Special Guest Post: Embedding Sustainability

What Goes in the Toolbox?

By Anna Clark, SIOP guest blogger

As a sustainability practitioner, I am glad to facilitate a discussion today about the value of I-O psychology in embedding sustainability into organizations, particularly mainstream companies.  Based on my six-year practice in sustainability consulting, and my combined 18 years of experience in management consulting and communications, I recognize a great need for organizational development expertise in this arena. 

Leadership is the key determinant of whether sustainability becomes rooted as a core value in any given organization.  For sustainability to flourish, it must be embedded into human resources. Even projects based on good intentions and credible tools will flounder without engaging influencers and managers at all levels in the process.  The upcoming SIOP Leading Edge Consortium on environmental sustainability is a rare opportunity to explore the human element in all the depth it deserves.  As we exchange ideas for how to use I-O psychology to create a culture of sustainability, it is helpful to also consider the ways that a burgeoning green ethos can be acted up and expressed to maximize bottom-line or “triple-bottom line” benefits. 

A quality sustainability program may include a variety of components.  While no single template applies to every organization, a good program will generally touch on five key areas:

1. People
2. Facilities
3. Operations
4. Products
5. Brand

In my experience, the “people” aspect is frequently bypassed too quickly.  Tactical issues and budget constraints often take priority.  Consequently, where a culture is not properly prepped for change, project results are more incremental than transformational.  This reality strongly limits progress, and exposes an area of sustainability that could benefit abundantly from organizational development expertise.

Whether designing a program from scratch, scaling or refining an existing program, or conducting research on organizational sustainability, it is helpful to understand what established sustainability tools are most useful and how they work in practice.  Amongst the many programs out there, the EPA has created several that, when used alone or in combination with each other and outside resources, can act as building blocks for a solid sustainability program. These programs make excellent sustainability “starter kits”—foundational, user-friendly, standard yet flexible: 

• EPA ENERGY STAR.  Launched in 1992, ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.  ENERGY STAR offers resources and support to help organizations measure and track energy use; develop a plan for energy improvements; make energy efficiency upgrades; and spread the energy efficiency word to others. ENERGY STAR has partners with over 20,000 private and public-sector organizations across all industries through a variety of initiatives that address facilities, products and behavior.  Key tools include the Portfolio Manager for buildings, a comprehensive communications toolkit, turnkey marketing collateral, energy education training, and other materials to help companies of all sizes set up and run a Green Team.

• EPA Waste Wise. Launched in 1994, Wastewise helps organizations and businesses reduce waste and practice sustainable materials management through the prevention and recycling of municipal solid waste (common business waste such as office paper and cardboard) and select industrial materials. Partners demonstrate how they reduce waste, practice environmental stewardship, and incorporate sustainable materials management into their waste-handling processes. Endorsers promote enrollment in WasteWise as part of a comprehensive approach to help their stakeholders realize the economic benefits to reducing waste.

• EPA Green Power Partnership. The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with purchased electricity use.  Benefits include tools, support, credibility, and public recognition.  The Partnership currently has more than 1,300 Partner organizations voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500® companies, small and medium sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, and colleges and universities.

By its nature, sustainability is interdisciplinary, so most tools touch on a variety of functional areas.  However, certain types of employees will find certain tools more relevant.  For example, operations staff will see the value of the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, while HR and Marketing staff might get more excited about the Green Team materials. For smaller enterprises, the EPA programs offer meaningful credentials to tell a green story and for larger organizations, they are a credible component of the overall program.

Some employees prefer to tackle fun, creative activities such as community gardens, green fairs at work and technology-based sustainability engagement programs. While such initiatives add seasoning, they should be combined with a “meat and potatoes” metrics-based approach for tracking tangible progress within an industry-recognized framework. Some of the most popular programs include the Global Reporting Initiative, the Carbon Disclosure Project, and the B Corp Impact Assessment.  Another promising new framework for voluntary reporting is the Plastic Disclosure Project.   Such tools provide a consistent “track to run on,” which is critical for embedding sustainability.

