Ultimately, creating sustainability strategies that work are about aligning practices in support of a triple bottom line—outcomes that benefit people, planet, and profitability. Entities thrive when sustainable strategies and practices are embedded within an organization’s culture, i.e.: when the sales team makes sustainable choices just as do their peers in accounting and facilities. Too often, though, sustainability professionals are stuck in a silo, talking to themselves and a small group of die-hard enthusiasts.
Sustainability Strategies don’t have to be Political
“We can’t engage everyone, it’s too political,” sustainability professionals often say when we ask what they are doing to engage everyone in a company’s efforts to reduce waste and emissions. These sustainability professionals many times will go on to explain that talking about climate change is too controversial, or that the people in their company don’t care about environmental issues.
We recommend that sustainability advocates set aside politics and focus on areas of agreement.
Sustainability is an area of agreement. In fact, sustainability is now mainstream. Here’s why:
- In 2016, 82% of S&P 500 companies published corporate sustainability reports, which is up from just 20% in 2011. Not only that, but institutional investors are increasingly looking at sustainability data before making investments.
- A recent Shelton Group study of terminology found that 70% of Americans – left, right, young, and old – rated the term “sustainability”’ positively. Significantly, this support was consistent across all demographics.
- 88% of millennials want opportunities to participate in workplace efforts to make a positive impact on social or environmental issues, and 74% of all employees want these same opportunities. So people not only support sustainability, but they want to be part of it.
All of this means that engaging more people in your organization’s sustainability efforts should be an easy sell. But too often, well-intentioned sustainability professionals focus on negative “doom and gloom” statistics, which actually prompt despondency, not action. Reprimanding people for not taking more sustainable actions is also ineffective. Folks don’t want to be criticized. Instead, celebrate the successful actions people do take. When you find and call out the bright spots in what’s already happening, you can motivate others to mimic those practices. Positive reinforcement is much more pleasant and much more effective than a focus on the negative.
How to Engage Everyone Around Sustainability Strategies
Sustainability professionals can give rank and file employees the opportunity to be heroes in their own lives. Everyone wants to feel good about the work they do. By helping people see how their efforts contribute to bigger sustainability objectives, we give people their own hero stories, which is tremendously appealing. Again, this is an easy sell if framed properly!
Similarly, sustainability professionals should be strategic about how to frame the quest for broad adoption of sustainable practices when talking with leadership. It’s important to make clear that no entity can achieve aggressive sustainability results via technology alone – people and culture have to be part of the equation. If an organization is aiming for zero landfill, then it’ll be critical to engage everyone relative to activities in the cafeteria, just as a zero-energy goal requires everyone’s participation in reducing plug load.
Additionally, where other workplace issues are a priority, it’s a smart strategy to demonstrate how effective efforts around sustainability can also enhance progress on those other priorities. In our own work, for example, we leveraged local business concerns about a tight labor market to implement a sustainability program in a conservative county in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. By helping business leaders understand that engaging employees around sustainability could actually help these businesses recruit and retain a millennial workforce, we were able to motivate business leaders to participate in a county wide Cool Choices sustainability engagement program. We addressed the issues that mattered locally, which built partnerships that led to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Everybody won.
To learn more about how you can frame sustainability so that you maximize engagement, check out our webinar or contact us.
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