The VOX report summed this up nicely by describing the sustainability professional's three key roles:
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Catalyst: Driving and accelerating the pace of change, particularly inside a large company, can be a slow and arduous process. Success requires knowing the company’s culture and balancing subject matter expertise with strong interpersonal skills. One has to frame and communicate the need for change within a company’s corporate culture, not despite its culture.
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Connector: Connecting the outside world with a company in ways management will understand is another important role of a sustainability leader. Communicating the business case to integrate social and environmental issues inside a company requires someone who can translate the implications of these issues and link them to key business drivers in a way senior management will understand.
- Collaborator: A third key to success is the ability to work inside a company where direct oversight is virtually non-existent, requiring collaboration with different business units. Success requires motivational skills that can align a social or environmental issue with the self-interests of a colleague or business unit—and an ability to communicate this alignment in a manner that inspires action.
Concluded the researchers:
To be successful, sustainability leaders must provide context for their work in the same terms as other business units and define their impact in the “lingua franca” of the business. These leaders must use communication skills to link sustainability to core business objectives. Rather than using sustainability jargon, they must use words and phrases that are consistent with a company’s culture and business strategy. They must help import, translate and embed issues from the outside world into the DNA of their companies.
Bottom line: It's not what you know, it's how you communicate it.
Reading this piece and the
Reading this piece and the earlier comments, I “tangented” both to some deeper and a couple of frivolous issues. There’s irony that this “S-word,” sustainability, is being attacked again, and not just within the sustainable business community, but also by environmentalists, as well as the Tea Party. I was planning to respond to the latter two, in part, by pointing out the progress made by businesses which have accepted sustainability, and how that is inconsistent with some elements of their critique, such the latter’s assertion that sustainability is “socialist.” (http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/11999-sustainable-freedom-surging-opposition-to-agenda-21-“sustainable-development”).
There is also the fundamental tension between how people see the change process—as well as the degree of change which is needed; whether to talk to people based on where they are, or the necessity of sometimes challenging them; some fleeting concern with self-interest and a more important one with identity: if we keep arguing to throw out core concepts of the profession, where does that leave the field—and some of us; and amusement that I keep running across so many “S” words.
I may feel compelled to explore more of this in a future writing. But focusing on the latter for now, just before and right after my initial mid-career change to environmental work (from years in Madison Avenue advertising, fashion--don’t laugh, those who know me, and semiconductors), I was immersed in projects involving sewerage, sludge, soot, solid waste, and swamps; and remembered thinking I had definitely left any connections to glamour to be in a world of “S’s”—and would need new boots. And just so you don’t think I’m avoiding the major “S-word,” a major environmentalist in my state, New Jersey, calls sustainability “bullshit.” (http://www.northbyram.org/highlands/newsblog/?p=710)
More seriously, I think it comes down to whether we think there really are fundamental, core concepts, as well as difficult to replace benefits that sustainability, the concept and the word, bring to the table. If there are, while another term might conceivably be better no one has come up with one. We also have years of momentum and progress to build on, but, as some of us think, still a long way to go to reach Ray Anderson’s “Mt. Sustainability.”
So, while yes, in a given time and place it may be tactfully smart to avoid its use. I’m sure there are situations where it’s prudent to go for just a small step, the company is pre-occupied, or the decision-maker is clearly not going to be a learner that day. And Joel’s emphasis on the importance of sustainability professionals’ interpersonal skills, and roles as catalyst, connector, and collaborator are correct. But as with other irreplaceable, sometimes abstract, but powerful concepts like freedom, democracy, and liberty, for which we can (but usually don’t) make the same complaints, we’re going to have to raise our game and figure it out.
The harder stuff isn’t likely to go away.
In general, as the "economy
In general, as the "economy improves", sadly, there is still an inverse relationship with environmental health. One day hopefully, it will be a direct rather than inverse relationship. It may be going in that direction, but we're still so VERY far away.
As for using the "s-word", or not, these things really are SO petty. I realize the need for "speaking the same language" as i.e. operations or finance. But really, it just makes me sick that we still have individuals in upper and middle management that are caught up in LANGUAGE.. They're just WORDS for chrissake. Come on people. If we're still getting caught up in semantics and "perceptions" of what sustainability is and isn't about, give me a f'in break. All this bla bla bla, what a load of crap. The day we really get to work and get serious, and stop bs-ing about these banal issues, will be a good day. What I fear is that things will have to get really awful before we stop lollygagging and acting like a bunch of wankers suffering from diarrhea of the mouth because we're not speaking in baby talk to the bean counters, simply because they lack the capability to see a bigger picture and evolve with the times. If they can't adapt, screw em! Fire them! I'm sick of this "we have to speak in their neanderthal language" crap (in a context of saving the PLANET that is).
In the meantime though, the sheeple and the peanut galleries will him and haw about "buy-in" and argue about definitions of x or y, as Earth continues to heat up slowly and we are all frogs in the kettle arguing about "zero waste" vs "lean production". F that S. Call my argument (or me) simple minded if you think so, I'm just fed up with all the logjammers and the braindead clogging up the path to a livable future. So you're either on board, or you're in the way of the sustainability train. Get on, or STFU and get out of the way. If you don't get it, you're going the way of the dodo bird and the rest of brain-dead middle management waiting for their next paycheck while the family home is on fire. Just don't sink the whole ship on your way to oblivion.
