human development

What organizations can do to integrate sustainability.

Years ago one state's environmental protection agency was undertaking a major sustainability initiative. Its staff was passionate about the environment; many members were highly educated environmental scientists and engineers. The agency kicked off its efforts with all the right strategies: top leadership endorsed the program, most of the employees were trained on the concepts of sustainability, and the agency even incorporated sustainability goals into its long-term strategic plan.

However, one year after this flurry of activity, very little had changed. The sustainability champions in the organization were stymied and confused. They thought they had done all that was necessary to get their initiative to take root. But further investigation revealed a number of barriers preventing a real integration of the effort. The problems uncovered and the strategies that have since been employed to battle them provide important lessons about helping sustainability take root in an organization.

 Problem One: Sustainability is not seen as a Strategic Priority:

Sustainability initiatives are too often viewed as something noble to do for the planet. As long as this attitude prevails, going green will always be seen as something nice to do when there is spare time and money. It is leadership's responsibility to frame sustainability as the business issue that it is. Employees need to understand the strategic case for pursuing sustainability, the threats associated with ignoring it, and the opportunities it presents for business improvements.

There are a number of tools, both subtle and explicit, that leadership can use to convey the importance of sustainability to employees:

Make the business case by translating sustainability trends into business issues and help employees see how the organization will be impacted by factors such as climate change, resource scarcity, and changing consumer preferences. Incorporate sustainability targets into your strategic plan. Draw the link between sustainability and previous initiatives to underscore the notion of continuous improvement and dispel the perception of fad hopping. Clarify why sustainability is the next natural step for your organization.

Hold managers accountable for results related to sustainability by incorporating these expectations into their plans, metrics, and performance reviews. Expect managers to regularly review progress on sustainability projects.

Re-evaluate individual job descriptions and incorporate into them duties related to sustainability. As long as employees believe sustainability is something "extra" to do, something on top of the already full plate of duties they're juggling, meaningful change is unlikely.

Create real opportunities for employee involvement. Launch teams and committees to work on sustainability projects. Give official sanction to sustainability teams by providing them resources they need to be successful and allowing them to meet on work time. Asking groups to meet on their own time sends the message that sustainability is not integral to real work. Green efforts should also be given visibility and public acknowledgement of their accomplishments.

Identify symbolic management actions that will demonstrate leadership's commitment to the efforts. For example, no one questioned the sincerity of Nancy Stueber, president of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, about her commitment to sustainability because employees saw her walk through the office sporting her bike helmet and riding gear.

Problem Two: Employees don't see the Relevance of Sustainability to their Jobs

Often we find that employees get excited about sustainability, but aren't sure how to mix it into their daily routine. It's important for organizations to make explicit the link between a sustainability initiative and each person's job. For example, the environmental agency mentioned earlier had code enforcement officials who thought their job was strictly to interpret and enforce existing regulations. But as they examined their duties in a sustainable light, they discovered other opportunities: offering consulting services in conjunction with their code reviews, and making suggestions to customers about how to meet the code by applying principles of sustainability in their projects. They still fulfilled their original obligations, but added a valuable service at the same time. This improved their relationship with those they regulated and made them feel better about their work.

Employees often know intuitively their actions may not be sustainable, but have trouble determining what to do differently. Conduct an impacts assessment at the work group or individual job level. Help employees explicitly map out their inputs, outputs, and key activities and then assess them against your sustainability framework. This will enable employees to see their impacts and opportunities for improvement.

Do back casting at the work group level. Help employees break out of a day-to-day focus by thinking way into the future-the same as you would for your organization as a whole. Ask what their function would look like in 20 years if it were completely sustainable. What would they be doing and what would they be avoiding? Working backwards from that distant vision, help them see how tasks would evolve over time by asking what they would need to be doing in 10 years in order to achieve that 20-year vision. And in order to implement the 10-year goals, what would they need to be doing in five years? Continue this backward-chaining process until they identify the immediate tasks that will move them toward the vision of sustainability.

Another useful strategy is to share inspiring stories from other parts of the organization, or even other organizations, that illustrate how people are applying sustainability to similar functions. We love telling office workers, for example, about the law firm we discovered that is virtually paperless. When people see for themselves what others in similar positions are doing, they can assess their own practices in a new light.

Employ a checklist or assessment tool. Many of the sustainability tools, such as LEED (the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standard developed by the US Green Building Council) or SCORE (Sustainability Competency and Opportunity Rating and Evaluation assessment developed by AXIS) describe sustainable actions at the work level. Taking employees through instruments like these will help break down lofty principles of sustainability into day-to-day tasks.

Problem Three: It Takes Extra Effort to "Do the Right Thing"

Some employees will care enough to go out of their way to behave sustainably. Others won't and you will have to make sustainability easy or automatic. This requires embedding sustainability into the organization's structures, policies, and business systems. This is the ultimate form of integration; the point at which the sustainable option becomes the normal way of doing business.

Change the physical environment, since it has a big impact on the way we behave. SERA Architects in Portland, Oregon, for example, removed all the desk side trash cans in the office over one weekend and replaced them with paper recycling bins. Now if employees really want to throw something away, they have to cross the office to find the single office trash can. Other changes to the physical environment can be more subtle. Consider setting the default on all your printers and copiers to double-sided printing, so that people don't have to make the conscious choice. If you have automated purchasing systems, be sure green supplies come up first in the choice of options. When you're remodeling your office or planning a move, incorporate sustainable materials into your design and locate your office so that employees can take advantage of more sustainable transportation options.

Rewrite organizational policies, since they also help to determine behavior. Consider rewriting your purchasing policies to include sustainability criteria. Include sustainability language in your vendor contracts and shift your 401K investments to socially responsible funds. Make sure that you are not inadvertently encouraging unsustainable behavior by subsidizing parking or providing Styrofoam cups in your break rooms. Adapt your management systems, since they are probably the most powerful levers of behavior change at your disposal. Fold sustainability criteria into hiring standards so that you end up recruiting people who understand and support your efforts. Promote people who take sustainability seriously. Above all, make sure your performance metrics at the organizational, department, and individual levels include targets for your sustainability efforts and are regularly reviewed and acted upon.

Sustainability is too important to the survival of our planet and our economy to risk poor implementation. We can take advantage of the lessons learned by pioneers in this field to ensure sustainable practices take deep root in our organizations instead of falling victim to the "flavor of the month" syndrome. Sustainability, after all, isn't something extra people do; it is the new standard for the way things are.