Regular readers will know I’m a great proponent of the 80:20 Rule in Sustainability – I wrote a book about it (see below). The 80:20 Rule says that you should target the relatively small number of actions which deliver the vast majority of change.

At the Corporate Sustainability Mastermind Group earlier this month, we discussed the application and limitations of the 80:20 approach. These are the times you should worry about the ‘little stuff’:

• Engaging employees: switching stuff off and waste minimisation generally won’t take you that far down your path to zero carbon, but people easily understand it, so you can use these quick wins as an ‘entry drug’ to get your colleagues hooked on Sustainability before moving on to the hard stuff.
• Avoiding cynicism: for the same reason, laypeople will get more upset about disposable coffee cups than the use of a persistent organic pollutant. So you need to make sure you are seen to be tackling those iconic issues even while you’re doing the big stuff that no-one will ever notice.
• Continual improvement: If you have a zero carbon or zero waste target, you’ve still got to do the 20% of results as well as the 80%. So while you should prioritise the critical 20% of actions, it’s worth keeping the other stuff tapping along (maybe combined with the engagement above).

But, and this is a big but, these exceptions should never overwhelm the rule. When push comes to shove, if you need to make a tough choice, go for the one which will deliver the biggest results.