Strategy is Only a Start

Strategy is Only a Start – Making It Happen is What Counts

There's a lot of strategic thinking going on in the corporate sustainability world. However, there is little to no traction for this strategy at the local facilities. This is a huge problem since the so-called license to operate is won or lost at the local level. To a local facility in a location far from the corporate office, strategy is viewed as an unfunded mandate. If local businesses are independent of a corporate office, there is precious little time for strategy.

The current world financial situation has put the brakes on sustainability strategy in many companies. It is time to get back to the basics of cutting costs and making operations more effective and efficient. It is this current focus on the "leaning" of business that has been successful for many operational people for over a decade.

There are five basics for the journey to sustainability at the local level:
1.      Business continuity and risk management
2.      Responsibility
3.      Conformance and Compliance
4.      Performance
5.      Continual Improvement

These basics are rarely noted in the sustainability strategy.

Business Continuity. This represents the long term thinking. Business plan for all sorts of calamities: tornados, hurricanes, fires, floods, power outages and strikes. These events pose operational risks to the business. Management, workers and all stakeholders have little appetite for risk. Sustainability strategists spend all of their time on producing results at the top line and the bottom line to promote change. One bad risk can eliminate their gains in a fateful second. More attention needs to be given to the management of operational, regulatory and reputational risk. There are risk management system standards that can be used for this purpose. Attention to risk management will help assure business continuity even with fluctuations in the economy, changing social norms, new regulation and intense weather events.

Responsibility. Operations clearly understand the concept of responsibility.  In sustainability there is a responsibility to the environment, to people in the company and the community, and the responsibility to contribute to the economic vitality of the community. It is impossible to separate these responsibilities because they are interconnected in so many ways. The "triple bottom line" was originally meant as an euphuism. Environmental sustainability is really environmental stewardship. It clearly represents only one of the three responsibilities.

Compliance and Conformance. Sustainable businesses strive to be in compliance with environmental, social and economic regulations. 

Environment, health and safety managers do not have a monopoly on the compliance side. The facility usually conforms to assurance systems that are imbedded in a business management system. Any good business management system will drive these considerations into the core business making them part of what every employee does every day.

Performance. There are a large number of business excellence frameworks used around the world that drive performance. Companies that use these frameworks have been shown to financially outperform those that don't by a factor of two to one. These frameworks use leading indicators and a scoring mechanism to drive performance. They work well with conformance programs.

Continual Improvement. Both conformance and performance programs demand continual improvement. Process improvement is used to meet the demand. A company cannot continue its journey to sustainability without demonstrating continual improvement.

This blog will focus on the many operational factors that create a green business and drive what many call sustainability. Additional basics may emerge as each of these areas are explored and discussed.

Robert B. Pojasek, Ph.D., is the Practice Leader for Business Sustainability at First Environment Inc. and an internationally recognized authority on the topic of business sustainability and process improvement.