Secrets to Logitech's Sustainable Success with Malin Leschly

Hello and welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, an author of the Conscious Design book. And today I'm excited to have Malin Leschle. She's the VP of Design and Brand Innovation at Logitech, and we're going to be talking about design, sustainability, and who knows what else. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Ian. Happy to be here.

Yeah, so we won't go all the way back to when Logitech was created, but let's talk about when you came on board, and then we can dive into sustainability and, and how Logitech is going about that.

Awesome. Yeah, so I've been working with Logitech for more than a decade. I was part of a design studio called Non-Object that worked with Logitech on many products. And one of them was the UE Boom, which was a Bluetooth speaker about yay tall. And that kind of set the tone for Logitech design because it happened just as Logitech's first Chief Design Officer, Alistair Curtis, came on board and sort of established design at Logitech. And Logitech is a very purpose-driven company, I would say, from the beginning, and design has played a role in that by how Alistair set up the design and how it worked together with the whole company leadership on delivering on the commitments.

Right. So that would have been previous to that, right? That was moving design more in-house then rather than just relying on outside Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly.

And I would imagine that that really helped catalyst with everything you guys have done around sustainability as well, having that control internal to Logitech rather than just hoping you find the right partner out there.

Absolutely. I think one of the things that Alistair saw, and I don't want to talk for him, but one of the things he saw is that Design works best when we can have cross-functional partnerships and leaderships, and especially when it comes to sustainability, right? It requires a deep understanding of users' experiences, of technology, materials, manufacturing. Operations is key. If we do everything sustainably and then airship it, right, it's all for naught. So having an internal design team and being able to work very closely across business groups and function, I think that's where some of the magic lies for Logitech.

You personally, your role, right, your design and brand, how do you see brand design and sustainability fitting together? Kind of how do you approach that? From Logitech's standpoint?

Yeah, it's a great question. So in my current role in the design and brand innovation team, we look beyond the edges of the roadmaps, and we provoke and inspire to push and inform strategic thinking. So we conduct experiments and vision projects that can really provoke us internally to think like, maybe there's something there. And We do that thinking about 5-ish to 10 years out, but there's a ton of work happening by our design teams who work with our business groups on our roadmaps every day, and we launch products and we continuously make them better. So even though my team, what we lead is further out there and looking ahead, we work at Logitech Design All from the what's happening now sort of spanning 10 years out.

Okay, so you're really just now to the future is your domain. I know you can't spill the secrets of LabTech, but what can you talk about thinking forward, right? As I know there's new terms, circular economy, people are, this is gaining traction. You've seen a shift being there for over a decade. You've seen a lot of change. over the last 10 years, what are some things that you see coming down the road that you're excited about? You know, and if there's design or, or materials, what are you guys seeing that you're excited about that you can share?

Yeah, yeah, totally. I think that—

General statements.

Yeah. Logitech is really a thought leader in this area. We have a challenge where we ask startups to say, hey, what are you working on? And Positive Future Challenge, and to really figure out, let's all together look at possible new materials, ways of producing materials, business models. How do we think about circularity? All aspects, thinking holistically and widely about sustainability.

Right.

I think what we're also doing, we have a strong user insights function at Logitech. So understanding how consumer sentiment is shifting around sustainability is key. One of the key things that we're seeing is that consumers, by virtue of how the economy works today, are very primed for convenience. We want convenience every step of the way.

Very nicely.

Right. And that can be challenging from a sustainability point. So how do you deliver convenience sustainably. So understanding consumer sentiment and user sentiment around that, not only what's functionally or rationally relevant from a sustainability standpoint, but emotionally relevant. So that's where we look at, and we have a great reputation luckily in long-lasting products.

Right.

Products that can really, the users will put 'em through the wringer and they will look and work as great. So there's both functional and emotional relevance in that. Also looking at software-enabled hardware, like how can software continue to provide relevance to the hardware? Obviously, iFixit partnerships, right, to repair. What can you do? We actually have one thing I can show that I think is great. Anyone who has kids know that things that you give to kids—

We've gone through so many of those.

Yes. So this is a new one. This is Logitech Education team who have looked at headsets for small heads, headsets for in the education channel, really. And so this headset, we have done extensive testing. So not only will it be comfortable, it's like for smaller heads so they don't feel like, you know, it's flopping around or you feel like you're in a vise, but it's also meant to last a long time. So you can, with an easy, Switch these out. These can be replaced easily. Cords, different cords, also meant to be long-lasting. But if the kids figure out how to remove this or do something with it, right? And they will. We can do that. So this is an example of not only is the materiality of this focused on sustainability, how we do it, but it's also in the use. That, you know, we're very excited to really do something that's long-lasting, even for the most demanding audiences.

