The joys of cycling

This year, Ride to Work Day was October 12. As a passionate cyclist, ride to work day gets me excited. For experienced commuters, it’s a great day to celebrate your efforts. For new commuters, it’s a good day to give things a test run and talk with others about getting started. In October, the days are getting longer, the sun is out and for me, there is nothing better than fitting in exercise around my daily commute. My workplace held a breakfast for those people participating in the event. It was a great social occasion and wonderful to see a range of people and a range of bikes!

Encouraging and supporting healthy behaviours, such as riding to work, is a great example of social corporate sustainability. It reduces scope 3 emissions and supports staff health and wellbeing. A local business that has incorporated riding to work into their DNA is Mountain Goat. They are a small brewery in Richmond, Melbourne. Staff receive a bonus annually for every day they ride, walk or commute to work via public transport. Good on ya Mountain Goat!

(Image Credit:Ride2work)

A Pioneer Passes

Ray Anderson, age 77, passed away 8 August, 2011. He was a pioneer in developing his company, Interface, into a sustainable enterprise.

He leaves a lasting legacy, and has inspired many people to follow his lead. His 2009 Ted Talks is worth watching, and his books frame corporate sustainability as a logical, moral and profitable business model.

6 Strategic Factors

During my research in corporate sustainability, I have identified six strategic factors critical to successfully integrating sustainability throughout an organisation. The degree to which these factors are adopted, indicates the level of engagement from organisations. These are the most common factors that continue to crop up in academic literature and important areas to address when embedding a new strategy within an organisation.
1. Mission
An internal and/or external mission statement frames an organisation’s definition of corporate sustainability. One of my first blogs discussed the importance of individual companies defining the context of sustainability relevant to their organisation and its unique operations and impacts. A tailored mission or vision statement defines the company’s goal and how sustainability is relevant to that goal.
2. Leadership
There are two elements to sustainability leadership; organisation structure and communication. Firstly, an executive level role, responsible for the company’s sustainability objectives clearly identifies sustainability as important to the organisation to implement, monitor and manage. Secondly, the entire leadership team should be effectively communicating the sustainability strategy, mission and values of the organisation to staff and external stakeholders.
3. Culture
Addressing corporate culture; those commonly held workplace behaviours, values and attitudes, are an important part of embedding a shared vision of sustainability. Culture is the yardstick for measuring how successfully a sustainability strategy has been integrated throughout the organisation.
4. Reporting
Publically reporting on sustainability metrics, for example, using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is an important practice. It is a powerful communication tool for organisations, and serves to enhance credibility and reputation in the marketplace.
5. Policy
Internal policies and systems are important for addressing organisational operations, activities and processes. They are the terms of reference for “the way we do things around here”. Examples are; a sustainable procurement strategy, health and safety system, energy, carbon and waste policy or ethical business policy.
6. Engagement
Identifying stakeholders as broader than those with a financial investment in your organisation is a first step. The next step is to proactively engage with your stakeholders. This signifies a shift from managing the organisation’s financial investment to managing the impact of operations with society or specific groups that may be affected e.g. consumers, community, NGO’s and government.

Bin Behaviours

I travelled to North America earlier this year, and amongst the tourist photos of Niagara Falls and the Golden Gate Bridge, are photographs of public rubbish receptacles. I was fascinated by the various levels of recycling available to innocent members of the public. For example; Yosemite was advanced and educational, Toronto was efficient and included paper! Some other places had yet to discover the joys of recycling. San Francisco surprised with dual receptacles in the hotel room and corn starch bottled shampoo. Leaving the hybrid taxis behind to head east, one discovered elements of ‘the throwaway society’ that America is renowned for, further away from the main cities.

At home we have three bins, cleared by the local council. Landfill, garden waste and recycling (paper, cardboard & plastics). Add to that one more, organics, composted by yours truly in the garden.

So, why am I writing about waste and recycling? Well moving from the social to the business perspective, at work we have one bin, and trying to introduce the three that people experience at home can be challenging. Why is it – remarked one of my work colleagues – that we leave our recycling behaviours at home when we come to work? A darn good question! One I don’t have an answer to, yet, but I think is connected to my travelling experience. Different values in different places. Barriers such as perceived and actual costs, and logistics issues - who is collecting or emptying your bins can be a real issue.

