VIDEO
sustainability 101: what’s it about?
Change Agent/Sustainability Director: How to Keep a Sustainability Effort on Track
Many of the organizations best known for their commitment to sustainability are those with passionate and outspoken leaders at their helms. Ray Anderson of Interface, for example, tours the world telling his dramatic story of getting a ‘spear through his heart’ after reading Hawkens The Ecology of Commerce and realizing the damage his company was doing to the Earth.
Leaders are certainly in a prime position to drive change through their organizations; however, for most organizations change can sprout and grow in any number of places.
Regardless of where you are in the organizational structure, you can make a difference.
Someone put The Ecology of Commerce on Ray Anderson’s desk; the change did not start with him. People tend to point to the moment when their leader gets the ‘spear through the heart’as the moment sustainability began in their organization, but that undervalues the critical actions of those within the organization who often bring sustainability to the leader’s attention.
Within every organization that pursues sustainability, there is always someone who gets the effort going, usually a person with an unflagging passion for the topic. These change agents often begin without the overt approval of their organization. Over time they develop a compelling business case and enroll others. Eventually they may be given official responsibility for leading the effort.
For sustainability to be successful, it eventually must infiltrate all aspects of the organization. Until that happens it is usually necessary to have an individual or team whose job it is to shepherd the effort. When an individual holds this role, he or she is often called sustainability coordinator. This may be a full-time or part-time responsibility. This paper is directed to those individuals who, with or without formal authority, move sustainability forward in an organization.
What you should know about sustainability
Sustainability change agents have come from virtually all parts of organizations. Sometimes, they emerge from environmental departments, but just as often they come from other fields. For example, the sustainability coordinator at Tualatin Valley Water District in Oregon is also their financial analyst, a particularly nice blend of skills that gives her credibility in the boardroom. So if you have the passion, there is a good chance you can make a role for yourself in sustainability.
Change agents face a number of challenges, however, no matter where they reside in an organization. Here is some advice for each of the most common hurdles.
Influencing without authority
Usually the sustainability coordinator acts in an advisory role and does not have line authority over all the people in the organization. From this position, they must cajole, influence, convince and assist. Expect the typical resistance and excuses: we’re too busy, this effort is only a nice-to-have, our customers aren’t asking for it, etc. Develop friends in high places and pick your battles. Build on successes and look for opportune moments to raise certain issues.
Getting the ear and respect of management
If your organization has not already adopted sustainability as a strategic focus, you will have to earn the respect of management. First, decide whether it’s time to try to get management’s attention. You may want to work on some small projects that fly under the radar until you can show dramatic business benefits.
Then, begin introducing the concept to management. Often, new ideas are rejected, so begin sowing seeds. Pass on articles from respected business journals and expose your executives to peers in other organizations who have adopted sustainability. Avoid impassioned arguments and do not expect a quick conversion. Suggest that sustainability be one of many emerging trends that should be considered in strategic planning. Think strategically. How does sustainability inform your organization’s strategy? Are there threats or opportunities? Talk in business terms.
Avoiding burn-out
All organizations are so far from a sustainable state that it’s easy to become overwhelmed. You can’t work on everything at once, so devise a method for setting priorities. What’s really important? What would make the most impact? What is this the right time for? What has a high likelihood of success? What could provide a platform for other efforts?
Enrolling others
People are often so busy that when you approach them with one more thing to think about, you’re more likely to see exasperation rather than excitement.
Develop contacts with people and get to know their problems and challenges. For example, cleaning staff might complain about how certain cleaning products irritate their skin and eyes. That’s your opening to propose more sustainable options. Do some of the homework for people and talk in terms that they use. Ask them to test the new product on a trial basis to see if it performs at least as well as the old one. Realize, too, that some people will be ready to listen and others not. Focus on those who are ready to hear the message or who have a reason to collaborate. There are likely to be some in your organization who are outright resistant to your ideas or the notion of sustainability. Be strategic about how you approach and involve these people. If these people have influence – either because they are formal or informal leaders or their support is necessary to implement your ideas – consider involving them in your efforts. Invite them to participate on planning teams or convince them to come to presentations on sustainability. It can be very useful to have skeptics involved in planning because they may represent the position or attitudes of others and you will want to learn about and account for their concerns or doubts. If you are successful at winning over a skeptic in the process, you will probably build credibility with others. If these people are not influential, you might consider working around them for the time being and directing your energy towards those who can further your cause. You may find that engaging the critical few is more productive than trying to win the masses.
Once, while visiting a forest products company famous for their sustainability practices, we asked how many people in the plant really lived and breathed sustainability, who thought about it on a regular basis. After much hemming and hawing, the sustainability coordinator estimated ‘only’ 15 per cent. He found this figure discouraging but we think about it differently. This shows that you can make great headway with a minority of the population on board. It’s unrealistic to think that you can capture the passion of every employee. So find those who will be intrigued and use your collective influence to make improvements.
Resources
The following books are similar in purpose but complementary to The Business Guide to
Sustainability:
• Making Sustainability Work by Marc J. Epstein.
• The Step by Step Guide to Sustainability Planning by Hitchcock and Willard (Earth scan,
2008).
These are useful references for sustainability professionals who want to deepen their knowledge beyond the basics:
• The Sustainability Handbook by William Blackburn.
• The Natural Advantage of Nations by Hargroves and Smith.
• Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability by Karl-Henrik Robert.
The following resources relate to managing organizational change, a critical skill for sustainability professionals:
• Gladwell, Malcolm (2000) The Tipping Point. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
• Senge, Peter M., Benyamin B. Lichtenstein, Katrin Kaeufer, Hilary Bradbury and John S.
Carroll (2007) ‘Collaborating for Systemic Change’, MIT Sloan Management Review, Winter, Vol 48, No 2, pp44–53.
• Joiner, W. B. and S. A. Josephs (2007) Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Senge, Peter, et al (1999) The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations. New York: Doubleday Currency.
• Wheatley, Margaret (2005) Finding our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. This book dispels many of the myths about how change happens in organizations and suggests a more organic approach.
• Maurer, Rick (1996) Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Unconventional Strategies that Build Support for Change. Austin, TX: Bard Books. Provides useful guidance for dealing with the inevitable resistance change agents face.
• Moore, Geoffrey A. (1999) Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers. New York: HarperBusiness. See also the more recent book, Inside the Tornado, also by Moore. The Tipping Point and these two books describe important concepts about how changes happen in a population. Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado focus on high-tech products, but the concepts are equally relevant to other industries that create discontinuous change. Up till recently, the concept of sustainability was a discontinuous change, but the concept in most sectors has crossed over the chasm between the innovators and early adopters. So now, these books would be most appropriate for companies creating innovative products that will disrupt the status quo. They are based on the concepts in Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers but are easier to read.
For a practical approach to social assessments, see Social Audit – A Toolkit: A Guide for
Performance Improvement and Outcome Measurement, from the Centre for Good Governance, http://www.cgg.gov.in/publications.jsp.