Yes, that is a demanding audience for technology.

And then I think other things that we're excited about, I'll show you a different one here. So packaging is challenging because packaging per definition is often not long-lasting, right? We get it. We have the out-of-box. And one of the things that we're working on is removing plastic. So if I open this, we'll see how it looks. This looks like bubble wrap. It's actually paper. So it can go right into your recycling bin. And it looks good and feels good. So we have it both like this. When you unpack your keyboard, if you don't want to keep this packaging, it can go right into your recycling bin. You don't have to do anything special. No plastic.

And then— I love that.

Yeah. When you do the same thing here, this little guy, You know, we can also do like a little, like a little pouch. And so not that plastic bag that you're used to seeing, and the product is here. I don't know if we can see because it's so light. It says Logi there, and it kind of looks like bubble wrap, but it's not. It's, it's all—

Right from here, it almost looks like kind of that foam, almost where it's like the— when they transition to the foam bags. For things, but—

Yeah, exactly. And then continuing on that thing is, right, so, you know, we have the user on the one side and the product on the other side. I think we've been good at recognizing that not all packaging is the same. Packaging is user dependent. So if you go to our consumer channel with this headset, right, it looks like a box and we're good with this box. We have the carbon impact, the Forest Stewardship Council mark. But our B2B customers, our enterprise customers, they don't need a box like this. They get a box like this.

Got it.

And then our EDU customers, they don't even want this packaging. They want packaging that's even more minimal because school districts tend to distribute in warehouses. So this is where The product and how we think about product and packaging and users and sustainability, we get a big overlap in the Venn diagram.

Right. Yeah, there's so many— the average person, right? We think about, oh, we get a nice mouse, right? And we're just like, we're happy and it comes in a box. It looks good. There's more customers than just the individual out there. So there's a lot more requirements. It surprises me that even the education world wants even less, that they're, they're actually less than B2B. So that's kind of unique.

It was a huge learning for us, right? And a great one. And a fantastic team who was able to roll with that.

Right. Yeah, I wonder, so in that process, did you get that feedback directly? Like, how have you arrived at these pieces of just kind of stumbling along or real really just research with these companies to figure out what they—

Yeah, close, really brilliant team on the education side, small, fast team, very integrated where products and design and insights and engineering, everybody working very closely together, very closely with the choosers, the school districts, and the users, the students. So in the process of that delivering and seeing how the headsets were taken out of the boxes and the boxes put aside and saying, wait a minute, okay, and hearing, no, you don't want the boxes, okay, we can do that for you, we'll make it easier.

Right. Well, I love you mentioned that too, 'cause even when we're thinking about sustainability, the chooser and user, as you put it, right? The decision maker is going to have input, but also the user and who's opening it. In that case, if it's kids, they're going to do that in a very different way than we might as adults and opening it up and recycling becomes harder and it's all over the place.

So. Exactly.

Yeah.

And I would say one of the last area when we think about user and product coming together is out-of-box experiences. It's a whole thing. If you go on social media, Right? The out-of-box experience.

Channels just dedicated to it. Yeah, it's a thing.

Exactly. And sometimes, right, like we might have preconceived notions that it's really hard to do that with sustainable materials. They might not be as glossy or feel as luxurious. And our packaging team really rose to the challenge. So this is a gaming set. It's the Aurora collection. We think very holistically about gamers. There are a lot of women who game. So this collection is very inclusive. So it looks like a normal gaming package. The first— you can see that this little hang tag, oftentimes those are plastic. This one is actually paper.

Right.

So it can be recycled. It's as sturdy. But in terms of out-of-box, we have the Quick Start Guide printed right here. So we don't need additional material for the Quick Start Guide. And we're playing with the difference in the material so it doesn't look too plain, perhaps is a word I can use. With the brown here, this one thing with the Aurora collection is this softness. And so the interplay of these material, all paper, can still feel like a worthy out-of-boxing experience. And then here, We have tissue paper instead of bubble wrap that can then lead to a beautiful reveal of the product where it's resting in a pulp tray. So again, with this one, you're not left—

100% paper products still.

Yeah, exactly. Very curated, very much this out-of-box sequence that many people talk about.

Yes.

But at the end of the day, Where at the end of this, you're not left with a million things that you have to go in the trash can. You can actually, if you don't want to keep the packaging, recycle it.

