3 Organizational Approaches to Sustainability
Your sustainability strategy needs to be part of your leadership and corporate agenda, and needs to be aligned to your corporate strategy.
Aligning your commercial success as an organization with a bio-diverse and sustainable future will take foresight, courage, ambition, and perseverance. As organizations strive to move forward on this, they find themselves on different trajectories, and at different stages of their journey, due to a variety of reasons.
Broadly speaking organizations fall into three categories when it comes to their sustainability approach and efforts.
1️⃣ The Visioneer’s
2️⃣ The Do-ers
3️⃣ The Thinkers
Which category does your organization fall under?
1️⃣ The Visioneers: Who Pursue Purpose Driven Organisations (PDO)
These organizations have visionaries at the helm who are able to wield the organization to their will. And so, you can think of these organizations as the enlightened buddhas of the world - leading the way. They’re often thought to be the innovators and early adopters on the adoption curve.
They know what their organizations purpose is, because it’s defined. It’s written down and it’s communicated. It’s understood and it’s executed on. And! Sustainability has been crafted in, integrated and embedded. It’s not an afterthought.
Their purpose as an organization clearly defines why they exist, with their sustainability strategy serving as an optimal strategic contribution to the long-term wellbeing of all people and planet. The organization and it’s business model does this in a way that assures profitability, as well the health of social, environmental and economic systems, and folds in the value of stakeholders and capitals, including natural capital.
Their purpose also acts as a strategic filter to direct all actions undertaken by the organization towards ambitious impacts for the benefit of a wide range of stakeholders, well beyond only considering shareholder value. To be clear, profitability is vital, of course it is, but shareholders…. shareholders are seen as one of a number of core stakeholders; not the singular be-all and end-all of stakeholders.
As an organization, their purpose informs all value-creation goals and operational parameters. It’s thought through; and it’s baked in at all levels of the organisation. These parameters, these KPIs, these OKRs make sure the organization acts within social norms and expectations and scientific consensus, in a way that ensures the health of it’s stakeholders, and the wider society and environment in which the company operates.
And, unsurprisingly, as the enlightened Buddha’s of the sustainability and biodiversity world, their natural, social and human capitals are stewarded, measured and accounted for.
These organizations see themselves as the leaders of the pack, with a strong external and 🔭 ’futuring’ lens. These organizations are far from having shallow purpose and brand positioning statements, which can lead to wading through green—washing waters. They’re on the front foot. They’re the ‘don’t assign a label to me’ types, they’re the ‘we do things differently’ and ‘we innovating for the future’ types.
Then there are the…
2️⃣ The Do-ers: Who Practice Enlightened Shared Value (ESV)
They’re the ‘we get it’ and ‘we’re moving with pace’ organizations. They’re the pragmatists on the adoption curve. They’re making huge strides to accelerate change at their organizations, and they’re coming up fast. They’re doing good.
They know their company’s ability to optimize profits in anything but the short term is threatened, unless they shift their business strategy and model to operate within the healthy thresholds of the multiple resources that they are dependent on. Their enlightened in the sense that their looking out to the external environment, and they know that sustainability and biodiversity is not just a PR exercise. Yet, they still treat sustainability / biodiversity as a inconvenient way of getting crucial information about their company, and are ultimately motivated by maximizing financial performance and surviving in the long term.
Their organization’s focus is on the creation g long-term financial value for their shareholders. And, just like the Visioneers they also steward, measure, and account for their natural, social and human capitals. Yet, unlike their Visioneers counterparts, the Do-ers are more concerned with impact materiality - the impact on their financial future, the environment and society, because they haven’t innovated their business model, services or products enough to become more sustainable.
This means that sustainability and biodiversity efforts, at these organizations, will significantly vary; from limited and partial activities in silo’d business units through to explicit aims to align to all of the SDGs in other parts - Yes, all 17 of them as well as all 23 targets of the Post 2020 GBF. How does that make sense for any organization?!
Yet, not all is lost. The intent for action is great, and when harnessed and focussed through a refined sustainability and biodiversity strategy that is integrated across the entire organization, it helps these organizations greatly improve.
We’re all on a journey, after all.
Lastly, there are the Thinkers
3️⃣ The Thinkers: Who Practice Business As Usual (BAU) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
The Thinkers are the most conservative in their approaches. They may even be skeptical of ESG initiatives. However, they also have the greatest opportunity for advancement and change. And they have the added advantage of learning the lessons from those that have tried before them.
But, they have a lot of work to do. They’re currently focused internally, on themselves, and on short-term, financial shareholders maximization. They’re focussed on taking action to counter any threats to their organization’s short-term profit and are trying to keep up with the changing legislative environment and societal expectations.
They’re also trying to manage the optics, i.e. showing that change is happening in order to keep important stakeholders aligned, through PR and marketing. But in effect they’re playing a cat-and-mouse game, and are on the back-foot. This leaves them open to the green-washing waters.
This means that any sustainability and biodiversity activities that are implemented are applied ad-hoc, or sporadically, and are of low maturity across the organization. They’re engaging in a reactive way to compliance and see it as a box-ticking exercise - it’s disconnected from strategic decision-making, or in some occasions there isn’t a strategy in place yet. The challenge is that any big changes in regulation could leave these organizations exposed with a significant impact on their ability to do business.
These organizations need a starter-strategy and roadmap to help them move along the journey. With the right leaders championing change and resources to execute, it’s possible for these organizations to make strides.
“What do you think? Can you bucket organisational approaches to sustainability and biodiversity into three categories. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.”
