A journey of change, employee commitment and engagement to become a sustainable organisation

Driven by both internal and external pressure, almost half of the companies surveyed are actively working on sustainability topics. However, the way in which they define, prioritise and organise can be quite different: accountability and responsibility is not always as clear. Companies at the beginning of their sustainability journey “exploring sustainability”, tend to focus on certain topics from a compliance angle and often centralise their sustainability responsibilities and processes within existing functions and departments. When evolving from being compliant to making sustainability an integral part of the business and people strategy, organisations tend to shift from small teams with full accountability and responsibility on sustainability to decentralised orchestration across the organisation where every individual has their own role to play. To get there, change management and communication are critical success factors, which unfortunately are often not sufficiently focussed on. A sustainability transformation should be regarded as a continuous change journey and thus requires a well-articulated narrative, persistent communication, competencies and skills building of the workforce, and ultimately a culture shift, in order for each individual to take ownership.

The more sustainability is embedded into the organisation, and thus every employee understands and takes their own sustainability responsibilities, the more companies can truly move the needle.

Find out more in this article on which key questions to ask, and how to evolve from doing sustainability to being a truly sustainable company.