ICRS Fellows Hub: Turning sustainability ambition into meaningful organisational change

Turning Sustainability Ambition Into Meaningful Organisational Change

In recent years, there has been a growing global focus on the social and environmental behaviours of organisations. As a result, it has become increasingly important for companies to lead a structured approach to sustainability, avoid undeliverable promises, and ensure senior leadership is engaged.

Jennie Galbraith, Chair of the ICRS, recently ran an exclusive session for the ICRS Fellows on turning sustainability ambition into meaningful organisational change. Drawing from her experience, Jennie structured her talk into three major areas of focus: What, Why, and How.

What – clarity and understanding of what the organisation needs to do and is doing.

The key to what an organisation does on ESG/sustainability is materiality assessment. It ensures clarity on the issues that need to be addressed and drives organisational buy in. It also helps avoid ‘pet issues’ having undue prominence and ensures emerging issues are also tracked.  The tracking of emerging issues is a useful tool for practitioners in order to help them prepare the business to address new issues that management may not have previously considered. The Group discussed the value in planning around emerging issues before they become ‘live’ for instance, having initial conversations with internal stakeholders, understanding budget implications and considering which external partners and standards to work with.

Why - ensuring that the organisation and its people know the reasons why it is doing those things.

Consistent benchmarking is a crucial factor in emphasising the importance of ESG. It is also essential to link ESG topics and responses to business benefits, both for the organisation as a whole and for individuals. The ESG function should position itself as a team that helps people anticipate and troubleshoot potential issues, enabling them to think ahead and around corners. Clarity and consistency in this approach will help to ensure that ESG is integrated into the organisation's overall strategy. Ensuring management understand the contribution that CR&S activities will make to overall corporate strategy, such as increasing market share, improved employee attraction and retention or cost savings to improve cash flow is critical. Whilst there is always a strong moral case for CR&S activities, this alone is unlikely to maintain Board focus on CR&S in more a more turbulent economic environment.

How - clarity on how focus and activities are pursued.

It is important to place CR&S reporting as a set of potential strategic issues for management to accelerate and not as an after the fact communication exercise. Integrating CR&S into existing governance mechanisms will help maintain Board focus and understanding. It is important to ensure that there is consistency of ESG topics reviewed and clarity over what decisions are required to emphasise the importance of the topic as a natural aspect of the business’ focus, rather than as a separate topic tabled for ‘updates only’. Jennie highlighted that she believed that creating and maintaining relationships is key to the ESG professional, which is reflected in the ‘influence and persuasion’ competency of the ICRS competency framework.  As a profession we often rely on people to do things that aren’t part of their day job, or to support new initiatives where the ROI isn’t clear and so having some social capital in the bank with peers can make all the difference.

Another critical element is clarity in how an ESG team functions so that areas of responsibility and clarity of expectations are understood, in particular, that the delivery of CR&S initiatives is the responsibility of all functions, not just the CR&S team. The ESG team should take an oversight and service role as required, bringing insights, guiding, and advising the Board and wider management to navigate the CR&S landscape. This clarity helps avoid protectionism and reinforces that the ESG team is there to assist teams in managing issues, not to be responsible for managing them.

Key elements of success

• Have 3 or 4 elevator pitches ready – covering the what, why and how of issues that you want to accelerate. Use those water cooler moments wisely!
• Establish clear and consistent governance.
• ‘Bring the outside in’, take responsibility for bringing CR&S insights into the business. Position this as a service, not a sermon.
• Establish formal and informal networks.
• Be flexible and resilient. Sometimes the business isn’t ready to tackle an emerging issue but be ready when they are.
• Know when to personally step back and be more objective and detached – all decisions are not your fault or problem.
• Manage expectations – ESG professionals cannot know everything (but we should always be able to direct them to someone who does!)
• Ensure that the business takes responsibility for its decisions (to engage or ignore issues), and that there are governance mechanisms to do this – rather than that responsibility lying with ESG professionals/ the ESG function.
• Cultivate personal relationships – even if it is bonding over specific interests that are not always business-focused.
• The business will not always follow your advice – be clear on the implications of their decisions and seek to have plans in place to mitigate and manage - but try to strongly advise and control what commitments are made.

In conclusion, turning sustainability ambition into meaningful organisational change requires a structured approach that focuses on materiality assessment, consistent benchmarking, and establishing ESG governance structures and processes. It also requires creating and maintaining relationships and having a clear understanding of what, why, and how. These key elements are critical for sustainability professionals to consider and apply to help ensure that sustainability is treated as a strategic issue critical to the long term resilience and performance of their organisations.