Jul 35 min read

An A-Z of Sustainability: E is for Engagement

One thing I have found that separates excellent sustainability programmes from others is the attention given to employee engagement. This is another one of those terms that people define in many ways, but for me this is all about creating a connection with your employees and how they think, feel and act. At its best, it creates pride in their company.

So how should you approach engagement in sustainability? Firstly, I think it helps to think about sustainability as a change management activity. You want the business to think about things differently, to take new aspects into account when setting strategy and taking operational decisions. You want the outcomes to be different. So, you are managing change.

A useful model that my ex-colleague Sally developed with me was a change circle for embedding sustainability. You start with creating the need for change: why is this happening, what are you doing this for? Then you need to define the vision: paint a positive picture of what things will look like in the future, how they will be different and better. Then embed sustainability in key tools and processes: add criteria into innovation stagegate processes or investment proposals – the more you can normalise the topic in existing processes the better, as it will quickly become business as usual. You need to give people the skills and capabilities they need to make decisions differently based on these new aspects. Reinforcing the right behaviours is key, so think about reward and recognition – this doesn’t need to be monetary, a well-placed “thank you” or “well done” can have a significant impact. Constant and consistent reinforcement of the new way of doing things is vital and it really should be two-way communication. Finally, there needs to be real action happening locally – plan activities in all your locations to get people involved. And then you go round the circle repeatedly, constantly building and reinforcing.

Thinking about engagement in sustainability in this way really makes an enormous difference and moves the conversations way beyond just a few bits of communication material. To make real change and get sustainability ingrained in everyday business life should be your aim, and it takes effort, thought and time. One key aspect is that communication should be two-way. Often people just want permission to get on and do things, the ideas they’ve had for years but never felt they could voice or that management wouldn’t support. Indeed, there is probably already a lot going on in the business at a local level that you are not aware of. And people are much more concerned about and want action on sustainability that you often get the impression of from the media – for instance, a recent study from “Our World in Data” showed widespread support for climate action above 80% consistently across all countries.

Getting ideas back from the front line, checking how your messages have been received, and understanding what challenges people have, is key to successful engagement. When you are celebrating achievements, make it personal. Don’t put the CEO’s picture or your picture on the article updating people on progress, make it about Eva in Accounts in the Swedish office and put her picture on it and tell her story.

Guiding your sustainability engagement activity should be the desire to integrate your sustainability plans into your overall business strategy. You are not trying to create a separate strategy, integration is key. People already have lots of priorities, you need to show them how the sustainability plans fit within these and ensure they are not given conflicting objectives. Managers are key in this. I’ve lost count of the number of centrally driven activities (not just sustainability related) that I have seen flounder because the people who direct the work day-to-day downplayed it or didn’t understand it, so filtered the messages or deprioritised it. You need to make sure that managers have the right incentives to drive the behavioural change needed – back to that change circle again. You may even want to take a “train the trainer” approach – cascade the plans through the organisation by getting managers fully immersed in what you are planning and equipping them to push this down into the business in a consistent way. And make sure your senior management endorse this from the start – get them knowledgeable enough to feel confident in talking about the topic and understanding what particularly aspects their part of the business needs to deliver. This alignment of messaging, plans and targets through the business is a key part of successful sustainability engagement.

One thing you could consider is creating a logo or name for your sustainability programme. In particular if you have a very disparate business or have lots of acquired businesses with strong local identities, this can help provide some “glue” to get everyone pulling in a consistent way. It’s a useful signpost for people in comms and can help provide reinforcement. One watch-out is that you don’t want to create a separate identity from the company though; remember that you are trying to engage with people to help embed sustainability into the business as just the “way we do things round here” and so you need to connect that to the overall company or brands.

I’ve always found that engagement in the sustainability programme also generates wider employee engagement. It’s not always easy for employees to feel completely connected to the company strategy, particularly if you are not in sales and marketing or working on innovation. But on sustainability, everyone can do something, however small, every day and feel connected. And feel proud to go home and talk to the family about what their company is doing and how they play their part.

Engagement planning and implementation may not be the first things that come to mind when people take on responsibility for sustainability in a company. But I think they are a key determinant of success and just as, if not more, important than the targets you set. If you think it’s something you may need some help with, the folks at CEN would be more than happy to talk to you. It’s something that needs constant proactive management, but the employee pride that can be unlocked can be incredibly rewarding.

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.