Hey, it's Ian here. So glad you're enjoying this episode of Conscious Design. If you want the full scoop on conscious design, what it is, how we do it, how you can do it, then check out our book. We wrote it so creative entrepreneurs like you can code social and environmental responsibility right into your brands. DNA. You can download the first chapter for free. Link is in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. When you have plastic and paper or they're glued together, it just— recycling gets— nobody likes it on the recycling end. At least they don't like dealing with it. That's amazing you're able to create that quality level, which thank you for showing as part of the The point of this is to show people, because it's, you know, in my day job I run a design firm, and that's something that people will still think so much, even in the business world. Yes, we could do eco-packaging, but it's going to be this brown paper bag, it's going to be ugly, no one's going to like all this. There's a very specific aesthetic that you can create and nothing else. And so it's great that you're showing this off and that you guys are doing this because it's— more people need to do this.

Yeah, exactly.

You guys are leading the way. More people need to catch up to that and realize that there are options that look good. You can actually apply design to it. It's not put it in an ugly box and hope people like it.

Exactly. Exactly. I think, I think this is where design and you can appreciate that leading design studio, right? It's design is about creating experiences where we balance craft, creativity and constraints and a deep understanding of users. It doesn't mean that we escape constraints and we only can do things one way, but it's actually that the constraints is game on. We'll figure this out. We'll create an experience that balances all of this.

The design you just showed, I don't know if your designers would have arrived at it if you didn't have the specific constraint of it needs to only— you only get paper. That's it. Figure it out. We kind of get concerned, I would say, if we get locked down too much with constraints. But at the same time, I think there you can innovate with those constraints a little bit better sometimes. You get those—

Absolutely.

Designs like you just showed.

Exactly. And speaking of constraints, this is one of our top-of-the-line gaming keyboards, and it's, to your point, as far away as we can get from a brown paper bag. But we have here, we have this low-carbon aluminum, we have no-paint keep caps and post-PCR plastics. So it's— and we have the packaging is sustainable as well. So even when it looks like this, you feel like you're not really making any compromises and you can still have a sustainable experience.

Right. I love that. That's awesome. You have so many cool, cool things with you.

That's good. That's the beauty of being— the Logitech is super fun, right? Because we span work and play. So it's always super fun to look at everything that we do.

Now, in your kind of jumping to how you guys think through design, you said that your teams, you really focus on interdisciplinary Say anti-silo would be a good way to categorize. How has that kind of come about? Because it's— silos have been around for a long time. Everybody's started to get out of that. How have you seen that improve what you're able to do as you guys have removed those walls?

It's a great question. And I think depending on which day of the week or what project you're asking, we would tell you we haven't mastered silos, but we try and we're very aware of the silos. I think the way we approach it on the roadmaps on any typical team, we have multidisciplinary. So we have industrial designers, CMF designers, UX designers, packaging designers all working together, and then a consumer insights team. They're all working together, but they're working very closely together with our product managers, our engineering teams, our marketing teams, our operation teams. And so we have this, our playbook, where we map the end-to-end experience. And there's several handoffs in that playbook, but we have the gates where we all come together. We make sure that we push the product forward and trying to maintain the design intent and the sustainability commitment all the way through.

As you guys know, diving into it, there's a lot to put together just for a product, let alone Adding in a component of sustainability and where you're— you said you're tracking the carbon.

Yep, exactly. Yep.

And that's whole supply chain, like raw. How deep does that tracking go for you guys?

So we have an operations team that are amazing. So each product, we'll see if I find one that has it. It's our little C mark here. And the way it was conceived and we thought about it is like, Well, we know the calories in the food we make, and that can help us make informed choices. But we don't know with carbon. If I pick this product versus that product, what impact? If I care about the environment, how can I make that choice? And so we took the lead in saying, we're going to put this on all our products. So you have it here. You know, on gaming products. And some people might say, well, gamers don't care about sustainability. Not necessarily true.

And I think an assumption.

Exactly, exactly. That's how we do it. So we track it, we look at— if we talked about the user, we talked about the product, but our operations team looks at this holistically. We have a design for sustainability team. who calculates the carbon impact of our products. And we also look very holistically at how we ship things. How do we manufacture? Does the factory use renewable energy? And so on. So it's a very holistic approach to sustainability.

How do you balance, right, creating the ideas, creating the product, right? You want to, you want to make a new Mouse and headset, right? How do you balance that against the product team that's coming to you that's saying, hey, that's going to be a lot of carbon. Like, this is a very, very not sustainable if we're using that metric of carbon. This is really high. How do you guys go about balancing that to still create really good products? Like, is that something that you— are able to, in early stage, have your team come in and go, this is, this is what's sustainable, this is what not. How do you manage that?

