Transformation Beyond Silos: Innovation, Digital, and Green in One Play

We’ve all been in those meetings. A slide deck lands. The title says “Our Transformation Agenda”. Someone’s excited. Someone’s skeptical. Someone’s just thinking about lunch.

The truth? Transformation isn’t just one thing.

It’s not just going digital. It’s not just going 'green'. And it’s not just running faster innovation sprints.

In reality, there are at least three major, noisy, high-potential transformation journeys companies are currently pursuing – or at least claiming to. Of course, these are evolving topics, but they typically fall into three main areas:

1. Innovation Transformation: Learning faster than your competitors. Testing, failing, iterating, and scaling before the market shifts. This is the explore vs. exploit dance. For instance, consider Amazon 's experimentation with cashier-less stores, alongside its continued dominance in logistics.
2. ‘Green’ Transformation: Designing products, services, and operations with sustainability baked in. Lower carbon, less water, more circularity. Examples: Google is aiming for 24/7 carbon-free energy. Grupo Bimbo is electrifying fleets and rethinking packaging.
3. Digital Transformation: Using AI, data, and automation to make decisions faster, build smarter, and deliver at scale. PepsiCo ’s AI-driven forecasting. Amazon’s real-time inventory intelligence.

Each is powerful. But here’s the kicker: they’re not separate journeys.

In fact, they can be the silos holding you back. Most companies treat these as different workstreams, often led by different teams, with different budgets and KPIs.

Innovation’s in one corner. The sustainability crew is in another. The digital folks? They’ve built a dashboard for it. And supply? Too busy running the plants.

The result? Fragmented efforts, wasted resources, and missed opportunities.

When you transform in silos, you miss the compounding effect. You end up with innovation teams chasing “the next big thing”, often disconnected from sustainability or supply scalability. Or smart digital squads obsessing over AI and automation while ignoring carbon footprints or circular design, which sounds alien to them. Or sustainability leaders pushing corporate ESG metrics without the innovation ecosystem or digital tools to scale.

“Transforming in silos is like building an AI model with perfect data but no UX design; it’s technically impressive but practically useless.”

Why an Integrated Transformation Wins

Innovation fuels speed. If you can’t experiment and iterate quickly, your digital and green ambitions may crawl. You’ll spend years talking about your “future vision” while your competitors are already shipping it. Yet, the challenge is to be agile while holding the tension to ethical standards, which Alison Taylor and I discussed in this Trellis article [1].

Take Kenvue ’s (the Johnson & Johnson consumer health spinoff) launch of Neutrogena’s Fresh Foaming Cleanser. They developed a pack with 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) content, a first for the brand, while using AI-powered sentiment analysis to identify rising consumer demand for “zero-waste beauty”. Combining digital social listening and rapid prototyping, they were able to achieve a 30% reduction in plastic use vs. traditional bottles, aligning with the parent company Johnson & Johnson ’s net-zero goals.

McKinsey & Company research shows beauty brands that integrate sustainability into innovation cycles see 4x faster revenue growth in eco-conscious markets [2].

Digital fuels scale.

Data and automation make green solutions and new innovations viable at market speed. Want to track carbon across your supply chain in real time? That’s a digital lift.

L’Oréal’s Product Development Lab exemplifies this. They launched Water Saver showerheads, via subsidiary Gjosa, to cut water use during haircare. The project also used IoT sensors to track real-time water savings, accessing scalable and dynamic data. The sustainability impact: up to 69% water saved per shower, which is now rolling out globally to salons [3].

‘Green’ fuels purpose.

Sustainability isn’t just compliance. It’s a talent magnet and customer differentiator. Consumers, employees, and even investors want to know your transformation actually matters. Sustainability gives the “why” that keeps teams engaged through the grind of change.

Unilever ’s Clean Future initiative merged bio-based formulations (sustainability), blockchain traceability (digital), and startup partnerships (innovation) to cut 1 million tons of CO₂ [4]. This is a good example of how purpose-led initiatives can drive meaningful impact.

When these three are aligned, transformation stops being a buzzword and starts being a competitive flywheel.

The Benefits of Going Holistic

When you run transformation holistically:

• Efficiency multiplies. One investment fuels three outcomes.
• Teams unite. Cross-functional collaboration replaces turf wars.
• Data compounds. AI models get smarter when they feed on both operational and environmental metrics.
• Brand value spikes. Customers see action, not just slogans.

It’s not magic. It’s systems thinking applied to business change.

The Kenvue example proved that PCR packaging could scale by using AI to predict regional recycling infrastructure gaps, while R&D teams reformulated products to suit the new packaging, resulting in a 12% market share gain in eco-conscious segments [5].

The L'Oréal Water Saver project didn’t just reduce water use either. It created a new revenue stream by licensing the tech to hotels and gyms, showing how green and digital can monetize innovation.

The Challenges You’ll Face

Let’s not sugarcoat it. Holistic transformation is harder.

• Leadership alignment is non-negotiable. Your CTO’s AI roadmap must sync with the CSO’s ESG goals.
• Measurement complexity increases. Suddenly, you’re tracking innovation cycles, emissions, and machine learning performance in the same dashboard. If you can crack a simple way to do it, you’re likely to unlock change at pace.
• Cultural change takes time. Many employees still think “digital” means IT, “green” means compliance, and “innovation” means sticky notes on a wall. Avoid cultural inertia and break the functional silos by leading with a shared goal.

The good news? Once you crack the first couple of wins, momentum builds fast.

From Siloed to Systemic: How to Start

1. Write one integrated transformation narrative. Not three. Tell the story of how digital, green, and innovation are parts of the same mission. Bad: “Our 2025 Digital Strategy.” Good: “How AI and Circular Design Will Cut Carbon While Doubling Product Launches.”
2. Cross-pollinate teams. Put sustainability experts in your AI projects. Put data scientists in your sustainability initiatives. Simplicity drives decision, and decision drives agility.
3. Invest in shared tools. Dashboards, KPIs, and language that bridge functions.
4. Celebrate compound wins. Spotlight the product that’s low-carbon, AI-optimized, and revenue-driving; not just “another ESG report”.

The next decade’s leaders won’t just adapt. They’ll redefine by treating innovation, digital, and sustainability as one explosive system.

“The future isn’t just fast or sustainable or smart. It’s holistic, or it’s irrelevant.”

Your turn: at your next leadership meeting, ask: “Which of our transformations are still stuck in silos?” Then tear down the walls. That’s how you win.

References

[1] Alison Taylor and Davidson Lutkenhaus, "It’s time to ditch the ‘move fast and break things’ innovation playbook" Trellis (2025).

[2] Article "The beauty market in 2023: A special State of Fashion report" McKinsey & Company (2023).

[3] "L’Oréal Water Saver named in TIME 100 Best Inventions of 2021" L’Oréal (2021)

[4] "Clean Future one year on: how innovation is driving growth" Unilever (2021).

[5] "Kenvue drama shows not all spin-offs are created equal" Financial Times (2023)