Nov 207 min read

An A-Z of Sustainability: Y is for You

A bit of a different article this week and in some ways one that would have been a fitting end of the A-Z series, but sometimes the alphabet works against you! This week I’m focusing on what it is like to be a sustainability leader, the resilience that is required and how you need to focus on yourself some of the time to be successful.

Often sustainability leaders are the only person in their organisation that has “sustainability” in their job title. You are expected to know everything about a very wide range of topics, keep abreast of the ever-changing regulatory landscape and know your way around your organisation and all the different functions. A typical business sustainability leader may have no formal sustainability qualifications (although this is starting to change) but is expected to be authoritative on a range of technical topics and disclosure requirements. It can be a lonely place.

The “grind”

As I used to say to my old team, your role is to push the organisation further and faster than it will want to go. Frustration is therefore built into the job description – if you are not frustrated you are probably not pushing hard enough! Another source of frustration is the amount of time that you are likely spending on reporting rather than on improvement actions. This is one of the unfortunate consequences of increasing the transparency on corporate sustainability which we all know is vital, but it leaves less time to actually improve things. And that’s because there is only one of you, or maybe if you are lucky a small team, but even then most will say they are under-resourced given the ever-increasing requirements that are put on them. It’s almost like you’ve been set up to fail.

Whatever data you do disclose won’t be good enough. There will always be a rating agency, investor or activist that thinks that you should be reporting on another issue in more detail, or new areas to be considered. The focus is often on what’s missing, not on what’s good about what you are already doing. And of course, the data itself is often hard to obtain, even in your own organisation, let alone in the value chain. And you know that for example, carbon footprinting is not an exact science, built on a series of assumptions which can always be open to challenge.

And to top it all off, you will be seeing articles on a daily basis showing the latest science, knowing that huge change is coming, that we are not moving quickly enough, and that short term financial motivation (often for personal gain) is given primacy. We see facts distorted, played down or simply lied about by the media and politicians. Feeling powerless and pointless at times seems to go with the territory.

Ok, so I’ve had a bad week! But I am sure anybody who is a sustainability leader in an organisation will recognise much of what I am saying. And indeed, there have been several surveys recently that support this view of the life of a sustainability leader.

The mental toolbox

I’ve painted a pretty bleak view I know, but it is important for you to recognise all these aspects in order for you to build your own resilience and succeed in your role. It’s also important to realise that the frustrations you will feel are normal and others are going through the same thing – it’s not just you, really! So how do you look after yourself and still keep pushing forward with the changes required?

It’s vital you recognise when you are having a difficult day – when the latest climate report lands in your inbox at the same time your boss wants the targets you are proposing watered down or whatever it is. It’s particularly important if you are on your own in the organisation, but if you have a team you also need to recognise your impact on them, and also be able to spot when they are letting the frustration get the better of them and help them deal with it in a way that works for them. One of my team used to come into my office at least once a month and just stand there and vent for ten minutes. She’d tell me that she didn’t expect any answers or suggestions but just wanted someone to hear out load her frustrations. For her that was enough to reset and go again, and me giving her an outlet was critical – I knew enough to get what she meant without having to come up with solutions. I think talking to people who “get it” is especially important. If you have a network of other sustainability leaders, some 1:1 or group therapy over a drink can really help! Working with the support of an external consultant like CEN Group can also help as they have lots of contact with people in similar situations and can provide a useful sounding board to support you.

Of course, all the regular tools for dealing with stress and anxiety are appropriate too. Keeping healthy, getting into nature regularly and getting some balance by making time to do things you enjoy are all vital. Your HR team could also offer support, although it feels like occupational health teams are often still a little behind in supporting the particular needs of sustainability teams in any meaningful way.

Look to the positives

It’s also useful occasionally to remind yourself that it is not all doom and gloom. Yes, we may not be making changes globally as quickly as many know we need to, and the same may be true in your company, but progress is happening. Take a look at electricity for example with wind and solar the cheapest form of electricity is most locations now, with prices per unit having fallen over 90% in the last decade or so. Battery storage is on a similar cost curve too. Or the change that is happening in transportation– there are now over 130 models of EV available in the UK and about 1 in 5 new cars are fully electric. In Norway over 90% of new cars are EVs. Fully electric buses are becoming a regular site in many areas, and electric HGVs are now starting to appear too. These changes are seismic transformations of sectors that are happening quicker that most people realise, and of course it’s the people who stand to lose from the change that are pushing back so much against it. It’s not perfect and it’s not uniform, but change is happening. We often lose sight of these changes, particularly when we know we still need to go quicker, but it is important to look for these positives.

This is true on a personal level too. Keep track of what you have achieved and the difference you are making to your organisation. Look back 2 or 3 years and realise how things are different and what is now in place. You’ll always think it isn’t enough, but remind yourself that you’ve done more than would have happened if you hadn’t been there. I used to be particularly bad at this in my early days in sustainability, but one thing that helped was keeping a “cheer up” folder – I used to put anything in there that was positive feedback, say when we’d launched a particular initiative or where we’d hit a target or simply a “well done” email from someone. A couple of times a year when things weren’t feeling that great I’d just scan through them and remind myself of some high points. For me that helped put things in perspective a bit more. These days there are even websites dedicated to good news stories for example www.positive.news that you could dip into every now and then.

Adaptability

One other thing to also bear in mind is how you position the need for change with others. Often sustainability professionals will use a “doom and gloom” start point to try to get people to change, particularly if they themselves are feeling some of the frustration I’ve outlined above. But if you leave it there it can be difficult for people to engage. I’m not saying you can’t tell them how bad things are and there is nothing to be gained from letting them stick their heads in the sand, but you do need to explain the actions that they can take to make a difference, and help address some of the barriers that they may see. Being aware of how significant changes are already happening can help make the point to them, and indeed yourself, that change is possible.

Whilst being a sustainability leader is full of challenges it is also full of reward. You are in a position to make a real difference, both to the world and wider society, but also to help your business be successful into the future as the world changes around it. Sure, it’s frustrating, but it is also an exciting and privileged position to be in, with licence to poke your nose into all corners of the business and to educate and challenge your colleagues at all levels! But don’t forget to take care of “you” along the way.

About the Author

Chris is a senior strategic leader with over 25 years’ commercial experience including sales, marketing, strategic planning and major business change initiatives at AkzoNobel and ICI. He has a wide knowledge of sustainability and how to integrate this into business having held senior sustainability roles at AkzoNobel for 12 years, including as Global Sustainability Director Decorative Paints and AkzoNobel Planet Possible Programme Manager. Chris is now an independent sustainability consultant and a pension trustee director.