Governance & Sustainability - Quality Approach
Qualityworld
A footprint for the future
Sustainability was defined in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development as: 'Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.' Hopefully, no business would disagree with this, but how does such a lofty ideal actually get translated into working practice? James Smith offers some advice.
It is absolutely clear that many organisations are not sustainable. Even though large organisations like Shell have made significant progress, they would be hard pressed to claim to be completely sustainable. This raises the question: how can organisations address sustainability? Approaches to sustainability are currently in their infancy, and this is further compounded by the fact that it is not presently clear what a sustainable organisation might look like.
It is widely accepted that most organisations are approaching, or are already on, a journey towards sustainability called sustainable development. That journey represents a process of change and adaptation.
This article proposes an approach to sustainability that is focused on promoting change. The process based approach to sustainability will assist organisations in this journey towards greater sustainability and is based on the management system principles familiar to many organisations.
An original process-based approach
If a process approach were to be adopted for sustainability, what would be the key components in a sustainability management system? There are a number of key building blocks that organisations seeking to become more sustainable should consider adopting. These are:
identification of sustainability issues within the organisation
sustainability performance measurement and trends
stakeholder engagement, linkages and systems thinking
values and community issues o change management processes towards sustainability
vision and the future
governance and sustainability audits
The existence of these sustainability building blocks will give a good indication of how the organisation is integrating such thinking into its activities.
The 7s approach
The seven sustainability (7s) building blocks are interlinked and can be used in parallel. They do not have to be followed in a sequential manner. They are also intended to be used in an iterative fashion and in a way that will lead towards continual improvement.
Identification of sustainability issues
The first step for any organisation on the journey towards sustainability is to identify what sustainability issues are present within the organisation. This will span all three sustainability pillars of community, economy and environment. The issues can be identified using a variety of approaches and could include checklists, procedures and stakeholder consultations. These issues can also be identified over different time horizons and it is quite likely that they will be different over time. This is because of the way in which the external world of the organisation changes over time.
Sustainability performance: measurement and trends
Once the sustainability issues have been identified within an organisation they can be ranked for their overall significance. This is the same sort of approach as that outlined in ISO 14001 for the assessment of the significance of aspects and impacts. It will result in the identification of, say, the top five sustainability issues in the organisation.
Once the sustainability issues have been identified in the organisation, appropriate performance indicators can be established to measure changes in sustainability performance. There are numerous sustainability performance indicators that are currently available. These range from the UK's headline indicators through to those set out in ISO 14031. They cover areas like the quantity of emissions and biodiversity.
The world outside the organisation is not a steady state, and indeed the rate of change of today's world is quite phenomenal. Any organisation will therefore need to have a good appreciation of world trends concerning sustainability, and how these might affect the organisation. There are many publications on world trends including 'Global environmental outlook' published by the United Nations Environment Programme, that sets out an array of staggering and rather depressing trends.
Sustainability goals
Once an organisation has identified its sustainability issues and selected some performance indicators, attention can be directed towards setting goals for sustainability. This will need to take into account stakeholder views and linkages with the wider world. This step is also concerned with planning for future sustainability. Here the organisation needs to understand what it does to the wider world and how that world also shapes the organisation. Organisations can assess their impact on the wider world by using techniques like ecological foot printing. This describes the impact or 'foot print' of the organisation in terms of the resources that it uses.
Delivery of the goals will be achieved by the processes established within the sustainability management system. This is considered within the section on change management processes. The goals set by the organisations will need to be consistent with the vision for sustainability that the organisation has developed.
Values and community issues
Values are crucial in determining the behaviour of both organisations and individuals. To be of any consequence, values have to be real and not just words on paper. Human values for the planet have, over time, weakened and what we now see is a weaker and impoverished world. This can be clearly witnessed in the way many natural resources, such as oil, have been over-exploited.
An organisation that has embedded real sustainability values will find that it has the motivation to take it a long way on the sustainability journey. Organisations with weak values systems will find that they are simply paying lip-service to the concept and in reality will be able to achieve little. For example, an organisation that is solely profit-driven and has little or no consideration of the wider society, is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term.
How the organisation relates to the wider community is also of great significance. Organisations do not operate in isolation from the wider world. They are part of it and have responsibilities within it. The emergence of CSR is a clear reflection of this fact. Such a concept is not entirely new, as can be seen from the work of the early industrial philanthropists such as John Adams.
Change management processes
The journey towards sustainability means change and the previous steps provide the basis for identifying what change is needed. For sustainability the change management process has the potential to be somewhat demanding. Not only will processes need to change within the organisation, but individuals may also need to consider change.
Vision and the future
Vision is a great driver and it provides leadership for an organisation that will carry it forward to a new place over time. The vision may be set out within a policy document. To be successful the vision process must be able to anticipate what the organisation will look like in, say, five years time in a way that enables it to be successful in the context of the world at that time.
Governance and sustainability audit
Governance involves the setting of methods and procedures that determine what an organisation does in terms of sustainability. Within local authorities the governance process may take the form of an oversight and scrutiny committee.
