Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Leading change for sustainability
As an ecological sensibility begins to pervade Western culture, government and
business leaders are increasingly looking to ways in which they can embed sustain-
ability into their business practices. Hitchcock and Willard (2006: 121) state that
'sustainability can be a powerful framework for harnessing employee commitment
and energy; and that senior management teams can apply five clear strategies:
•
assessing threats, opportunities and constraints
which can be incorporated through
processes of strategic planning, scenario planning, stakeholder management and
backcasting, perhaps using the Natural Step Framework;
•
choosing terms and communication frameworks
such as business-friendly 'zero
waste', high-performance building, triple bottom line, smart growth, corporate
responsibility and product stewardship;
•
devising an implementation strategy and enlisting support
, involving selecting
the best entry point for new sustainability practices (for example, capital invest-
ment, energy saving and green transport plans) and establishing the best
organizational structure to effect this;
•
aligning business systems
through strategic and operational planning, budgeting,
performance appraisals, orientation and training, and environmental management
systems;
•
providing for transparency and stakeholder engagement
through the publication
and public dissemination of corporate responsibility reports and partnership
working with green consultancies and possibly NGOs like the WWF, Friends of
the Earth or even Greenpeace.
In
Leading Change for Sustainability
, Bob Doppelt (2003) analyses the processes
whereby private and public sector organizations may successfully realize sustainability
goals. He offers a theoretical framework and a methodology that managers may use
to transform and orientate their organizations towards sustainable development.
According to Doppelt, discussions about new technologies and policy instruments
have dominated public dialogue on sustainability, with relatively little attention paid
to how organizations may change their internal thinking, values and assumptions,
and conduct. For Doppelt, organizational and cultural change is key to the effective
and successful operationalization of sustainable development. Avoiding 'sustainability
blunders' and achieving a more sustainable organization will require interventions
in the following.
•
Governance
- organizations that have made good progress towards sustain-
ability see their internal and external stakeholders as important parts of an
interdependent system. In leading sustainability organizations, a sensitive distri-
bution of information, power and wealth among employees and stakeholders
enables all to feel valued and meaningfully involved in the core vision and
purposes of the organization.
•
Leadership
- effective sustainability leaders keep their organization focused on
achieving this core vision while dealing with numerous, sometimes contradictory,
demands and pressures. Intelligent leaders inspire and mobilize employees and
stakeholders to embrace change as a significant learning opportunity. In exemplary
organizations, leadership may be found at all or most levels of the organization.