I read an article recently about a multinational that had seven, yes seven, recycling options. The culture there had advanced to such an extent, that no one wanted to be the person placing something in the landfill bin! So my workplace culture, like many out there, has some way to go yet, but one has to start somewhere. The important thing is that we have started. I think a key benefit from establishing recycling ‘bin behaviour’ in the workplace is how the culture of ‘waste not’ moves from the local bin to core business practice. If we had a seven bin culture in the workplace, just think how that would extend into our work practices and what value to the bottom line that might add. How are those perceived or even real costs looking to you now?

While writing this, I am waiting for my flight in Avalon Airport (a small regional airport 55km from Melbourne). I was approached by a young woman wanting to survey me on my travel habits and question me on improvements for the airport. As I gazed at the plentiful, oversize waste bins, I suggested that Avalon would be much improved with some recycling bins.........

Australia prepares to make haste on waste

Hallelujah! Australia got smart about waste and passed the Product Stewardship Bill on 22 June 2011. This really is landmark legislation for Australia and establishes a framework for voluntary, co-regulatory (delivered by industry and regulated by the Australian Government) and mandatory schemes. TV’s and computers will be the first products to be regulated under the Act.

There are a number of E-waste schemes in place around the world. The EU has had the WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) in place since 2003, and recently revised their recycling rules for member states to reach 45% of the average weight of equipment on their national markets, eventually moving to 65%. California has an Electronic Waste Recycling Act and Japan has the Home Appliance Recycling Law in Japan.

Waste is a growing problem and landfill prices are on the increase. With such an amazing and growing variety of electronic devices available these days, it’s no wonder that e-waste is in the crosshairs. One statistic I found stated “In 2007/2008 Australians discarded 16.8 million electronic devices, 9 per cent of which was recycled and 88 per cent sent to landfill.” Current estimates for waste are over 2000kg of waste for each Australian, each year. Yikes!

Electronic waste is hazardous in landfill. Contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, mercury and brominated flame retardants are hazardous to human health not to mention their persistence in the environment should they leach from a landfill.

So, this Bill is a fabulous first step in implementing Australia’s National Waste Policy.
From a corporate responsibility perspective, leaders in product manufacture will likely be listening to the winds of change, as bills such as this one are entered into law around the world. New corporate boundaries are being shaped under product stewardship schemes, extending responsibility to product disposal and end of life. Hopefully the trend will shift from recycling to designing out hazardous materials, or designing for ease of recapture.

Now the Bill is in place, E-waste will be the first test and other products will be sure to follow.

What is Corporate Sustainability?

These days, corporate sustainability is a bit of a business buzz word. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d heard it used in many contexts. Sustainability is also an overly used, abused and misused word. Many times I have heard it used in the corporate workplace, e.g. we are a sustainable organisation etc, where it has simply been substituted for “financial viability”, which in my view, is plain wrong.

The term sustainability’s overuse and multiple definitions make understanding exactly what corporate sustainability is, somewhat confusing. Variations and alternatives include green business, corporate social responsibility (sometimes shortened to CSR), corporate responsibility, carbon strategy, corporate citizenship and triple bottom line accountability. It’s no wonder the definition can be difficult to grapple with, there are multiple names for seemingly the same thing!

An early and often referenced definition of sustainability was provided by the 1987 Brundtland Report, ‘Our Common Future’, published by the world commission on environment and development (WCED); sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

John Elkington coined the term ‘triple bottom line’ and following that, a useful term to make the concept simpler to grasp and remember, the 3P’s - People, Profit & Planet.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes definition is - “Corporate Sustainability is a business approach that creates long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from economic, environmental and social developments.”

In short there are many definitions out there. In essence, corporate sustainability needs to reference relevant social and environmental issues, in addition to the traditional business driver of generating a return for investors. I like the Dow Jones definition that references the opportunities associated with incorporating sustainability into a business, in addition to managing risks.

In my experience, the best definition I have found is that, it depends. With the earlier definitions in mind and reference to the 3P’s, it is important that individual companies define the context of sustainability relevant to their organisation and its unique operations and impacts. Without a definition or statement of mission or values, the word ‘sustainability’ will continue to be misused and this in turn breeds skepticism.

So what do you think? Does your organisation define corporate sustainability?