Building Alignment To Drive Sustainability Transformation

Only the ill-prepared would set-off on a major expedition without first agreeing with their fellow travellers the destination, route, and basic logistics. No successful sports team starts a match without at least an initial plan of how they would like to play and intend to beat their opposition. A builder doesn’t start construction without clear guidance from the client, detailed drawings from the architect, and an initial plan for which tradesmen they will need and when. 

So why would a company undertake a transformation – a fundamental rebuilding of their objectives, strategy, organisation, and operations – without first establishing clear alignment throughout the business? This is particularly true for Sustainability transformations which require fundamental changes to the organisation’s purpose, culture, and strategy in order to be truly successful.

Too frequently organisation’s embark on these change programmes without resolving competing objectives and agendas:

• Drive for short-term profitability vs investing for long-term performance

• Development of more sustainable product and service portfolios vs continuing to sell traditional ranges with significant GHG footprints

• Catering for the needs of minorities and younger generations vs the established attitudes and behaviours of more senior staff

• Inability to identify key capabilities required for success

• Adoption of new technologies vs “the way we have always done things around here”

• Distrust of all 3rd parties vs openness to enhanced collaboration

• The contradictions are endless…

How often have companies made major announcements “committing to our corporate purpose to be the most sustainable organisation we can be” only to push-out their target to achieve net-zero emissions to 2040 or even further, long after the current management team will have retired. Others maintain an involvement with contentious markets or geographies to protect revenues and profitability whilst claiming to be advocates for equity and inclusion. Arguably the most at risk are those that fail to invest in new technologies to address health and safety risks, instead choosing to spend cap ex on new offices whilst frontline staff are put in harm’s way. 

Ultimately these conflicts undermine and dilute Sustainability improvement activities and sometimes derail them all together.

At Smart Sustainability we believe these tensions need to be identified and addressed at the start of, and throughout, a Sustainability transformation. Even if the inherent contradictions cannot be resolved immediately, surfacing them starts the dialogue and allows potential solutions to be developed.

The first step in our transformation approach is to conduct an alignment workshop with key stakeholders to understand what contradictions exist within the company. By asking participants to complete a self-diagnostic survey prior to the workshop we help the organisation to identify where there are critical differences of opinion and approach before even starting to discuss what the future objectives should be – frequently this ‘unlocks’ the organisation and lays the foundation for more substantive discussions about the true purpose and strategy needs to be, and what the relative priority is for developments.

These discussions are not easy – opinions and beliefs are often deeply held over extended periods – but are an essential part of the transformation process and a key part of the value we bring to clients.

By building this alignment prior to starting an in-depth diagnostic we are able to go into more depth with clients on the most critical issues, particularly those which require significant changes to strategy or more substantial capability gaps to be closed.

Through our ongoing support we can ensure that progress on these challenges is maintained, unresolved conflicts continue to be worked on, and ultimately that the organisation remains aligned to its overall Sustainability objectives.