You get one in every crowd – the one person who delights in getting in the way and holding things up. Here are three stereotypes that may impede your progress in your sustainability programme.
1. The Misinformed Smart Arse
It’s amazing how many people think they are experts on sustainability, whether it is the intricacies of climate science or purveyors of “it can’t be done because of X”. For example, I heard several people say “you can’t cut IT carbon emissions as more powerful processors mean more energy. It’s a fact and you can’t get around it”. It is a fact, but you can get around it – technologies such as server virtualisation, processors that work at higher temperature and passive cooling systems can massively reduce the emissions relating to IT.
Dealing with these people is difficult. Avoid going toe to toe in an argument. Use green jujitsu techniques. Ask questions – “how are other organisations reducing IT emissions?”
2. The Not My Problem, Mate
Some people will never want to take part. In the short term you can usually work around them, in the longer term the can be engaging by asking for their help in a sustainability issue, or simply by waiting for them to go with the flow.
3. The Whydoncha
These guys are more difficult to spot as they are trying to be helpful. You say, “OK, we want to do X” and they immediately respond “Whydoncha do Y?” Y is usually a good-ish idea, but it doesn’t help you achieve X. One interesting fact about Whydonchas is that they never volunteer to do anything practical themselves.
To deal with them you’ve got to find dozens of ways of saying “nice idea, but can we park that until we’ve done X”!
If you can think of any other problem people, post them in the comments.