende-200-agencias-em-mg/
Solar Farms
https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/app/noticia/economia/2019/07/18/internas_economia,771751/itau-amplia-investimento-em-energia-solar-no-interior-de-minas.shtml
https://www.portalsolar.com.br/blog-solar/energia-renovavel/origo-capta-pela-primeira-vez-r-50-milhoes-em-debentures-para-investir-em-fazendas-solares.html
ra-aluguel-de-carros-eletricos-em-2021/
Green Energy Auction
https://epbr.com.br/itau-realiza-leiloes-para-compra-de-energia-renovavel/
Renewable Energy Financing (FINAME) and Sustainability Website Page
https://www.itau.com.br/sustentabilidade/show.aspx?idCanal=SF83tdBeeRErUXXiA9Yr4g=
TEAM
Marina Domingues - UX strategy
Felipe Yuji - UX intern
Beatriz Grunwald - insurance analyst
Beatriz dos Reis - sustainability analyst
Larissa Barreto - corporate products analyst
Eduardo Hupfer - sustainability analyst
Rafael Mol - socio-environmental risk specialist
Ricardo Dallatorre - sustainability analyst
Carolina Saião - corporate products analyst
Fernanda Mansour - corporate products analyst
Thais Aybar - vehicles products analyst
Fabio Marmo - infrastructure coordinator
Laura Timoner - corporate products analyst
Yolanda Torres - corporate products analyst
Felipe Sanchez - sustainability analyst
Luis Guilherme - credits and loans analyst
Nicolle Amorim - sustainability analyst
Wellyngton Tadeu - marketing
Fernando Hércules - vehicles products analyst
Wender Hafermann - consortium analyst
Maria Vitoria Cora - corporate products analyst
Marketing Team