The presence of a sustainability audit process within an organisation is a crucial indicator of its commitment to sustainability, and represents part of the governance process. Governance requirements also encompass legislation. There is an ever-growing body of legislation that places requirements upon organisations. With respect to sustainability, this presently includes the producer responsibility legislation. This places a duty upon the producer to deal with the environmental issues associated with their products. Legislation is being introduced for end-of-life vehicles and waste electrical and electronic equipment. The packaging regulations have been in place for some time. Within particular market sectors trade organisations may also establish sustainability strategies. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Ltd has been successful in achieving this for the automotive sector.
Other approaches
If we are looking for other approaches to sustainability processes there are some useful lessons that may be drawn from other areas. There are a variety of approaches that have been developed for sustainability by organisations including the Natural Step (which is promoted by Forum for the Future in the UK) and Project Sigma. Neither of these approaches on their own, however, covers the breadth of the building blocks and sustainability process outlined here. They also have different focuses: the Natural Step is interested in system conditions, and Project Sigma in an overall framework.
ISO 14001 and sustainability
ISO 14000 provides the means to address a variety of environmental issues. These can contribute to sustainability by assisting organisations in reducing their eco footprint although the standard was not originally intended to cover the broader sustainability issues.
ISO 14001 sets out a process-based approach to environmental management. It gives the means to manage a wide range of environmental issues and it can be adapted to include sustainability issues. It does not prescribe performance criteria and it also requires internal audits. In addition, much work has been done on performance indicators and headline indicators. ISO 14031 - on environmental performance evaluation - sets out a range of performance indicators that organisations can use.
Benefits of the 7s approach
Sustainability management systems offer some clear benefits to organisations. First, it enables organisations to identify opportunities for improvement in their sustainability process. Second, the process will enable organisations to identify areas where they are weak, and in certain instances where risk is present. The process will also identify where resource -use can be reduced and this will subsequently result in cost savings. Finally, the audit and review process can be used to inform organisational development programmes, and provide a sound basis for measuring performance
Biography
James Smith has 15 years' experience of environmental auditing. He is an IEMA principal environmental auditor, ISO 14001 lead assessor and member of IEMA. Before joining the environmental profession he worked in the petrochemical sector as a chartered engineer. He provides ISO 14001 consultancy, audit and training services to a wide range of organisations, including advice on legal compliance evaluation. He can be contacted on e: james@sustainabilityconsultants.com, or go to www.sustainabilityconsultants.com
A footprint for the future
Sustainability was defined in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development as: 'Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.' Hopefully, no business would disagree with this, but how does such a lofty ideal actually get translated into working practice? James Smith offers some advice.
It is absolutely clear that many organisations are not sustainable. Even though large organisations like Shell have made significant progress, they would be hard pressed to claim to be completely sustainable. This raises the question: how can organisations address sustainability? Approaches to sustainability are currently in their infancy, and this is further compounded by the fact that it is not presently clear what a sustainable organisation might look like.
It is widely accepted that most organisations are approaching, or are already on, a journey towards sustainability called sustainable development. That journey represents a process of change and adaptation.
This article proposes an approach to sustainability that is focused on promoting change. The process based approach to sustainability will assist organisations in this journey towards greater sustainability and is based on the management system principles familiar to many organisations.
An original process-based approach
If a process approach were to be adopted for sustainability, what would be the key components in a sustainability management system? There are a number of key building blocks that organisations seeking to become more sustainable should consider adopting. These are:
identification of sustainability issues within the organisation
sustainability performance measurement and trends
stakeholder engagement, linkages and systems thinking
values and community issues o change management processes towards sustainability
vision and the future
governance and sustainability audits
The existence of these sustainability building blocks will give a good indication of how the organisation is integrating such thinking into its activities.
The 7s approach
The seven sustainability (7s) building blocks are interlinked and can be used in parallel. They do not have to be followed in a sequential manner. They are also intended to be used in an iterative fashion and in a way that will lead towards continual improvement.
Identification of sustainability issues
The first step for any organisation on the journey towards sustainability is to identify what sustainability issues are present within the organisation. This will span all three sustainability pillars of community, economy and environment. The issues can be identified using a variety of approaches and could include checklists, procedures and stakeholder consultations. These issues can also be identified over different time horizons and it is quite likely that they will be different over time. This is because of the way in which the external world of the organisation changes over time.
Sustainability performance: measurement and trends
Once the sustainability issues have been identified within an organisation they can be ranked for their overall significance. This is the same sort of approach as that outlined in ISO 14001 for the assessment of the significance of aspects and impacts. It will result in the identification of, say, the top five sustainability issues in the organisation.
Once the sustainability issues have been identified in the organisation, appropriate performance indicators can be established to measure changes in sustainability performance. There are numerous sustainability performance indicators that are currently available. These range from the UK's headline indicators through to those set out in ISO 14031. They cover areas like the quantity of emissions and biodiversity.
The world outside the organisation is not a steady state, and indeed the rate of change of today's world is quite phenomenal. Any organisation will therefore need to have a good appreciation of world trends concerning sustainability, and how these might affect the organisation. There are many publications on world trends including 'Global environmental outlook' published by the United Nations Environment Programme, that sets out an array of staggering and rather depressing trends.
Sustainability goals
Once an organisation has identified its sustainability issues and selected some performance indicators, attention can be directed towards setting goals for sustainability. This will need to take into account stakeholder views and linkages with the wider world. This step is also concerned with planning for future sustainability. Here the organisation needs to understand what it does to the wider world and how that world also shapes the organisation. Organisations can assess their impact on the wider world by using techniques like ecological foot printing. This describes the impact or 'foot print' of the organisation in terms of the resources that it uses.
Delivery of the goals will be achieved by the processes established within the sustainability management system. This is considered within the section on change management processes. The goals set by the organisations will need to be consistent with the vision for sustainability that the organisation has developed.
Values and community issues
Values are crucial in determining the behaviour of both organisations and individuals. To be of any consequence, values have to be real and not just words on paper. Human values for the planet have, over time, weakened and what we now see is a weaker and impoverished world. This can be clearly witnessed in the way many natural resources, such as oil, have been over-exploited.
An organisation that has embedded real sustainability values will find that it has the motivation to take it a long way on the sustainability journey. Organisations with weak values systems will find that they are simply paying lip-service to the concept and in reality will be able to achieve little. For example, an organisation that is solely profit-driven and has little or no consideration of the wider society, is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term.
How the organisation relates to the wider community is also of great significance. Organisations do not operate in isolation from the wider world. They are part of it and have responsibilities within it. The emergence of CSR is a clear reflection of this fact. Such a concept is not entirely new, as can be seen from the work of the early industrial philanthropists such as John Adams.
Change management processes
The journey towards sustainability means change and the previous steps provide the basis for identifying what change is needed. For sustainability the change management process has the potential to be somewhat demanding. Not only will processes need to change within the organisation, but individuals may also need to consider change.
Vision and the future
Vision is a great driver and it provides leadership for an organisation that will carry it forward to a new place over time. The vision may be set out within a policy document. To be successful the vision process must be able to anticipate what the organisation will look like in, say, five years time in a way that enables it to be successful in the context of the world at that time.
Governance and sustainability audit
Governance involves the setting of methods and procedures that determine what an organisation does in terms of sustainability. Within local authorities the governance process may take the form of an oversight and scrutiny committee.
The presence of a sustainability audit process within an organisation is a crucial indicator of its commitment to sustainability, and represents part of the governance process. Governance requirements also encompass legislation. There is an ever-growing body of legislation that places requirements upon organisations. With respect to sustainability, this presently includes the producer responsibility legislation. This places a duty upon the producer to deal with the environmental issues associated with their products. Legislation is being introduced for end-of-life vehicles and waste electrical and electronic equipment. The packaging regulations have been in place for some time. Within particular market sectors trade organisations may also establish sustainability strategies. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Ltd has been successful in achieving this for the automotive sector.
Other approaches
If we are looking for other approaches to sustainability processes there are some useful lessons that may be drawn from other areas. There are a variety of approaches that have been developed for sustainability by organisations including the Natural Step (which is promoted by Forum for the Future in the UK) and Project Sigma. Neither of these approaches on their own, however, covers the breadth of the building blocks and sustainability process outlined here. They also have different focuses: the Natural Step is interested in system conditions, and Project Sigma in an overall framework.
ISO 14001 and sustainability
ISO 14000 provides the means to address a variety of environmental issues. These can contribute to sustainability by assisting organisations in reducing their eco footprint although the standard was not originally intended to cover the broader sustainability issues.
ISO 14001 sets out a process-based approach to environmental management. It gives the means to manage a wide range of environmental issues and it can be adapted to include sustainability issues. It does not prescribe performance criteria and it also requires internal audits. In addition, much work has been done on performance indicators and headline indicators. ISO 14031 - on environmental performance evaluation - sets out a range of performance indicators that organisations can use.
Benefits of the 7s approach
Sustainability management systems offer some clear benefits to organisations. First, it enables organisations to identify opportunities for improvement in their sustainability process. Second, the process will enable organisations to identify areas where they are weak, and in certain instances where risk is present. The process will also identify where resource -use can be reduced and this will subsequently result in cost savings. Finally, the audit and review process can be used to inform organisational development programmes, and provide a sound basis for measuring performance
Biography
James Smith has 15 years' experience of environmental auditing. He is an IEMA principal environmental auditor, ISO 14001 lead assessor and member of IEMA. Before joining the environmental profession he worked in the petrochemical sector as a chartered engineer. He provides ISO 14001 consultancy, audit and training services to a wide range of organisations, including advice on legal compliance evaluation. He can be contacted on e: james@sustainabilityconsultants.com, or go to www.sustainabilityconsultants.com
posted by T at 5:26 pm
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