Navigating sustainability goals (Part 1) 

The idea of having the ability to sustain an effort at a certain level and over time might sound attractive and simple, but in the sustainability world, this is not as easy as it sounds. There can be many strategies, but here is where clarity and transparency results in actions for success. 

1. Why goals?

For more than 30 years, goal-setting theory has been developed and continuously researched. Today, you can find books that explore different aspects of goal setting and acronyms like “SMART” to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. One of the things I personally find most interesting in goal setting is the “why” or “how” setting specific and perhaps difficult to attain goals seems to make people perform better than those who set easy or general goals, and if this is correct, why do some companies have difficulties when trying to meet their goals?

Aristotle speculated that purpose can cause action; hence, it makes sense to think that organizations that have a clear vision and mission will set high expectations and create or adopt specific “key performance indicators” (KPIs) to measure their performance, almost as if these where a North Star. For them setting seemingly unachievable goals (the purpose) would trigger robust and thoroughly thought-out strategies that will drive company effort to success.

Will purpose cause the necessary actions to achieve these expectations and goals in the sustainability field? Let us not get entangled in this; for now, let us assume that sustainability goals can be, and most of the time are, on the difficult and sometimes not well-understood side of company goals.

2. Sustainability Goals

Company sales, budget, and time have always been basic dimensions for goal setting, but in today’s ecosystem, these dimensions can easily fall short. There is a clear need to consider multiple other dimensions to ensure company success. The need to adapt swiftly, grow, evolve, and set goals that align with current affairs, follow up on policy changes, market trends, clients’ needs, and social concerns, among many others, is of utmost importance for organizations.

What does this goal-setting evolution mean? It means that companies need to establish goals that will enable their operations to sustain efforts and grow over time, and this is partially achieved by setting goals that support not only production and sales but also all the interactions the organization has with suppliers, employees, clients, final consumers, society, and the environment. Goals that make these interactions sustainable over time.

Organizations usually have a sustainability framework determined by the level of complexity of their operations. It can include areas such as governance, ethics, climate action, clean water, and responsible consumption and production. Sustainability goals can translate to actions such as “decarbonization,” “zero waste to landfills,” “improve biodiversity,” “gender equality,” and “community impact.” (If you are interested in finding more detailed information about the 17 sustainable development goals adopted by all UN member states in 2015 and what drives companies’ sustainability internal efforts, click here.)

3. Sustainable complexity?

How do selecting and reaching sustainability goals become challenging?

I am sure there are several answers to this question, and these will depend on each company’s business environment, commitments, and needs to fulfill. Let’s explore at least one of the main differences that I personally consider sustainability goals to have compared to other common company goals.

Even though at some level all goals should, I consider that sustainability goals require a higher or deeper and thoughtful assessment before definition, and to be accompanied by a powerful strategy to enable the company to be successful. One single sustainability goal usually cannot be achieved by only relying on one single action like improving production efficiencies or finding a cheaper supplier; instead, it requires every employee and every company area to be knowledgeable and connected to the overall sustainability strategy and goals. Sustainability pushes the organization to assess its processes, improve its data collection and management, its accuracy, follow up, and even to go and find opportunities across other departments, such as in their supply chain management. It requires the company to define all the players that can act upon each KPI and to establish clear accountability that ensures proper execution for success.

Perhaps, if you will, we could say that a company that sets clear sustainability goals and achieves them in time and budget as committed is a company with a high and sharp level of internal and external resources’ synchronization, a highly efficient company with committed management at all levels within its own operations and with external collaborators.

4. Navigating through the complexity

About a year ago, I attended an eco-forum, where I had the opportunity to share with participants from several small- and large-scale industries. One of the things that was in discussion were current strategies for waste management. I recall from the conversations that zero waste to landfill was part of the agenda and that many challenges were present; perhaps the most difficult ones were related to leveling up their suppliers and dealing with an old country’s infrastructure on waste management.

Landfills have been on the radar for many years. Goals such as zero waste to landfills are goals that do not only depend on being more efficient, changing suppliers, or segregating your waste before disposal. For most companies, it requires new levels of process intervention, not only at the “what do we do with this waste” stage of the operation but also on how the company reduces waste from raw materials, transportation packaging, parts, and substance containers when they arrive and waste from final packaging before delivery. How can they use less material to produce the same or more of the final product, generating less waste? Reduce, reuse, and recycle words need to now be acted upon. Companies should assess not only waste streams in the final output but also those from suppliers. Assessments need to be done throughout the supply, production, and logistics chains to identify opportunities to correct the course where needed. Top management must continuously communicate the message and follow up within their agendas; companies should develop policies and opportunely enforce them. You see, sustainability goals are not just about making an effort on the production floor or achieving a number; they require extensive commitment and participation at all levels of the organization.

Imagine this: a large cruise ship weighing about 100 thousand tons that gained momentum over the years while navigating rough and calm waters. A ship with over three thousand people (between crews and passengers) that needs to keep moving forward toward its horizon, towards its vision to keep momentum and stay afloat, now faces the challenge of changing course, perhaps breaking the momentum, and facing uncertainty through “less known” waters, the sustainability waters.

