What differentiates sustainability from other culture change initiatives? Most businesses - likely including yours - have undergone some effort to either focus or re-envision their cultural DNA, and there are endless books on the science of getting it right. But we think that fostering a culture of sustainability requires a unique approach due to unique challenges.
Most cultural change initiatives are of a carefully defined scope, limited to one company or a company and its supply chain. Sustainability isn’t. Sustainability is a global, societal paradigm shift, a drive for humanity to better use our tools and resources to ensure a secure future. It can be hard to think in terms of how your business can contribute to a healthy, thriving global community. It’s also, at times, hard to see the benefits of sustainability on your quarterly reports.
How important is culture to your strategy to adopt a sustainability strategy? We believe it is fundamental to the success of the strategy. And not only is it crucial to foster a culture of sustainability to achieve your goals; most organizations that have managed to transform themselves into sustainable ones did so by first identifying and leveraging the grassroots efforts of their employees.
Just ask Vijay Kanal, Director and Global Head of Technology Practice at BSR. In his recent report, "Five Stages on the Sustainability Journey", he analyses the steps various organizations have taken to reposition themselves as sustainability leaders. His findings show that most organizations begin their journey well before any formal strategy is conceived in the following stages:
Is culture a critical link often missed in corporate sustainability development? We think so. And according to its 2011 "Greening Your Business" guide, so does financial giant RBC. They argue that the leaders of the pack are transformational organizations, who successfully hardwire sustainability into their DNA and culture.
This is elaborated in the guide’s 'Sustainability Continuum' toolkit. The Continuum locates an organization on a four-category map of sustainability performance and potential achievement, according to whether they are: Compliant, Opportunistic, Strategic or Transformational.
If you agree that culture is critical to your organization’s journey towards sustainability, how should you move forward to embed it into your culture? Over two decades of doing just that for clients around the world, we have seen firsthand how culture is a fundamental component often missing in sustainability plans and blueprints.
This sentiment is also echoed in Dr. Stephanie Bertels’ meta research entitled “Embedding Sustainability into Organizational Culture” (PDF / 3.7 MB). This study included thorough case studies of dozens of success stories of businesses bringing sustainability into their culture, and analyses of over 500 academic sources sharing empirical results. A critical outcome of this research is a robust framework that outlines best practices for fostering a culture of sustainability, based around the core principles of:
