How to make greater progress on sustainability
diagnose the blockers . identify priorities . make a plan
You’ve worked hard to embed sustainability in your organisation but sometimes colleagues seem uninterested and reluctant to engage.
But why is it so difficult when:
- 84% of the UK population are concerned about climate change (IPSOS, 2022),
- 88% would like to make more sustainable choices in their lives (Behavioural Insights Team, 2023)
- and business sustainability drivers become more obvious to us every day?
The key to greater progress on sustainability is developing an organisational culture where people are both willing and able to act on sustainability.
Understanding motivation
The way forward is to understand what drives motivation and how your organisation’s culture can enable action on sustainability.
People are motivated to act for sustainability when they: feel free to act in ways that are meaningful to them (Autonomy); have the skills and confidence to effect positive change (Competence); and feel connected to each other and to the issues they care about (Connection).
Organisations with a mature sustainability culture encourage and enable motivation with:
- clear sustainability goals and processes that support autonomy and initiative;
- opportunities for people to gain and apply skills, and build their competence and confidence;
- and a trusting, supportive work culture and a collective connection to purpose and impact.
What is a sustainability culture?
It’s simply “the way we do things round here” with respect to sustainability – the shared values, beliefs, norms and practices that shape the behaviour and attitudes of people in the organisation.
Sustainability culture includes official policies and procedures, as well as unwritten rules and social dynamics that influence how employees interact, make decisions, and perceive their roles.
It influences everything from communication styles, leadership approaches and work environment, to the overall mission and vision of the organisation. As a result it’s one of the most powerful influences on both sustainability goals and performance.
Having a sustainability culture isn’t all or nothing – it’s a continuum from low to high maturity. To make progress you need to know where your organisation currently is and then focus your efforts where they’ll have most impact moving your organisation up the continuum.
Here are some of the key features of organisations at different stages of their sustainability journey:
LOW
Sustainability Cultural Maturity
Any sustainability leadership is from self-motivated individuals going beyond their job description.
Limited engagement from staff and leadership. Sustainability seen as irrelevant to core business.
Priority for motivated individuals is getting sustainability onto the agenda and added to their job description.
MEDIUM
Sustainability Cultural Maturity
Sustainability leadership sits in specific roles; influence and remit often limited.
Engagement from staff and leadership, often outside ‘day job’. May be seen as hampering core business.
Sustainability leader’s challenge is to deliver results within current model, and to embed sustainability in business & team goals, etc.
HIGH
Sustainability Cultural Maturity
All leaders are sustainability leaders. Sustainability included in most roles at most levels.
Personal motivation aligns with sustainability goals. Sustainability embedded in goals, job descriptions, KPIs, etc.
Sustainability leader’s priority is to transform organisational goals and business model to become regenerative and distributive.
We’ve developed our expertise in sustainability leadership working with organisations including:
The Most Sustainable Workplace Index
To develop a more mature sustainability culture in your organisation you need to understand where it is now.
The Most Sustainable Workplace Index™ diagnoses the specific aspects of motivation and culture in your organisation that are affecting action on sustainability and identifies what you can do to address them. With the Index you get the full picture, not just for the organisation as a whole, but broken down by offices, business units and seniority level.
The Most Sustainable Workplace Index™ is a robust, human-centric measure of motivation and culture around Sustainability, Environment, Social Governance (ESG) and Net Zero in the workplace. It’s the leading index in this field, and builds on four decades of psychological research in motivation theory and the role of culture to help businesses meet the biggest challenge facing humanity.
Insight
MSWI measures motivation and culture around sustainability within your workplace. Identify trends across offices, business units and seniority level. Understand how to build engagement and action on sustainability.
Action
A 90-minute workshop to explore the results of your assessment; what it means for your organisation and help you create an initial action plan. Reassess as you continue on your journey to see the impact of your actions.
Ranking
Attain the ‘Most Sustainable Workplace Index’ accreditation to evidence effective engagement and continuous improvement
on sustainability. Feature in the MSWI Insight Report, launching in 2024.
With this analysis of your workplace and the output of the workshop, you can develop your implementation plan to address the gaps and opportunities identified by the Index. (MSWI starts from £2,450 for an organisation with up to 100 staff. Discounts for charities, CICs and public sector.)
If you need extra resource and specialist support to develop and implement a plan, we can help with advice, mentoring and workshops.
We can also guide you and your team through an action learning programme that not only shifts your organisation’s sustainability culture, but also develops key skills for sustainability leadership.
The next step…
To find out more about the Most Sustainable Workplace Index and how you can shift the sustainability culture in your organisation, let’s arrange a call.
Osbert Lancaster
Director & Co-Founder
At last I seem to be getting some real traction and influence in this and the programme has helped me identify the parts of our organisational system where I could have the most effective influence.
Chris Smith
Subject Lead – Arts
University of Plymouth
Knowing more about how to make change has given me a feeling of empowerment. I’ve been really pleased to see how the approach has worked and is valued.
Sarah Lee
Senior Associate Architect
Stride Treglown
The systems approach was a bit of a lightbulb moment in recognising that we need both direct action on those things we could easily influence as well as pushing for more strategic change.
Oli Mackie
Strategic Service Manager
NSPCC