The captain sets the course, but not without assessing all the resources with its crew and making sure they will be able to navigate and sort potential challenges. The better they internally and externally assess, the better they will be prepared. Like the ship, a company thriving in the market, now needs to set sustainability goals, hence it will need to define new goals, new KPI, strategize and plan for execution, most probably it will need to optimize supply chain, adjust sale prices, get procurement engaged, review contracts with suppliers to catch up with new requirements, look for new vendors, level up employees competency, ensure communications strategies, improve data management, consistency and accuracy, add new systems, more technology, assess economic feasibility of all these adjustments at a local and global level, and all this usually done, if not all at least big part, by the same collaborators that are keeping the ship/company afloat.

It is possible that your company is doing great at a local level, but now you might be required to step up your game when higher offices look at global, regional, country, and local operations. Financially, at a local level, these sustainable commitments might not resonate positively; if all parties have not been involved in the discussion, assessments done, and strategies meticulously outlined, the new adjustments might result in growth deceleration, employees’ frustration, and an increase in the risk of operations, but at a larger scale, country-wide or maybe global, it could be the healthiest thing to do for the company. Yes, you are right in the middle, having a 360-degree look at a sustainability goal, considering interventions at all levels of the ship operations, making sure that you keep your clients happy, employees motivated, keep orders coming, that they do not experience hiccups in the process, and that the company is contributing to a better world through its sustainability strategy and framework.

The goals have been set; companies need to keep the speed of the ship and the North Star vigilant. Changes and improvements will be on the go; the ship cannot stop; assessments and reassessments will be done better sooner than later; and questions will come. Do we have the information we need? Is it accurate? With so many interventions, are current baselines a real representation of what we are measuring? Are we finding things that we never saw coming before?

I believe we are just seeing the tip of the sustainability complexity iceberg. Companies are sorting through all these challenges and adjusting to everything that is happening at a local and global level, and all companies face some, if not all, of these challenges, don’t they?

5. A few thoughts on this turmoil

Tackling several sustainable goals together seems logical but yet harder to achieve, and not because companies might need to add more resources and effort to it, but because of a past, sometimes our generation doesn’t seem to weigh in on the sustainability strategy, and new generations simply are not being taught about it.

For instance, many years ago, companies and the population moved away from using paper because paper manufacturing uses an incredible amount of water. The US benchmark for water use within pulp and paper mills is approximately 17,000 gallons per ton of paper. (For comparison, an average American family uses 300 gallons of water per day at home; 1 ton of paper equals over 50 families’ daily water use.) This is without mentioning where the pulp comes from or the waste that is generated. Pulp and paper mills contribute to air, water, and land pollution; they are considered highly toxic and rank sixth among the most polluting industries in the world.

We ditched glass for plastic; glass was fragile, easy to break, even dangerous, heavy to transport, and expensive. We found a way to accept plastic instead of more sustainable solutions in our lives. Even when 30–40 years ago, plastic was facing initiatives to be banned and curbed because recycling plastic was costly and difficult, here we are 40 years later looking for ways to fight plastic pollution and still discovering new challenges that plastic lay ahead, like nano plastic particles in water and in humans.

You can see trends of going back to glass and paper products; despite the issues in the past, paper and glass seem a more feasible environmental option or an easier way to achieve certain sustainability goals, at least more than plastic for now. Another challenge that the plastics industry presents, even with more suitable plastic that could be easily recycled or reused, is to face the fact that more recycling and reuse will mean fewer profits for oil and gas companies, and this is hard to turn around. You get the point.

I don’t think we are close to moving away from plastic, but perhaps the closest solution could be a mix of options to achieve sustainable goals where a reduction in plastic production supported by reuse laws could become a common goal for producers, manufacturers, and final users.

6. The Race

In this race, marked by showing how competitive but conscience-oriented businesses are, driven by the best available standards, with a client-oriented mentality, and paddling in favor of this global effort, no one wants to be left behind.

Each company knows what the best framework is and which of the 17 sustainable goals they need to adopt. A clear vision is necessary to set sustainability goals to enable the company to grow with a compound effect, not only to create a make-up goal or flavor of the month. Earth-to-moon sustainable goals are nothing but empty words if companies cannot truly contribute and seek to become their vision and very best. A sustainable goal is truly a big milestone; maybe it also applies here to the saying “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”

7. Final thoughts

I do believe that setting high-level goals can and will drive high-level solutions to the company’s most relevant issues if there is transparency and an awareness of reality.

Companies are all tremendously capable of coming up with new ideas and solutions. It is not wrong to aim high, but make sure to do your reality check and identify road blockages and gaps that could restrain your business from achieving its sustainability goals and deviating from its vision. Accuracy, consistency, and a controlled pace will bring success; sustainability is a company journey, not a one-stop trip. Are your company’s sustainable goals thoroughly devised and heading to success?