Whether responding to retailer, government, consumer, or advocacy pressures to eliminate chemicals of concern from their products or position themselves in the growing sustainable products space, many brands are on the constant lookout for new safe, effective chemical ingredients for their products. Increasingly brands are willing to set aside their competitive instincts to collaboratively search for, develop, evaluate, and push to market new green chemicals for which they share a common need. This article analyzes “collaborative innovation” initiatives of the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3), a business organization focused on accelerating the commercialization of green chemistry solutions. In particular, the article explores in detail lessons learned from the GC3's Collaborative Innovation Challenge on Safe and Effective Preservatives, which convened two retailers, eleven brands, and six chemical suppliers to identify new, sustainable preservative options for consumer products. These efforts have found that collaborative innovation is most effective when there are strong market or policy signals to act and solutions do not confer any particular competitive advantage. They have shown that companies see benefit in collaboration to solve chemistry challenges as such collaboration can accelerate innovation by providing a strong demand signal, sharing knowledge to overcome development challenges, de-risking investment and ultimately lowering costs.

无论是应对零售商，政府，消费者或倡导者的压力，以从其产品中消除关注的化学品，还是将自己定位在不断发展的可持续产品领域中，许多品牌都在不断寻找其产品安全，有效的新型化学成分。越来越多的品牌愿意放弃竞争本能，以协作搜索，开发，评估和推销他们共同需要的新绿色化学品。本文分析了绿色化学和商业理事会（GC3）的“协作创新”计划，该理事会是致力于加速绿色化学解决方案商业化的商业组织。特别是，本文详细探讨了从GC3'中吸取的教训 的“关于安全有效的防腐剂的合作创新挑战赛”，召集了两家零售商，十一个品牌和六家化学品供应商，为消费产品确定了新的，可持续的防腐剂选择。这些努力已发现，当有强大的市场或政策信号要采取行动且解决方案不赋予任何特定竞争优势时，协作创新最有效。他们表明，公司看到了协作解决化学难题的好处，因为这种协作可以通过提供强大的需求信号，共享知识以克服开发挑战，降低投资风险并最终降低成本来加速创新。这些努力已发现，当有强大的市场或政策信号要采取行动且解决方案不赋予任何特定竞争优势时，协作创新最有效。他们表明，公司看到了协作解决化学难题的好处，因为这种协作可以通过提供强大的需求信号，共享知识以克服开发挑战，降低投资风险并最终降低成本来加速创新。这些努力已发现，当有强大的市场或政策信号要采取行动且解决方案不赋予任何特定竞争优势时，协作创新最有效。他们表明，公司看到了协作解决化学难题的好处，因为这种协作可以通过提供强大的需求信号，共享知识以克服开发挑战，降低投资风险并最终降低成本来加速创新。