Except Integrated Sustainability
Except Integrated sustainability.
Flourish in a changing world.
Multi-disciplinary consulting, innovation and development organization working on advanced sustainability projects around the globe.

Brian Baldassarre

Designer and Researcher

Brian Baldassarre
Brian Baldassarre

Enjoys:  drawing, writing, reading,  photography,  playing acoustic guitar,  rock climbing,  exploring

Areas of expertise:

  • Research
  • Strategy
  • Design

Skills:

  • Ethnographic User Research
  • Business & Service Design
  • Visualization & Storytelling

Brian is a designer and researcher. His area of expertise within Except is to analyze and synthesize information connecting business, technology and humans in order to develop new sustainable products, services, experiences and value propositions. His background combines technical design skills with creative thinking and a business mindset. He holds a BSc in Product Design at Politecnico di Milano University and an MSc in Design Strategy at Delft University of Technology with a specialization in Technology for Sustainable Development.

When he was three years old, Brian went to the mountains for the first time and discovered nature. He decided to become a paleontologist, explore the world and look for fossil dinosaurs trapped inside rocks. At the age of sixteen, he left his home in Rome, living, studying and working across eight different countries including Italy, The United States, Spain, Honduras, The Netherlands, India, Colombia and South Africa. He likes doodling with a black pen, writing down his thoughts, reading about the lives of real people who did something noteworthy, playing the acoustic guitar, rock climbing and, above all, exploring, seeing faraway places and talking to diverse people in order to get to know the world.

Brian believes that the designer should be an active agent of change in the transition towards sustainable development. He has worked on various international development projects for small social businesses and large NGOs in Latin America and in Asia. He also worked as a strategic consultant within sustainable service and business innovation projects for company clients. As a researcher at the Product Innovation Management Department of Delft University of Technology he has investigated which factors underlie successful implementation of design projects in emerging markets. He explored how sustainability objectives can be used as a catalyst for business model innovation, combining principles from Design Thinking and Sustainable Entrepreneurship.

Projects

A Better IKEA Catalogue

Jun 28, 2021, Changing the world's print industry

For Inter-IKEA we boosted the sustainability performance of IKEA's catalogue by optimizing the entire supply chain with one small but smart big data tool. The tool includes data dashboards for purchasers, suppliers and retailers, affecting the entire life cycle of the catalogue.

The big-data supply chain tools resulted in massive sustainability gains in energy, waste, water and more, right from the first year, and increasing each year after. Because of the catalogue print volume, this project positively affects the world's entire print industry. Its yearly improvements now ripple out beyond to adjacent industries.

Read the project case study below on the project's process, strategy, innovation products, and further improvement processes.

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IKEA Catalogue Supply Chain Dashboards

Aug 25, 2020, Intuitive Dashboards Enable Sustainable Decision Making

The IKEA catalogue with more than 200 million copies is the largest annual print run in the world. IKEA Media Production has worked diligently to improve the catalogue’s sustainability performance. To find new ways to boost its performance, IKEA Media Production engaged Except. Together we applied a new systems-thinking approach and found powerful ways to raise performance.

With implementation partners Trade Extensions and Deloitte we created new visual big data tools in less than a year. Together we realized a sustainability-driven learning supply chain that is now helping transform the biggest paper and print suppliers worldwide.

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Natural Capital is Business

Jan 31, 2017, How to bring Natural Capital into the boardroom?


Natural Capital plays a title role in our economy. To help you clarify the relationship between your economic activities and Natural Capital, Except and NXTE developed the Natural Capital Quick Scan. The scan delivers instant insight and suggests dozens of ways to mitigate risks and pick up on opportunities.

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