Five tips for every business leader and aspiring sustainability champion as they address the challenges ahead.
Everyone’s talking about sustainability.
Not that exact word perhaps, but floods and fires, plastic waste, various health issues, divisions and inequality in society, and more.
There are many opinions, competing arguments and statistics, strong emotions, and plenty of blame.
Into this challenging landscape steps any business leader who wants their organisation to thrive, to do the right thing, or just to survive.
Here are five points for every business leader and aspiring sustainability champion to consider as they address the challenges ahead.
1. Get physical
Sustainability can get lost in words and statistics. But what matters is understanding the physical reality of your business, including:
- The materials and energy you’re using.
- What actually happens to your waste.
- How a customer uses and then disposes of your product.
- How your operations impact the lives of your employees and the people in your supply chain.
If you get these things right the business plans and narrative will follow.
2. Be expert at not being an expert
Expertise in sustainability means many things – specialist scientific knowledge, precise understanding of regulation, knowing how to undertake specific analysis, and much more. Most business leaders don’t have and don’t need this expertise, but they do need sufficient working knowledge to set priorities, develop strategy, and take action, seeking the expert input they need along the way.
Sustainability leaders ask good questions rather than always knowing the answers.
3. Green isn’t everything
Sustainability isn’t just a switch from being profit-oriented to “green.” It’s almost always about combining social, economic, and environmental dimensions.
Technical solutions to single issues can easily miss the mark, and the social dimension is often intertwined with environmental and economic considerations.
4. Sustainability is a major leadership challenge
Strategic leadership of an organisation is a perennial challenge, but sustainability adds an extra dimension. You need to think longer-term and broader-scope, avoid oversimplification yet communicate clearly, and nurture teams and emerging leaders working on these complex challenges.
It turns out that achieving sustainability isn’t entirely about hard facts and technical solutions – it’s also about feelings and behaviours. Sustainability leaders are activists, authentic and inclusive.
5. Sustainability is a fascinating puzzle to solve, and full of opportunities
The transition away from a linear economy powered by fossil fuels represents a pivot in almost all sectors, including service industries. Products, services, infrastructure, business models – all these need to change.
Those who understand these challenges clearly, and innovate most effectively, can gain competitive advantage, and even become industry leaders.
Leading Sustainability Programme
The Cranfield Leading Sustainability programme helps senior leaders and sustainability champions in all types of organisations to build practical and strategic capabilities that enable them to lead their organisations into a more sustainable future.
To find out more about this innovative and practical programme download the brochure now:
