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How to Recognize Your Green BusinessDeficits and Solve Them
Sustainability is here to stay as a central business issue, yet many corporations do nothave the right resources or organization to comply with the new demands efficiently or,more importantly, to turn them to business advantage. I have found that companies notready for this challenge typically show one or more of these five traits:
Responsibility for sustainability issues is fragmented.
Many organizations scatter responsibility for sustainability so thoroughly
—
in operations, legal, compliance,government affairs, corporate communications
—
that it only comes together atthe CEO level (or, worse, in an ad hoc group set up by the CEO).
No one at the top understands the potential for competitive advantage insustainability.
The company's leaders view sustainability as a set oftechnicalcompliance issues(for energy systems or smokestack scrubbers, for example) anddelegate them to lower levels to execute.
There is no sustainability tab in the business plan binder.
There are no explicitprocesses making sustainability a business issue, leaving no one responsible for pursuing such a strategy. Sustainability, if it makes the business plan at all, is anadd-on issue.
There is a lack of green metrics to measure progress on building a sustainablebusiness.
The company doesn't have the means to measure sustainability anddoesn't build green metrics into its business plan.
Relationships with key NGOs are episodic (at best) and self-referential.
Nonprofitgroups such asWWF Internationaland theSierra Clubare important, long-term
voices in the ongoing green business discussion. Many corporations lack any kindof ongoing, substantive relationship with these nonprofit groups who can lendcredibility to
—
or create problems for
—
a corporation's green business efforts.Episodic interactions aren't enough, nor are interactions based solely on whatyour company would
like
to see happen.Chances are if you nodded in recognition at one or more of these points, your business isnot engaged in a serious sustainability effort. In such organizations, sustainability issuesmay arise unexpectedly, causing decision-makers to scramble in response. Sustainabilityshould not be a crisis to manage. Here are four ways to address such deficits:
1. Elevate sustainability to a C-Suite post responsible for coordinating both capability andaccountability.
Laudably, many firms have created a chief sustainability officer. But theyneed to upgrade the role, and think carefully about who fills it. Sustainability is a businessissue, not a compliance issue, so it is better to appoint an operations expert than toelevate an environmental health and safety compliance manager to the role. (Think ofthe difference between second generation CIOs, who are business people with above-average knowledge of IT, and first generation CIOs, who were MIS managers.) This leader must assemble a team with expertise in legal, public relations, government affairs,
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