Tools used within your program should reflect the intentions and goals of the people who are defining sustainability for the organization.  For this reason, it is imperative to identify Why and Who before determining What and How.  There are plenty of choices available, but there remains a great need for leadership in applying them for maximum benefit.   Tapping into people’s latent talent for innovation and their motivation to solidify and expand on their results is next frontier in organizational sustainability

As a practitioner, I’m looking forward to some interesting exchanges at the conference so that I can learn how to apply I-O psychology for greater success with my clients.  I’m glad to facilitate this live blogging session to kick off the conversation.  What would you like to get out of the conference?  What other programs do you think are useful?  Do you have some research to contribute?   Submit your questions - or provide some new answers of your own in the comments section below!

Comments

[personality tests]

My challenge to us to do the opposite is a way of putting each of us in touch again with the free-wheeling parts of our own personality -- elements that we often haven’t made contact with for years.

[Sara Weiner]

Anna, thank you very much for the fabulous blog and responses to the thought provoking questions. And thank you to all the bloggers today who participated. I am looking forward to the LEC to promote further discussion and ignite people's passion to ensure environmental sustainability becomes a core value in every organizational setting.

[Rachael Klein]

Simon – I’m also very interested in what motivates employees to engage in green behaviors and am involved in work in this area. You are right, there has been little in the way of research on why employees engage in green behaviors. The topic has been examined to a greater extent in non-workplace settings (i.e., home environments) in the past. From our studies on workplace green behavior and motivation, we actually found that 29% of over 2,000 employee behaviors were required by the organization or employees’ job duties (Ones & Dilchert, 2009), which includes both positive, as well as negative behaviors! Certainly making green behavior a part of task performance is one way to motivate employees to be more sustainable, but I think it is equally important to understand why employees who are not required to perform green behaviors engage in them. Requiring green behavior may not always be an option and we still want employees to be green outside of job requirements (i.e., someone may be required to make products greener at work, but we still want them to do other green behaviors such as reducing their use of resources at work, etc).

Anna – I would be interested in hearing more about how you tailor the “What and How” based on the “Why” and also how upfront organizations are about their motives related to sustainability?

[Anna]

Simon, you make a very valuable point. Researching green behavior motivation would be a significant contribution to the field. There is only so much intrinsic motivation out there for green behavior (and if you're here in Texas, perhaps even less than average!) I would be fascinated to learn more about this.

A helpful resource for me has been "Global Warming's Six Americas: A Segmentation Analysis" from Yale and George Mason University's Centers for Climate Change Communication. Check it out here: http://environment.yale.edu/climate/publications/SixAmericasMay2011/

[Simon Golden]

Hi Anna,

I’m a M.A. | Ph.D. student at Michigan State, and I was particularly interested in your effort to create sustainability programs in a fortune 500 corporation. One of your findings from this effort makes so much sense:

“ Incentives, recognition, and review would ensure that employees do not regard sustainability as merely voluntary. "

Unfortunately, researchers in I/O rarely study green behavior motivations. From a discussion at SIOP 2012, I learned that investigators could use research and theory on pro-social motivation as a starting point to think about green behaviors in the workplace. However, motivating green behaviors is more effective when sustainability is incentivized, recognized, reviewed, and included in the job description as compared to when it is characterized as pro-social motivation. Thus, perhaps researchers should also study green behavior motivations when sustainability is perceived a critical part of the job.

I’m coordinating one of the virtual forums on environmental sustainability at Michigan State University. During the conference, I would love to hear more insights on motivating and training organizational members to do green behaviors in the workplace.

Thank you again for the thought-provoking discussion!

[Anna]

John and Jack, I’m addressing both of your questions in this response. John, you ask how to combine top-down and grassroots green to maximize the 'stickiness' and impact of sustainability initiatives. As you aptly point out, there is a need to blend top-down strategies that lead to tactical directives with grassroots movements within organizations. I look forward to your presentation at the conference to know how I-O can practitioners can assist with this process.

From a communications standpoint, I can see a need for your help with messaging and content that will reach all types of listeners. We could also improve our reach by including organizational development staff in strategy discussions, which frequently take place in amongst PR and marketing staff. While these departments look at typical corporate communications methods, HR is aware of less visible but equally relevant methods for reaching employees. Training represents a big area for improvement.

