Develop strategy
How might a sustainability strategy be developed?
Developing a sustainability strategy helps to address the issues and build on the drivers to embed sustainable development in an organisation. Strategy development has a number of key areas. For example,
- Establishing a central vision and a core set of values or principles
- Establishing governance structure and some form of risk assessment and prioritisation process
- Identifying priorities, setting objectives and establishing the means to deliver them
- Internal and external stakeholder engagement
- Accurate documentation of decisions and regular review of strategy
- Progress on moving towards targets being regularly monitored, evaluated and reported.
In functional terms the strategic process needs to incorporate the following.
- Leadership – developing and encouraging organisational ownership of the vision
- Action planning – identifying the objectives and how to achieve them
- Implementation – setting clear objectives with corresponding milestones and deadlines
- Monitoring, learning and adapting
- Coordination with other strategy processes and multi-stakeholder participation.
The UK Government sustainable development website provides advice and support for regional bodies, local government and communities e.g. on what to consider when developing and reviewing strategies -'Essential ingredients on sustainable development for regional high-level strategy / strategies'.
The Sustainable Development Commission also provides extensive guidance on strategy development on its website. Although not specifically set up for sustainability strategy, a useful resource in considering strategy development is the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Strategy Survival Guide. This contains in it specific guidance 'The Future and How To Think About It' for considering issues and drivers using a ‘PESTEL style’ method.
A further resource is the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The IISD makes the important recommendation that good strategy should also incorporate the intergenerational principle of sustainable development. This means that the vision, objectives and targets in the strategy should be set with at least a 20 year perspective.