Who knew we wanted more than just a job?

The idea for this article came out of continuous conversations with many colleagues and friends. What is the conversation you ask? Well none other than this — the idea of having more meaning in our lives. Countless conversation start out with, “I don’t believe my company really cares about anything but profits, I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to have a job where my values are more aligned, or we are doing good for the world.” A lot of companies are investing in social and environmental responsibility and a lot more are having conversations about the subject. But the sense is that they are not moving fast enough for their employees.

The people I have engaged with work in industries from finance, to automotive, events, healthcare, and consumer products. So it is not just one company, nor one industry. Everyone wants more meaning in their work. And if their companies are not moving in the direction to provide that deeper meaning, that sense of giving back to the greater good, then these good people are not going to hang around.

Many studies have shown that a passionate, values aligned employee is going to be more productive, more engaged and a real ally to one’s business. So if your company does not have socially or environmentally based values, you probably don’t have engaged employees.

It makes sense to most – engaged employees are good for business. And yet it is still a topic that doesn’t get much attention, nor gets connected to a company’s social and environmental or sustainability strategy, objectives and goals. When we only look at quarterly returns, there isn’t much motivation to invest into shifting the business to be more values based. And that is where unfortunately too many businesses sit today. There is a point when we work so much, dedicate so much of ourselves to our work that after 10 – 20 years we say, “And for what?” After being able to meet one’s basic needs, more and more people are asking the question, “what do I really need to earn and how much happier would I be to work AND help improve communities or the planet in that pursuit.”

Values have evolved and we all have a better idea of how the companies we work for impact others all over the world. That desire is a valuable Social Capital of our employees.
We work within a pretty complex global system, so if a company were smart and wanted to not only hold onto, but leverage their social capital by aligning business values with those of their employees would show positive results to the business.

Step one in keeping your great employees around: Take a litmus test of where your current strategy and values are and where the values of your employees are. Conduct a gap analysis. It isn’t hard. Organized companies will have a business strategy probably already developed. This is the plan of where you want your business to go in the next 1 – 10 years and how you are going to get there. Look at this strategy, are social and environmental values called out?

Step two, gather anonymous feedback: Ask questions like – what are important values in your life? How would you integrate those values into your job if you had the flexibility to do so? How would you change the way you work if those values were integrated? Would you, or how might you feel differently about working for this company if we aligned with those values?

Step three, share this with your employees: A company maybe surprised to know the results and hear directly from people how wide the gap is and their ideas for closing it. As more and more people are asking themselves the question, “Is this worth it? Can I risk everything to have more meaning?” companies should remember money is important, but it isn’t everything. There are a lot of social enterprises popping up for a reason. People know that they can contribute more to their lives and want to use work as a tool to do that. Make sure that you’re creating a business that keeps their best talent in house.

This post was written in partnership with Kim Carpenter
The Change Agent’s Coach  
Kim Carpenter is a professional marketing expert and business mentor for change makers who mean business. Over the past 20 years she’s helped businesses large and small, including the United Nations, non-profits and Fortune 500’s — to focus their efforts for maximum profitability and maximum positive impact in the world.

Embedding Sustainability into the Design Process

We are constantly trying to improve the sustainability of business. Yet often, these improvements come as an afterthought. Leadership expects the company to keep running "business as usual" and then for their sustainability team to swoop in at the end to critique, correct, and right any wrongs in sustainable choices - after almost all the choices have been made. 

A good example of this is in product design. Product designers, especially in the apparel industry, did not (usually) choose to design fashion to make the most mindful choices; more often, apparel designers followed that path because they are artists. They want to play with the all available palettes of colors and range of design materials to make unique new products that will wow the marketplace. As sustainability directors, our challenge is to not have these goals be at odds with one another. The choice isn't binary: sustainable or fashionable. We need to set realistic expectations that sustainability can be incorporated into every stage of the design process, not just become a burdensome checkpoint along the way to getting your final product made. 

 

 To make this relationship between sustainability folks and design teams successful, there needs to be a mutual understanding. One way we have found to solve this is engaging in a collaborative, iterative process.







We experience success by having an open dialogue: first, we as sustainability directors explain the risks the company is exposed to by not incorporating sustainability into business practices. Then, designers share their frustrations and how they perceive sustainability will interrupt or inhibit their ability to do their jobs. Next, we create and present what a "perfect" sustainability program would look like in the design team, simply to have the best outcome for sustainability possible without consideration of art, design, freedom of expression, etc. Finally, we sit down with the design team to work through making this process realistic and acceptable, instead of just a sustainability director's dream. Now that grievances have been aired and explanations have been made, people on both sides recognize their are reasons for the others' disagreement. We accept that changes need to be made and make them mindfully together.

