Rethinking Innovation in Environmental Science
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By Bernard Jacqmin |
Innovation in environmental science is often linked to new technologies or breakthrough discoveries. Those matter—but innovation does not start there. It begins with the challenges customers face in the field.
I’ve spent much of my career involved in how ideas move from discovery into real-world use. I’ve seen strong science struggle—not because it lacked merit, but because solutions didn’t fully account for how they would be applied in practice. That experience has shaped how I think about innovation today, and how I apply that perspective as Chief Innovation Officer at Envu—a company purpose-built around environmental science, with the flexibility to pursue innovation wherever it delivers the most meaningful outcomes for customers.
Customer challenges are evolving faster than existing tools
Land managers, professional applicators, and those responsible for public spaces and infrastructure are operating under increasing pressure. Regulatory requirements are tightening. Repeated use of limited tools continues to drive resistance development. Climate volatility is shifting pest pressures and expanding risk into places where it was once rare or seasonal. At the same time, expectations for performance, safety, and ease of use continue to rise.
Across regions, customers are being asked to deliver the same or better results with fewer approved options. A single-mode approach is no longer sustainable in the field. As pests evolve, so too must the solutions that manage them.
Learning from real-world variability
Living and working in a climatic transition zone near our global headquarters in North Carolina means seeing that volatility play out firsthand. In a single season—and sometimes within the same week—early growth triggered by warm weather can be followed almost immediately by stress from sudden cold.
Plants respond. Pests respond. Disease pressure shifts. When conditions change that quickly, solutions designed for stable environments simply don’t hold up. Customers need tools that perform across a range of stresses, not just under ideal conditions.
This kind of variability is no longer the exception. It is becoming the standard operating environment. That reality reinforces how innovation must be approached: starting with how customers experience change in the real world, not how systems behave in theory.
Where innovation must begin
The growing gap between changing conditions and existing capabilities is where innovation must begin.
While breakthrough technologies still matter, much of today’s progress comes from proximity innovation—improving how existing solutions are formulated, delivered, applied, and integrated into real-world workflows. Often, the most meaningful advances are not entirely new products, but better ways to help customers manage variability and complexity in the field.
In my own experience, some of the most impactful advances have not been the flashiest. Improving the durability and longevity of vegetation management solutions, for example, has helped reduce the frequency of applications and increase consistency under variable conditions. That kind of incremental innovation often delivers more long-term value than novelty alone.
This perspective shapes our 360° approach to innovation at Envu, fueling our pipeline by combining in-house science, new technology platform partnerships, adapted technologies from other industries like Agriculture, and new (applications) uses for existing solutions. The goal is simple: deliver practical tools that are environmentally responsible (fit ecosystems), aligned with regulatory requirements (realities), and fit how customers actually work in solving their problems.
Innovation as a responsibility
Innovation does not end at discovery. It carries a responsibility—to ensure that solutions perform reliably under real-world conditions and adapt as those conditions change.
As environmental challenges accelerate, innovation must keep pace—not by chasing what is new, but by focusing on what truly works. That requires discipline, rigor, and a constant connection to customer reality.
By staying grounded in customer experience and focusing on resilience and adaptability, environmental science can continue to deliver meaningful, real-world impact.
At Envu, we take that responsibility seriously. Being an environmental science innovation company today means surrounding customers with the right tools—chemistry and beyond—and investing where real value and measurable impact are created. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and the role we believe industry leaders must play as environmental science continues to evolve.