Jack, you ask some really important questions about training for environmental sustainability. While I see a great need for it, I could not comment in depth about differences in the efficacy of different training approaches, modes of delivery that work best, or the extent to which organizations measure transfer of environmental sustainability training. Based on my experience, this opens up a significant area of opportunity. Outside of recommending screenings and discussions of certain films (Annie Leonard’s “The Story of Stuff” is a great conversation starter!), I have not yet encountered research covering the impact of a comprehensive training program in sustainability for employees. I’d love to hear other comments on this if anyone else would like to contribute!

[Anna]

Clif, you asked about chief sustainability officers, or CSOs. I first launched EarthPeople in 2005 when I read that companies such as Walmart and Home Depot would be holding hundreds of thousands of suppliers to increasing standards in sustainability. I realized that most small and mid-sized companies, as well as some large companies and non-profits, would not be funding a CSO position anytime in the near future. For those types of companies, consultancies such as mine can assist them with staying competitive and drawing other benefits of sustainability.

By contrast, multinational corporations today are able to handle sustainability strategy internally through CSOs. This role has evolved well beyond PR; it extends (in theory if not always in practice) to every department. One CSO I know managed to trace about $20 million in savings to the energy efficiency and recycling efforts stemming from his office. The larger the footprint, the greater opportunity for improvement.

According to a recent special report from MIT Sloan Management Review, “Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point” (2012): 70% of companies that have put sustainability on their management agendas have done so in the past six years, 20% in the past two years. Once on the management agenda, sustainability stays there. Seventy percent of organizations say sustainability has a permanent place on the management agenda, and almost none say they plan to reduce their commitments.

Moreover, 68% say their organization’s commitment to sustainability has increased in the past year, and an even larger proportion say they plan to increase their commitment to sustainability. We see these trends occurring within and across all industries, but resource-intensive industries — energy and utilities, consumer products, commodities, chemicals and automobiles — are leading the way, particularly in Europe and also in emerging economies.

As the global regulatory environment in some resource industries becomes more uncertain, more progressive companies are seeing benefits from having a strong sustainability brand reputation with governments and NGOs. You can access the full report here: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/feature/sustainability-strategy/

[Jack]

Thank you for facilitating this discussion Anna. As regards training for environmental sustainability, have you found any differences in the efficacy of different training approaches for this end? What modes of delivery seem to engage employees the most? On a related note, do you have any knowledge of the extent to which organizations measure transfer of environmental sustainability training, and the ways in which this is done?

[Anna]

Mark and Carl, you both asked how HR can put their stake in sustainability for organizations that haven’t already embraced it. My response is that getting HR to lead in this space is absolutely essential, so HR practitioners need to embrace the movement and become excellent at articulating what the implications and benefits are from their perspective. I am so glad to see that so much research is being done in this space. I’ll offer my experience and insights as a way to affirm that you are indeed on the right track. Some observations in no particular order:

• On every type of project, from startups and school districts to SMEs and Fortune 500s, getting employee buy-in along the spectrum can be very challenging, particularly in cultures that are not innovative. The sustainability directive often comes from the CEO, but is not reinforced through the touchpoints that employees encounter on a daily basis. Even something as simple as signage to educate them about recycling could help address this. There is a lot that can be done, but the will to do it consistently is lacking. As keepers of the culture and its people, HR staff have more influence than they are exerting in terms of sustainability.

• As you can probably tell, I am not an I-O psychologist. I found my way into this based on my desire to see sustainability projects succeed at genuine change, rather than green icing on the cake. In delving deeper, I’ve done some reading on change management, leadership and even personality types. I’ve discovered some interesting findings that have helped me see why sustainability can be difficult for people to “understand.” For example, James P. Lewis in Project Leadership (McGraw Hill 2002) explains that 50% of the general population include SJ and NT – or Guardian and Rational – temperament types, but 80% of corporate populations contain these types. So, it’s not really that surprising that something as abstract as sustainability would not capture the imagination of the average employee. When NF / Idealist types like me come in to consult on projects, I find natural allies in HR people. However, the person who hires me is never HR. I’m usually answering to a busy president, CEO or manager who are more concerned with bottom-line benefits than with cultural transformation. The metrics-based approaches help demonstrate in clear terms what to do and how to do it. However, there is a need upfront to clarify why a company really wants to do this, and who should get behind it. Also, to further embed workplace sustainability, we need to see a range of personality types on the Green Team to ensure that communications speak to different types of people. We also need consistent involvement with HR on these engagements.

