How deep is your commitment to Sustainability? Here are three litmus tests…
It is clear we are at a crucial point in the road to Sustainability. The window to act is open, but it is closing faster than many think, so resolute action is vital. Are you up for it? These three litmus tests will give you an idea of how genuine your commitment really is:
Integration of Responsibility: it is frustratingly common to find organisations claim that “Sustainability is in their DNA blah blah” and then find it is the sole responsibility of the Sustainability Team – who rarely have the agency to act. True commitment means delegating Sustainability targets to all relevant decision makers – does your Operations Director have a set of targets? Your Head of Procurement? Your Head of Innovation?
Budget: what are you prepared to invest in Sustainability? There is a clear dividing line between those who will open the wallet and those who won’t. Marks & Spencer famously put £200m into Plan A before there ever was a plan. More recently, Nissan UK has invested in several battery gigaplants to supply their Washington factory as it switches to EVs. Money talks…
Wielding the Axe: what will you stop doing? Starting doing green things is the easy bit, stopping doing bad things is much more difficult. Modular flooring giant Interface have deleted many profitable product lines because they are intrinsically incompatible with their Sustainability principles. Creative destruction is needed to drive change.