Cross-Domain Construction and Value Creation of Green Renovation Business

Shane Liao（China Productivity Center Cross-sector Innovation Business Group）

Interior renovation is the final touch of home life for consumers. Although international green architecture and green material certification systems, such as LEED and IWBI™ WELL, have been introduced to Taiwan, they mainly focus on environmental conservation, energy efficiency, and material control. However, there has not been a well-established standard process and certification mechanism for home interior renovation and decoration adopted. Renovation projects often cost up to hundreds of thousands or even millions of New Taiwan Dollars. The lack of standards has led to endless cases of disputes and situations where residents unknowingly live in unhealthy homes.

In response to the market's need for the universal health values, sustainable development, and addressing the long-standing gaps in healthy living spaces, Mosia, a leader in the green building materials industry with nearly 20 years of experience, invested in the social enterprise "Green Come True Corp." This is to promote cross-industry integration and collaboration, leading to the industry's innovation and transformation.

With Mosia as an example, this article explores the strategies that may be taken by small and medium-sized enterprises or startups in a keen competitive and ever-changing business environment. These include the cross-domain collaboration following government programs, resource-driven approaches, and the coaching of consultancies in order to expand internal resources externally and seek opportunities and resources for collaboration with customers, competitors, partner companies, and even members of other business ecosystems.

Businesses are encouraged to leverage their existing internal resources and capabilities, with broader, more holistic perspectives and strategic visions of resources, and also through the implementation of a business ecosystem framework. On one hand, this strengthens the development of the advantages of existing products. On the other hand, it explores opportunities for innovative business development. By reorganizing and combining resource advantages, it fosters the developmental diversity of the enterprise organization. Furthermore, through a unique platform business model, it creates market value to meet the dynamic needs of the market and customers, ultimately achieving sustainable development.

After the Typhoon Nari in 2001, the founder of Mosia discovered the unique properties of bamboo, particularly its resistance to deformation and damage. And as a native species in Taiwan, bamboo has the advantage of being more environmentally friendly with low carbon emission. As a result, Mosia ventured into the development of bamboo-based eco-friendly building materials, becoming the first green building materials manufacturer in Taiwan. Though successful as an emerging business of eco-green building materials, Mosia then, however, still faced challenges due to a lack of manpower and resources.

To address these challenges, Mosia started to apply the strategies of "innovative business exploration" and "cross-industry collaboration construction" in the theory of organizational ambidexterity. They explored new formaldehyde removal techniques for application in the production process of panels and developed formaldehyde-free building materials. Then the "Taiwan Green Building Material Council" was established in collaboration with a group of businesses of building materials, furniture, and home decors. Their aim was to drive a "building material innovation movement" and promote the widespread use of green building materials in daily life, thus increasing overall market demand.

However, the market of renovation traditionally concerns mainly with just the size and materials, which has led to three major problems:

1. Pervasive toxic building materials: Reports of people falling ill or even developing cancer after completing renovations are not uncommon.
2. Lack of transparency in information: Customers are unable to fully understand the materials used in their homes, and prices are not transparent. Customers often face excessive pricing and layers of exploitation.
3. Lack of a certification system: There is no established standard to determine the quality of renovations.

Recognizing the market's pursuit of universal health values, sustainable development, and the need to address the longstanding gaps in healthy living spaces, the founder of Mosia realized that promoting industry innovation was essential to fundamentally solving these problems.

To promote industrial innovation, it is necessary to first deconstruct the existing industrial structure and then reshape the industrial chain. Mosia, through the support of the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of MOEA, along with the consultation from the China Productivity Center, has engaged in the development and exploration of business model innovation and transformation. This process involves formulating strategic blueprints, creating service journey maps using service design tools and processes, and facilitating workshops to guide strategic thinking in operations. Mosia approaches this transformation from reshaping the industry chain, with "sharing" as the core principle. Through cross-industry collaboration, they have expanded internal resources to external partners such as customers, competitors, suppliers, and other industry support systems, seeking cooperation opportunities and resources.

To address the three major challenges faced by the renovation industry, in addition to continuously raising public awareness of the importance of healthy living spaces through social media platforms like Facebook and various events, Mosia leverages its existing resources and capabilities. They collaborate with green building material providers and engaged in industry-academia cooperation with organizations such as the Taiwan Green Building Material Council, National Taipei University of Technology, and the Domicile Quality Protection Association. Through this collaboration, Mosia creates a comprehensive solution for the pre-renovation, renovation process, and post-renovation phases.

Covering four major stages of planning and design, material application and management, renovation environment management, and completion inspection, and five groups of stakeholders of the designers, the material providers, the equipment providers, the construction teams, and the consumers, the "Three Phases, Four Stages, and Five Groups" green renovation process for service and certification has set new standards for Green Come True Corp. to monitor the green renovation process service in details, providing on-site air quality testing after completion, with the testing process recorded, and comprehensive material records issued. This ensures transparency in pricing and material specifications, achieving widespread health awareness and transparency in both products and service information, to be promoted to consumers, architects, designers, developers, construction companies, and construction units.

By integrating the industry chain and forming alliances, everything of the service collaboration from the designer to the material provider to the completed work site follows consistent specifications of healthy renovation. Qualified green designers and construction units can adhere to standardized operating procedures, adopt green building materials and equipment, and follow the comprehensive green renovation traceability system and on-site testing. Finally, they would issue a green renovation certification manual, bringing homeowners a satisfying and healthy living environment.

Comprehensive green renovation and thorough inspections are necessary to ensure the indoor air quality. Green renovation represents the final mile towards indoor health. It serves as the highest guiding principle for green building material manufacturers, construction companies, property developers, designers, construction teams, smart equipment vendors, and collaborative efforts among industry, government, academia, and research institutions, which form a new economic circle.

We can see that Mosia has extended the use of existing resources within the company, including products and industry relationships, and combined them with a broader strategic perspective. Through the commercial ecosystem model, they have strengthened the development of their existing green building material products, continuously acquired patents for composite boards, structural designs, inventions, and more. They have also explored innovative business development, reorganized the cooperative and mutually beneficial relationships among various members of the green renovation industry, leveraged each other's resource advantages, and achieved organizational versatility. This reconstruction of the existing industry chain has established new industry standards and processes. More importantly, it has led to a win-win situation in which all the stakeholders can profit.

Designers who have undergone training and certification become qualified green designers, adding value to their existing qualification by focusing on and ensuring health standards, thereby increasing their sources of projects. Material and equipment suppliers, as well as construction teams, transform themselves by providing products or services that comply with green renovation specifications, enhancing their competitiveness and increasing their business performance. Consumers, on the other hand, benefit from rigorous services and quality assurance and living in a healthy and secure environment.

Furthermore, through the regulatory system of green renovation, a mechanism for flexible collaboration or alliances among high-quality providers/units has been formed. Compared to competitors focused on single items or services, Mosia and Green Come True Corp., with their pioneering business management and service model in the Asian market for green renovation, have developed a more comprehensive green renovation solution, higher management standards, and stronger integration of the industry chain.