• As you point out, Carl, manufacturing and other facilities-type workers have an important role to play. Such people are often overlooked, but this can be resolved by a caring manager who expresses interest in sustainability. Outside of policy changes and job requirements to address sustainability, engendering motivation within employees to green their practices comes down to interpersonal relationships and leadership.

I look forward to learning how I-O can provide a context for these observations so that I can move toward even better results with my clients.

[Anna]

Rachael, I share your interest in helping individuals understand the importance of their behavior and the influence they can have in their workplace (as well as home, community – and the world). Some groups are working on tools to do this with varying degrees of effectiveness. Practically Green is one standout in this regard: http://www.practicallygreen.com/. This and other such programs build on interest in gamification and social media to educate and inspire individuals. Other tools can be as simple as calculators for a person’s ecological footprint.

Something to keep in mind with any such tool is that executives must be coached on how to use these tools to hold individuals accountable. I worked with a startup in this space, actually. The companies that beta tested the product (an online engagement platform for sustainability) loved the idea and the potential benefits (engagement, PR, costs savings) behind it, but ultimately, nobody was in charge of seeing it through. To gain traction and change the culture of an organization, individual-based programs must be supported by meaningful recognition and incentives. If employees think their manager cares, they stand a greater chance of caring.

Of course, there are always the Idealists who will care anyway, but most people rise to the level of compliance. Communications and training will keep it in front of all employees so they understand that sustainability is being managed, measured and noticed at the executive level.

[Mark Schmit]

Anna,
Our research at SHRM suggests that HR has been a significant player in some organization's sustainability programs, but in many others HR is a follower rather than a leader in sustainability programs. How do you believe HR can put a stake in this issue? Where do you see the entry points for them?

[Anna]

Deniz, thanks for your comments. I think we are all waiting to hear the outcome of your research! I hope you will share some of your findings with us today.

In my experience, organizational development practitioners have a great deal to offer in terms of employee engagement, because I am not seeing it come from the engineering, marketing and strategy departments. I learned this on a project several years ago with a Fortune 500 corporation. In this case, the VP of CSR of this large retail company was a chemist. He was very involved in industry discussions and topics related to energy consumption and the use of renewables. Consequently, this corporation has been very successful at the facilities level, being recognized as a leading ENERGY STAR Partner for four years in a row. However, the human component was outside his domain, and I saw the effects this could have on the overall effectiveness of embedding sustainability into the culture.

My task on this project was to help implement various initiatives to engage employees, as this was something the company felt it needed to do. I quickly discovered that the org dev department was a tremendous asset. We leveraged their knowledge in training, communications and internal engagement to roll out some of our sustainability programs. However, success was limited for a number of reasons. A few realities that became clear include:

- Sustainability should be integrated into HR policies and job descriptions.
- Sustainability training should be offered or required for new hires.
- Incentives, recognition, and review would ensure that employees do not regard sustainability as merely voluntary.
- Sustainability must be articulated and reinforced with consistent messaging from each department in order for it to be perceived as a core value by employees.

Such tasks are a natural focus of HR professionals. I look forward to hearing much more on this from other speakers at the conference.

[Clif Boutelle]

Anna--I've read that some organizations are appointing CSOs (chief sustainability officers), an indication of their commitment to a positive impact upon the environment. Are you aware of any figures that provide how widespread the appointment of CSOs is? If so, would you please point out the source? Just wondering how much the environmental sustainability movement has really caught on with organizations. Is this a serious effort on the part of organizations or are they looking to score PR points?

[Anna]

Brenton, great question. I appreciate your concerns about the relevance and weight of environmental sustainability as it relates to social equity and governance. As a practitioner, I do my best to point clients to the most appropriate reporting frameworks for their industry. I realize that these scores can be ambiguous and are not always helpful in relating environmental progress to stakeholders. Certainly, reporting alone cannot take the place of programs and certifications that address key areas for environmental improvement. For example, for one client we are working with, we are recommending eStewards to specifically address their interest in reducing e-waste. Such a program will help ensure that they are addressing the necessary environmental challenges alongside their efforts to communicate sustainability to various stakeholders.

