Learn about implementing a sustainability program in your organization, starting with laying the foundation for future success.
Beginning Steps for Starting Sustainable Initiatives in Your Organization
Sustainability initiatives are currently driven by environmental concerns from skilled knowledge workers and business consumers.
According to Cone Communications’ corporate social responsibility study, 63% of Americans want corporations to drive social and environmental change in the absence of government action.
87% of American consumers will make a purchase because a company advocated for an issue they care about.
76% of Americans expect companies to take action against climate change.
73% of Americans would stop purchasing from a company that doesn’t care about climate change.
The Importance of Environmental Awareness When Running a Business
Initial foundational steps for establishing a sustainable business include:
- Writing a mission statement.
- Creating a team.
- Engaging the workforce, and;
- Publishing your plan.
Sustainable Mission Statements
A sustainable mission statement should provide consumers and your workforce with a clear and concise vision of your organization's goals and how it plans to achieve them.
More often than not, the statement will not represent a complete rewrite of primary corporate mission statements, but instead should be supplemental, reflecting how your organization views its position in the grander scheme of social and environmental responsibility.
Steps for success include:
- Brainstorming with stakeholders in the business and surrounding community.
- Establishing a definitive view of what success looks like, and;
- Defining clear, measurable targets along the way that can be tracked and reported on.
Creating a Sustainability Team
Most sustainability teams incorporate executives, managers, and key operational members of the organization to define current operations and corporate culture, then rescope them for future sustainable efforts.
While this can be instrumental, teams that include community stakeholders--members of the communities impacted by your organization's operations--can provide valuable input.
Additional advantages to community stakeholder outreach include:
- Improved corporate public relations and image, and;
- Increased workforce engagement with sustainable initiatives.
Teams will assess current policies and devise strategies to implement the mission statement.
Engaging the Workforce
Workforce engagement is crucial to success, but maintaining employee enthusiasm can be challenging.
This is one of the areas where including community stakeholders--members of your workforce's away-from-work social circles--can be beneficial.
While pursuing the route of increasing workforce engagement through community involvement is more challenging than engaging office staff alone, the benefits can be substantially greater.
Businesses who successfully implement sustainability initiatives and engage their workforce:
- Have higher workforce retention rates.
- Display increased levels of workforce productivity, and;
- Have more success attracting top talent, particularly among emerging workforce demographics.
According to the Network for Business Sustainability;
At least 12 peer-reviewed studies show that many job seekers are attracted to organizations with sustainable practices.
Other studies show the same in relation to social practices more generally, like community involvement and ethical governance.
Most of this evidence comes from experimental studies conducted among university students.
But students become graduates who look for jobs like anyone else; we’ve uncovered the same pattern of findings in two field studies conducted among active jobs seekers.
In our most recently published study, we asked career fair attendees to identify an organization that was among their most attractive employment options.
These job seekers reported greater attraction when they believed the organization was more environmentally friendly.
Creating an Initial Sustainability Plan
At the onset, it can be tempting to shoot for the moon.
However, long-term success is more often found in accumulating numerous small victories that establish a foundation of success and help build momentum for larger, more challenging projects.
Start with small, low-effort projects that are easy to implement and measure, such as:
- Upgrading to LED light bulbs.
- Implementing an office reduce, reuse, and recycling program for paper and cardboard.
- Switching to EPA-registered Safer Choice sanitization products, and;
- Onboarding sustainable vendors, such as LEED-certified cleaning and facilities maintenance service providers.
Takeaway
Laying the foundation for sustainable business initiatives can be highly rewarding for organizations committed to long-term community outreach and environmental governance.
Studies increasingly demonstrate that top-talent prefer working for organizations that align with their personal values, so committing early will ensure a competitive edge in the near future.
A critical component of all facility sustainability plans is environmental clean for health programs that use state-of-art equipment to reduce natural resource use and waste, combined with products that present little to no hazard to occupants or the environment.
Outsourcing is a proven method for onboarding highly in-demand cleaning and sanitization services and experience for a fraction of the price of maintaining a similar service in-house.
If you would like more information regarding the effectiveness of high-performance infection prevention and control measures, or if you would like to schedule a free, no-obligation on-site assessment of your facility's custodial needs, contact us today for a free quote!
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