Your business sustainability statement sits there proudly on the wall, in your annual report and in various files throughout the office – but what is it doing for you and the business? Is it a driver of change? Is it adding anything to your Business? And critically what is it doing for your internal culture. Is it another reads well, lacks influence, failing sustainability statement?
I often come across business leaders who understand the overall direction of the business and want to move their organisation towards a more pro-sustainable standing in their market sector. For some, it is a business reality and for others, the thought of aligning the organisation more closely with their personal values is highly attractive.
Then there are the Environmental, Sustainability and QHSE directors and managers who are struggling in new corporate roles who after drawing up a sustainability statement (box ticked) now realise it is attracting little attention and has little influence. Why? It is supposed to be important.
It is important, it is a principal component in your organisations drive towards sustainability, but please note the word ‘you’re’ in the preceding line. I will be using the word several times in the next few lines to emphasise a simple point. Your sustainability statement is primarily meant to inspire you and your employees, not just an external audience. Your customers, stakeholders and investors should be inspired by the pro-sustainability actions your business is taking, their alignment with your business priorities, the tangible results you are in the process of, or have achieved, and ……finally, their alignment with the sustainability strategy your organisation has set out as its road map.
Is it clear yet?
Far too many sustainability strategies are written as external-facing PR statements designed to feel good or help ‘resonate’ or ‘reverberate’ externally in the marketplace. In the worst cases, they are not even the words of the senior leadership team but have been drafted by consultants or plagiarised from another organisation.
When an organisation takes the decision to adopt a more sustainable business stance, it often does so for a variety of reasons
Three models but the first two approaches are short-term and illusionary, whilst the last approach holds out the greatest opportunity for corporate change and a higher sense of responsible leadership development.
It is important to keep in mind that sustainability in business is driven by your organisation’s desire to reduce its unsustainable footprint, to remain competitive in its marketplace and to retain organisational agility that supports innovation, promotes a strong organisational culture, and provides a future-fit mechanism for appraising intangible risks and emerging trends.
Tip 1: A good sustainability statement must reflect the issues that an organisation faces across the spectrum of environmental and social governance risks (ESG) or any emerging ethical issues and prioritises future action against those with the greatest potential for disruption, resilience, reputation, impact on people and their environments, and ethical liability.
Thus, the process of becoming a more sustainable organisation or business starts with the identification and internal acceptance that a number of working practices or corporate behaviours are now unsustainable, require change or breach ESG norms. These are the priorities that form the foundation for your subsequent work in preparing a sustainability statement.
In real terms, it provides the organization (and later by default its stakeholders) with a clear message of what is most significant to future business growth, and the areas under your leadership where the business plans to improve performance or efficiency, whilst at the same time safeguarding the natural world and your social responsibilities as good corporate citizens. It is therefore a reflection of your leadership beliefs and core values as an organisation.
Tip 2: very few businesses begin from nothing, and most have already possessed some degree of internal environmental and social governance, EMS or compliance processes.
In most cases, your company already has an overarching mission statement. The sustainability statement is a supplement – not a new corporate mission statement, based on the original one or a re-evaluation of what your new business purpose must now become. Take your normal mission statement (assuming you have one) and consider how that mission can be delivered through a more sustainable business model. That is its objective, to function as a visible reminder to where you want to head or become as an organisation. If you do not believe in its words as a leadership team, it has failed.
Tip 3: Your Sustainability Statement grows with you; it is not written in tablets of stone that can not be amended as your organisation grows in sustainability purposes.
I read far too many Sustainability statements which have been dated and left alone for 5 or more years. It is a clear sign that the organisation has little attachment to it, is extremely slow in meeting its ‘priorities’ and lacks a leadership culture that is growing and maturing sufficiently to retain its sustainability statement as a living document. It may be signed off each year, but it is not being read!
Update your sustainability statement as a living reflection of your progress, as you scale one peak, explain, and celebrate it as an organisation, and use your sustainability statement as an aid towards refocusing your current priorities, your business plans, and your organisational culture.
Note I am using that ‘your’ word again!