It's a great question. Well, one, one of the kind of tangible ways that I find interesting is we have a CMF team that's highly strategic, so colors, materials, and finishes, and their palette is looking at PCR, so post-consumer recycled plastics. And so it's easy when you have a palette that you can choose from where materials are pre-qualified.

Ah, okay.

Then that makes it easier to incorporate. So I'm holding up our Lift mouse here, which is PCR plastic, and it's kind of like so sunny right now, but you know, it doesn't look like a trade-off, but for our teams, for our design teams or our product teams, Being able to have access to this palette, seeing the chips. So we have little material chips, seeing the chips and seeing, you know what, it's not a hard choice being sustainable or choosing a sustainable material because it actually looks, it actually looks great. And that's when we know that we can achieve sustainability goal while also achieving other goals. Like I'm holding up these, it's a right-handed and a left-handed mouse. Typically very hard, right, to find. If you're left-handed, it can be very hard to find unless you have an ambidextrous mouse. But this one has the ergonomic benefits. So then we're able to meet several goals, sustainability goals, inclusivity goals, right? Ergonomics is something we're very strong in, and we can achieve all of those by having these prequalified materials.

You actually have— I would imagine they're probably constantly researching new materials because there's always new ones out there. You guys have an internal library that you have created at that, you know, these are good materials, they meet our requirements, they're sustainable, we can use them, we have samples, we know we can produce them, they'll actually look like, like the sample when they're in production. And then your designers are able to tap on that and go, oh, which ones do I actually like? What do I want to use out of that?

Exactly. So our CMF design teams work very closely with our CMF engineering teams. That way, we're able to prequalify and give everybody on the team good visibility on what this will look like, even though it's sustainable.

Right. Well, I think as we're— and maybe you've probably seen this, but I feel like we're Getting out of the place where sustainable materials are just, you know, bamboo and some brown paper. And there's a lot more options out there that are really good. They're really good material-wise, they meet strength requirements, right? It's not just some flimsy bioplastic we hope might work later. We're starting to see those. What are you guys seeing Or is there anything coming out that— do you guys do your own R&D to develop your own materials? Is that something you do or is that a lot of partners? How do you address that and kind of where do you see that going for you guys?

We'd say all 3. So we do internally, we look constantly scanning for interesting materials, looking at interesting partners and new materials. and testing them and doing experiments and pilot projects. And then the Future Positive Challenge, where we have like a challenge where we invite startups to showcase what they have and how that might actually be mutually beneficial for us. It's a 3-pronged approach, I would say. If you ask anyone internally, I think we have a very motivated team who always wants to do more, constantly searching, right, for what is the latest and how can we do even more than we do today.

And you mentioned earlier, kind of looping back a little bit, repairability and things like that. What do you guys look at when you're creating sustainability for the product itself? What are you guys focused more on repair Recycling, kind of what are your, what are those areas that you guys look at and think are valuable and doable given, I mean, electronics are a bit harder, right? Than just like a glass, right? This is pretty easy compared to electronics. So what are the things that you guys find successful and are, and are you guys are focused on?

Yeah, so it's that the first is the materials, I would say. The second is something that's not so visible. It's the PCB. There's a lot, so the circuit board inside, there's a lot that you can do there from a sustainability standpoint. And the PCB essentially doesn't wear out. So figuring out how we can make that really sustainable, we could potentially reuse that one if we start thinking circularity. Then assembly is obviously important when we think about Repair only one screw assemblies, for example, experiment with no screw assemblies. How can you get in there? We do teardowns. Our engineering team is world-class in doing teardowns and trying to figure out if the, you know, repairing this, how could we do this? We still have a ways to go. It's the reverse logistics on circularity is a challenging one to figure out. We have it set up, but doing it at scale, right, which is what we want to do, there are many factors to consider. But we do have a partnership with iFixit. And so to be able to— those of our products that where there might be things that users would want to repair, there are instructions for how they can do it.

Right, like the keys on your keyboard, you might break those. Very cool. Well, that's awesome. You know, you mentioned the repairability and, well, circuit boards really, and relooping that in. How do you— scaling it is very hard. I don't know of any company that has successfully reached mass scale of looping their products back in. Maybe, well, I guess maybe aluminum can manufacturers.

Yeah.

They've figured it out, but everybody else, is still working on it. Where do you see that? Is that something you guys think is soon solvable? Is this something that you're like, nah, it's beyond 10 years, this is a really, really big thing, kind of? How are you guys seeing that kind of system?