Sorry, Joel. I have to agree
Sorry, Joel. I have to agree with Jen. If we can only discuss sustainability in business terms and only define the value of sustainability practices within the narrow confines of the business case then we will never get the traction we need to make the changes necessary for a sustainable future. Most C-Suite executives and senior managers have limited environmental knowledge and rarely understand the connections between social equity and economic viability for business. They are immersed in the economic "E" to the point that we have to try and translate all other benefits of reducing pollution and providing maturity leave to workers in the language of dollars just to get their attention. The workers don't go out into their communities where these same problems exist and discuss "energy spend" or "lean production". The companies need to speak the language of the citizens both inside and outside the corporate walls to achieve the kind of integration within the corporate culture that has been imagined since environmental concerns of the 1970's were relegated to the EMS departments.
I certainly did enjoy the
I certainly did enjoy the article and using phrases/words like "lean production" instead of "zero waste" is definitely helpful when dealing with conventional businesses/industry... however, I still feel it is another unfortunate weight added to the load of those who work tirelessly to promote truly good business.
With the unfortunate amount of greenwashing loaded on top of, in some cases, grossly uneducated leadership (in areas of business and government), sustainability leaders are having to play a variety of full-time roles within a single workweek.
In working with a variety of schools, businesses, community organizations, I've had to choose words carefully on a fairly regular basis, to get my clients to the point where they understand the importance and benefits of the products/services/practices available to them.
Yes Yes Yes. Terrific
Yes Yes Yes. Terrific article. Thank you!
Sustainability Coordinator @ a Fortune 100 company.
This is kind of a bummer for
This is kind of a bummer for our movement. Can you imagine if the headline for a recommendation about being a CFO was "Stop talking so much about your company's financial performance" ?
If it's really news that sustainability executives need to talk about sustainability programs in terms of the bottom line benefits to the company (the same way any marketing, facilities, or operations leader would need to sell a new product internally), we have a lot of work to do.
Thanks for the report summary, Joel!
Jen, I am sorry but I can
Jen, I am sorry but I can not disagree more. I am speaking as someone who has been involved and pushing for sustainability for over 10 years. This blog addresses some core issues that might be unpleasant to talk about but need to be discussed. In my experience those of us that do make the business case for green are often treated as villains by the non-business people. No matter what someone has accomplished in green if you have a business background you are often viewed as the enemy. I have a 4 year degree in Green business and I have found in the last 3 or 4 years that people like me are not welcome to the table at all by the policy/ compliance folks. Where are the results from the end-of-pipe compliance people? How is this system that now largely depends on government funding etc... any different from the errors made in the 70's by Jimmy Carter? That's not to say there is no improvement but the regulation people can only achieve so much.
I championed and then wrote a recommendation against a school district buying EV buses. Why you may ask? We saw the value, we saw going green, we understood the technology, we had the funds. The company that allegedly makes these buses would not return phone calls, emails and when we did get to talk they had no idea what basic measurements were and the need for us to have info to back up the numbers before spending millions of dollars with them. I do not believe this company has the ability to deliver that is why I wrote a negative recommendation. This was based on incompetent management of the company not because I am not green.
I defy to find a job position for a "sustainability" job that is not just a compliance officer position with a new label. By definition end-of-pipe thinking is not sustainable. If we want change we have to engage people not continue with the smug view of telling people what to do approach.
I disagree, Jen. I think this
I disagree, Jen. I think this is a positive development. For too long, sustainability folks have been out in left field, marginalized, not seen as core to business. Now, they're being asked (forced) to speak the language of business like everyone else. Your example of CFOs may not be the best analogy, since money is the lingua franca of business, but CIOs, CMOs, COOs, and heads of human resources, facilities, and other departments all must justify what they do this way. So, why not sustainability?
You already probably know that as a consumer marketing proposition, "green" and "sustainability" have had very limited success, outside of a tiny sliver of the marketplace that cares about this stuff. As pretty much all of the leading thinkers on green marketing have concluded, it needs to be "green plus" -- green plus convenience, green plus healthy, green plus high performance, etc.
So, too, on the business side. It has to be "sustainability plus" -- cutting costs, reducing risks, fomenting innovation, attracting talent, etc. That's what this study is really all about. If sustainability folks only talk the green talk inside their companies, their success will be limited to the tiny sliver of the company that cares about this stuff. Sustainability needs to be seen as core to business, on an equal playing field with all of the other functions.
Joel, great article! Having
Joel, great article! Having experienced this first hand, I am now in the process of translating this message for my organization. While many of us are passionate about this topic, we need to realize many are not yet convinced...and simply repeating what we know over and over again is simply going to drive those people away...perhaps never to return.
Very interesting blog and
Very interesting blog and report conclusions. This is exactly the basis for a new training course we at Vivian Partnership developed called Centre Stage to provide leadership and communication skills for ambitious sustainability leaders. Sadly here in UK there has been little receptivity to it and we have had to postpone the course. This report may spur us on and the climate may be more positive as the economy improves (or not)?