Challenges to overcome
Developing an organisation's sustainable development vision.
For each of the identified material sustainable development issues in your organisation e.g. energy consumption, water management or community relations, the following should be clarified:
- Current reality – what is the situation around this issue in my organisation/industry/sector?
- Investigate best practices amongst peers and within your industry/sector – who is leading the field in this issue? What actions have they taken?
- Research upcoming trends likely to affect this area – what are the emerging future trends?
This exercise can be carried out by individual organisations, a group of similar organisations or by using available, industry wide information. The expected outcome from doing this will be a picture/description of the “ideal” or most sustainable scenario for each material issue.
Aligning sustainability conflict with the core purpose and responsibilities of the organisation - including being more efficient and profitable
All organisations exist for a primary purpose - to make products, to deliver services or, to set public policy. It is essential to understand the core mission and values of the organisation when embarking on a sustainability strategy process. Unless core delivery parts of organisations, including senior managers, are integrated in to the sustainability strategy process, the strategic management of sustainable development will never be integral to the mainstream functioning of the organisation.
In the private sector the core responsibility of organisations is to maximise profit or shareholder value. Developing and implementing a sustainability strategy does not have to negatively impact upon this, indeed successfully embedding sustainability into a company can be highly beneficial. Growing customer concern with sustainability issues means that seriously addressing sustainability issues may result in enhanced company and brand value, and may be seen by consumers as a positive differentiator in a competitive market.
The financial management module considers these issues in more detail.
Getting the right skills
The Skills module provides details on the skills that support the successful embedding of sustainable development.
Are there key challenges in this area we haven’t discussed? If so, please tell us about them.
Do you have another example of how these challenges can be overcome? If so, please submit a case study.