It's such a great question, and I wish I could say soon. I think there are 2 aspects that are both tricky. The first one is solving the system and sort of how do we set up, how do we set up the product so that once it's going to go back to us, how do you do that in a way that is convenient and consistent and brings back the product so it can actually be made circular? So that's one thing. And we're actively thinking about that, experimenting and looking at it. The second part of that equation is the user. How do we motivate the user to actually bring it back? If we're able to make an easy system, how do we motivate the user once, once they need to return whatever it is, right, to us to remember, oh yes, this is what I do. You know, is it a QR code? How does that work? We know there are companies, for example, Nespresso. in Switzerland, they have set up so that the pods, you can put them in your mailbox and the mail carrier will take them back. It's supremely easy. And I think, and don't quote me on this, but I think the last I read, they have 50-ish percent compliance. And so it's amazing. That's a really high compliance. But still, when you think about how easy that is to just go out to your mailbox with a bag and put it in your mailbox and the mail carrier will take it. It still shines a light on how tricky it is to get users to actually follow through with that. It's systems thinking on the one hand and a deep understanding of users and their motivations on the other hand that we need to crack in able to get truly circular products.

That is super easy, right? Put it in your mail. And if that's only 50%, There's still, that's only halfway there with something that's very easy. So definitely a challenge, a challenge we're still working on.

Yeah. And I think, I mean, yeah, Nespresso is amazing, right? How they've, how they've tried to do that. And, and I don't want to represent them, but it was an article I read and I thought it was so enlightening, right? When you try to make it easy and remove friction and it can still be really, really hard.

Right. Still a hill to climb. With, with it. But that's consumers. It's all, you gotta figure out what really works. And there's, I sound like there's probably a mix, some sort of reward plus easy, or there's another piece to that puzzle that, that needs to be found to get the other 50% or whatever it is.

Exactly. Exactly.

Well, awesome. Before we wrap up, is there anything that you want to touch on? We've talked about a lot of things, sustainability design. Is there anything you want to mention or talk about that we haven't covered?

I would want to ask you, you know, someone working in innovation, I'm always super curious what other people are thinking about. And you have this podcast and talk, and talk to lots of people. What are you interested or excited about in sustainability?

Oh, I'm really excited about the systems side of things. So I actually just launched an organization called Conscious Design House as a way to— this podcast has been great. I get to talk to people like you and learn about what other people are doing. And we just launched that to really approach systems design because like what you're mentioning, the system is the hard part. I'm a designer, so I'm probably a little biased, but design is a solution. I would say for design solves about 80% of the problems in the world. I think the rest of it, I don't know, but I sit in that percent. What I'm seeing is there's a lot of good startups and ideas out there that are able to create circularity in really small circles.

That's easy.

Well, easy, put that in quotes. Where it starts to break down though is that scalability. And so what we're doing with this organization is bringing together more people. I personally think it will take too long for us to all individually figure it out. And so how do we bring together companies like Logitech and other companies who believe in it and create some sort of system? Because we're A global economy. And as much as people love local, and I love local too, it's great. But even, you know, the local farmer at a farmer's market who's taking your credit card payment, that little scanner, even just the little one that sticks in your phone, you can't do that without the globe. You need everybody. That, that did not get manufactured in your town. 99% of the time, not, not yours. So how do we create these bigger loops where big companies and little companies can create that? So designing that system, that is what I'm excited about. That's what I'm kind of focusing on is how do we build that system so that it can be— the ideal scenario is plug and play where it's, we build a system and you just go, All right, we're— the system is there. Logitech, plug in. Here's your ins and outs. It's taken care of. And then, you know, this little startup over here, they get to use the same infrastructure, make it as easy as putting something in the mail. I have to figure out the other parts, but make it as easy as that. And that's what I'm excited about. I think that's finished closing that loop that we all know we need to. So That's what I'm thinking about.

Yeah, that's exciting. That's an exciting one to think about.

Yes, it's a big problem, but I think that the challenge is part of the excitement, so I enjoy it.

Super.

Perfect. Well, thank you so much. A great question as well from you. I will— I can talk about that forever, but this is mostly about you and want to highlight that. So thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. And Looking forward to chatting with you later.

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

And that wraps up another episode of the Conscious Design Podcast. If today's episode inspired you to bring your product idea to life and turn it into a sustainable 7-figure business, visit petermanfirm.com or click the link below. Your ideas have the power to change the world, and we're here to help make that happen. Thank you for joining us, and I'll see you on the next episode.