If you are new in the business sustainability area, lesson 1 is that sustainability should be integrated with strategy so that it effectively becomes relevant for the corporate agenda.
Knowing what it means and how to raise the sustainability guidelines to such level of relevance relies on the knowledge of the business frame and experience of its leaders towards the topic.
Some tools in the strategic planning provide opportunities in such path: strategical roadmap, statements of vision, mission and values, codes of behavior and ethics and other documents that regulate environmental, community relationship, compliance practices, and others.
However, these mechanisms do not specify the projects, actions and what effectively will be carried out to reach a high level of sustainability management. Turn these intents into projects, goals and indicators is the second important challenge for those in charge of sustainability in the corporations.
In my professional experience, I understand that some steps help us begin such journey.
SUSTAINABILITY PLAN
To have a sustainability plan that sets out the topics, goals, targets, indicators and results. The Global Reporting Initiative, which guides the Sustainability Reporting, sets that this plan is one of the first content to be reported so that investors and other stakeholders understand in what the company is engaging and what can be expected as regards future deliveries.
PERFORMANCE GOALS
Hiring individual performance bonus-related goals for all main executives. This goal should be specific, setting out the project and presenting the result-related indicators with a periodic follow-up.
TRANSVERSAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Sustainability is a transversal topic that engages all areas of the corporation. ALL. Some people further recommend that a sustainability department or area should not exist. I say it should, however, it should manage the topic governance, by coordinating the actions along with other areas and not focusing on the whole scope.
From people management to communications, actions, commercial, industrial, services, procurement, logistics, client relationship, marketing, information technology, each division of the company can identify, under the specificity of each business, its contribution with a more sustainable management and undertake to develop the topic.
FOCAL POINTS
A transversal management requires that professionals are identified in each department to be the ambassadors and coordinators of specific project implantation. These people will be responsible for sustainability in their respective areas and need legitimacy to do so. The director should understand the role of such professional in the exercise of such activity and encourage the team engagement in the actions coordinated by him/her.
SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE*
This is the most common practice and usually the first to be implanted in a company that begins a more structured sustainability management. Despite its governance importance, I recommend that a management committee is only put in place after some of the prior items are met, particularly the definition of goals and targets for each department and the identification of the focus. The success of a sustainability committee is directly related with the strategic level of the agenda that such group will follow up and, if there is an indicator panel that derives from a sustainability plan and performance goals of each department, its role becomes more clear and priority.
*For sustainability committees in managerial level: non-deliberative and voluntary. Some committees are linked to the governance frame, particularly in openly-capital companies and these have another nature (deliberative and often linked to the high management)
I remind that we’re talking about step 1 only. Innovation, sustainability integration to global agenda, how sustainability can be a disruptive tool for the business, compliance with legal and voluntary commitments are other equally important aspects that will consolidate the sustainability journey in the corporation.
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* English is not my native language. If you find any opportunity for improvement, let me know. I’ll love to learn from experts.