For an in-depth discussion on the merits and drawbacks of particular metrics-based frameworks, allow me to recommend the New Metrics of Sustainable Business conference coming up at Wharton:
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/events/issuesinfocus/businessmetrics

KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz is the Founder/CEO of Sustainable Life Media, which produces the Sustainable Brands conference. She has been involved in this discussion for years and would be an excellent resource to better answer your question. Her email address is koann@sustainablelifemedia.com.

[John Muros]

Great commentary, Anna - I especially appreciate the distinction you draw between 'community garden, green fair' types of employees vs those better-suited to '"meat and potatoes" metrics-based' approaches to sustainability. This is but one of many spaces in which I/O Psychologists are capable of bolstering the success potential for green initiatives. We are uniquely suited to add value to the discussion of WHO these individuals should be (i.e., profiling the KSAOs that will make someone a better fit for one or the other) and how best to go about selecting them for such roles.

I am particularly intrigued by your expertise in communications around sustainability efforts, as this is something we I/O Psychologists are notoriously bad at - offering no shortage of steak but frequently neglecting the sizzle. I have seen green initiatives spring from top-down strategies that lead to tactical directives, as well as from grassroots movements within organizations that take hold. I'd be curious for any insights you have on how to marry the two in marketing and communicating about sustainability programs. If they're seen as purely top-down initiatives, they may never truly 'take' among the rank-and-file. Conversely, if they are primarily grassroots efforts, they will lack the extra oomph that comes with leadership's vision, communications, authority, and funding. So, in short, how best to combine top-down and grassroots green to maximize the 'stickiness' and impact of sustainability initiatives?

[Anna Brindley]

Hello all,

Thank you for your interest. Anna will be on shortly. We are resolving some technical difficulties.

Anna Brindley

[Carl Persing]

Thank you Anna for an excellent piece on a very important topic. One thing tha tcomes to mind is that oftentimes many workers who most strongly influence sustainability--those workers in manufacturing or even someone who is a custodian in a building, do not believe in the importance of sustainability or believe that their actions really impact sustainability. So how can HR reach out effectively to these people. It is a certianly a matter of attitude and behavior change, which I/Os and social psychologists can do well, but do you have any experiences that you could share on practical ways of making these changes take root among these workers.

[Rachael Klein]

Anna – I am looking forward to attending the conference and am interested in learning more about how organizations are engaged with sustainability.

In your post you mentioned a number of popular metrics for use at the organizational level. Are there any metrics you are aware of at the individual level or ways you assess individual employee behavior? One main stream of research I am involved in (lead by Deniz Ones, who posted below) is aimed at developing measures that can be used to measure green behavior at the individual employee level. Such metrics allow for assessment of individual employees’ green behavior, which can have direct applications for selection, training, goal-setting, etc.

[Deniz Ones]

Anna-- Thank you for so succinctly stating what my research team and I have come conclude here at the University of Minnesota "Tapping into people’s latent talent for innovation and their motivation to solidify and expand on their results is the next frontier in organizational sustainability."
In your experience, what are the ways to get through the message about the crucial role of employees to the engineers, marketing and strategy folks that seem to be leading organizational efforts in environmental sustainability?

[Brenton Wiernik]

I am very concerned that it seems that many of the organizational metrics for tracking sustainability which claim to be comprehensive are either very criterion deficient, such as the KLD assessment, leaving out huge areas of the environmental sustainability domain, or contaminate the environmental criterion with measures of social equity and proper governance, such as the B Corps assessment measured above. While social goals are valuable and important, they are distinct from environmental sustainability. Depending on one's level of analysis, progress toward goals in these two domains tend to be only weakly or even negatively correlated. I am concerned that by combining these distinct domains into a single score, these assessments present an ambiguous score for organizations which does not make clear the nature of the organization's environmental performance. What exactly does a score of 60/200 mean for my organization's environmental versus social goals? I am concerned that such an omnibus "sustainability" score may lead to inappropriate attention being given to social goals, rather than equally to environmenal goals.

What has been your experience in the use of these large aggregate measures of multi-dimensional sustainability? Do they seem to help managers make good environmental decisions, or do they tend to distract them from pursuing environmental goals?