“Our organization is totally supportive of sustainability, as long as nothing else comes up or it doesn’t interfere with something the Executive wants to do!”
Hands up if you have heard this before. Many organizations find that after the long process of building and adopting a sustainability policy or strategy, they stall. Sure, implementing and embedding sustainability into the business and day-to-day operational decisions is hard work, but that’s not the only thing holding up changes. Often, the environmental management or sustainability plan becomes siloed within the organization, resulting in delays and disorganization. As well, functional leaders don’t always understand the plan’s relevance to their area.
In my experience advising on the design and execution of sustainability strategies for organizations, sustainability managers face these common pitfalls:
- Sustainability is not well understood. As many as 4 or 5 different definitions and philosophies can exist in the organization.
- There is no business case for sustainability, so leaders are not convinced its merits go beyond a goodwill or nice-to-have measure.
- It is not operationalized: There is no cross-functional accountability, and targets and metrics haven’t been developed.
- There is a lack of commitment, with few to no incentives and no agreement on priorities. Often sustainability is a last-minute consideration in decision-making - too late to influence the outcome.
It can be challenging to overcome these familiar hurdles, but not impossible. In fact, there are many opportunities to integrate sustainability in your corporate culture and governance.
The CMO + CSO Power Partnership: Boosting Brand Value Together
Join us on Tues, July 10, for this free webinar: Leaders from Ipsos NA and AABL Advisors will share practical insights on how CMOs and CSOs are collaborating to meet rising stakeholder expectations, drive long-term value, and connect authentically with consumers. Gain actionable tips for addressing the real-world challenges both roles face today and building stronger partnerships between marketing and sustainability teams — ensuring your sustainability story resonates powerfully in the market.
This past year, I collaborated with Canadian Business for Social Responsibility to develop a set of next-generation corporate sustainability practices, called the Qualities of a Transformational Company. The Transformational Company commits to accelerating and scaling sustainability solutions in its business model and society. One of the top – and necessary – qualities is “Sustainability Governance and Culture,” in which sustainability is embedded into governance, business processes, operations, investments, culture and competencies, incentivizing more conscious decisions and innovation.
For more ideas on how to integrate sustainability into your organization, click here.
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Coro Strandberg is President of Strandberg Consulting, which provides strategy advice to companies and industry associations that seek to integrate social and environmental considerations into their purpose, governance, operations and supply chains to create business value and societal benefit.
Published Sep 28, 2016 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT / 12am BST / 1am CEST