Roundtable: Demystifying Sustainability
It’s safe to assume that everyone agrees sustainability is a good thing. If your business isn’t sustainable, you won’t be around for long.
But lately, sustainability has taken on a broader meaning, encompassing the survival of not just a company, but of the entire planet. And that’s where the confusion comes in.
The average business owner can understand “green,” and might organize a car pool or install a composter in the corporate lunchroom. She might even champion “corporate social responsibility” and donate to local charities. But when it comes to saving the planet, where do you begin?
BCBusiness convened a panel of experts who for years have been helping companies untangle the meaning of sustainability, and build it into their daily operations.
Rob Abbott is a public speaker, writer and consultant who now calls Calgary home, but still spends about a week every month in Vancouver, where he lived until about a year ago. Coro Strandberg, principal of Strandberg Consulting, helps companies integrate social and environmental values with measurable business goals. (More on what that means in the pages to come.) Boyd Cohen is a professor of sustainable entrepreneurship at SFU, and a founder of the Green Building and Consulting Company.
Here’s what the experts say about one buzz word businesses can’t afford to ignore.
BCBusiness: Let’s start with the big question: define sustainability.
Rob Abbott: Sustainability is a process, not some kind of utopian end event. It’s about creating financial and social wealth or well-being in a way that doesn’t, frankly, trash people and the planet. Too many people frame this as an environmental proposition and the hole in the doughnut, too often, is the social dimension.
Coro Strandberg: I define it as an integration of social and environmental and economic considerations in your decision-making, and doing it in a way that balances the factors so economics doesn’t always trump the environment or social considerations and vice versa.
BCB: That’s all very well, but how do we bring it down to the level of daily operations for, say, a business owner with six employees?
RA: If I’m a small business owner, I’ve got a whole variety of issues: people issues, systems issues... Within each of those, I can probably begin to have a conversation that starts by asking questions like, how can I reduce my environmental footprint? Where am I sourcing my materials? Do I have a sustainable purchasing process in place? Who are the people that I’m dealing with as suppliers and how green are they?
CS: Employee engagement is critical for any sustainability strategy. An easy first thing to do is to get them all together and say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about these issues and what’s on your mind?” Chances are, they’re sitting there thinking about some practices that the company might do differently. And then you’ve got a group of engaged, motivated employees who are prepared to go the extra mile in helping you advance your program.
RA: Include your critics, and let them know you’re going to give them an opportunity to be heard. You’re not necessarily going to respond to everything they have to say, but it’s important to begin sowing those seeds and benefiting from their perspectives.
BCB: So as a starting point I might engage my employees, my critics and my suppliers. But how do I sustain it over the long run? Do I formulate a sustainability policy, strike a committee?
Boyd Cohen: I’m opposed to doing sustainability departments or committees if they’re on the side, because they never have teeth. I’ve seen somebody hired into a company as a sustainability officer or VP, but who doesn’t actually have any bearing on executive decisions. Their role is to advise departments on how they can enhance their sustainability. Well, when push comes to shove, you’re not going to care what this tree hugger over here is saying.
CS: A couple of approaches seem to work. One is setting up an employee engagement team. You might just have one employee champion team and liberate them to set some targets and provide some resources for them. Then, as the CEO or the general manager, you can indicate to the rest of the employees that you’re totally behind the effort.
Another aspect is to think more about your impact on the land and how you engage with communities. It’s really not about whether you have an extra $10,000 to give to the community or whether you have an extra hour to do your recycling program. It’s actually about how you run your business day to day. You might want to rethink your business process or look at your product. Can you hardwire an environmental or social attribute into your product?
Save over 50% off the newsstand price with a subscription to BCBusiness Magazine