Find the balance.

When sustainability professionals are allowed to do their jobs and design a thoughful, intentional process while appreciating the realities of business and product design,
When designers are allowed to share what their most important needs are while understanding that sustainabile choices are important as well,
When sustainability is embedded, from the beginning, in how your business does business,
Then, you will truly experience success.

Do Your Employees Care About Sustainability? Tips to get people on board with your Sustainability Goals

No matter how big or small the organization, companies everywhere are making new and exciting commitments to sustainability - externally and internally. 

But how much weight do your external sustainability commitments hold when inside your office you throw things away instead of recycling, leave the water running while you make copies, and generally don't set a good example. 

Changing behavior is not easy but in a supportive group environment you can prioritize actions that will foster a greater understanding of your sustainable business strategies. 

1. Offer Flexibility | Your employees are already busy. Study work patterns to identify opportunities to insert flexible sustainability training that works for their schedule not yours. Use digital, unique means of communicating this information. Let employees own their education.

2. Be Relevant | Make sure employees understand what sustainability means to them and their responsibilities. Forcing broad generic goals on hard working people will give you at best mixed results. Use focus groups to present sustainability goals and solicit real feedback on why these goals are meaningful to your employees. Recognizes differences between positions, teams, and departments. Cater sustainability information accordingly when you roll out sustainability programs.

3. Keep Current | One of the biggest complaints about all training is when resources and information are out of date. When designing the program, assign accountability for updating content, resources, and especially links (nothing shows you don't care about training by putting dead end links into current training). Get buy-in from everyone involved and make these responsibilities an important part of a job description. Creating a great sustainability training program is one thing; keeping it great is the real goal. 

4. Do It Together | Get everyone on board with your goals. Create team goals and declare and track progress publicly. Don't over promise; set one or two goals at a time to change behavior with a fun challenge. Do challenges for at least two weeks to start forming new habits. Assign team leads to motivate people and create ownership. 

5. Reward Learning | Think of non-monetary incentives. Offer opportunities for professional growth for individuals, teams, and departments. Offering experiential rewards that last long beyond the moment instead of one-time monetary or short-term rewards will save the business money, add more value for employees, and create longer term commitment and engagement in the important process of embedding sustainability in your internal culture. 

Do you have any other ideas or suggestions for employee engagement? Send your thoughts to mackenzie@sustainabilityinreview.com

Thank you!

Where-oh-where is "Away" and why do we throw things there?

Here at Sustainability in Review, we think a lot about our "stuff".

Where do it come from? Do we know where every part comes from? When we are done with it, where does it go?



Ever since we are little kids, we are taught a common phrase: "throw it away." Are you done with eating your snack and still have the wrapper? Throw it away. Did your toy break and we cannot fix it? Throw it away.

Something we have to change is this concept that there is this easy place called "away" where we can get rid of things. Our garbage dumps are heaping mountains of stuff that got thrown away. Our oceans are teeming with waste the size of countries. We even have trash floating around in  space. Space! Trash in the final frontier!

Our world grows more interconnected everyday - both in the physical (more people, more stuff, more waste) and the non-physical (the global economy, the internet, social media). We must start acknowledging that our small seemingly meaningless actions can and do affect the large, complex system.

We think the best way to change from the perception that it is easy to "throw it away" to there is no "away" and we have to be conscious and intentional with how we treat the end of life of our stuff is education about the other options. Before you throw it away think about a couple things:



1. Is there another option?
Can it be recycled? Can it be composted? Best yet, can someone else use it? Even if the whole item cannot be recycle, composted, or reused, can part of it be composted, recycled or reused? What are your other options? Change your perception of what is possible. 
2. Can my trash become someone else's treasure?
Reuse is the best option. Keep it circular. Keep stuff useful. With vast networks of makers, artisans, and upcyclers growing because of the new interconnectedness of the field, can you share some or part of your stuff with people who can repurpose it into something truly different and useful again?



3. Do I need another one?
After you have rid yourself of old stuff, how quickly do you need to replace it? That $5 t-shirt that ripped almost immediately that you just got rid of - do you need another $5 low quality t-shirt that you know you will be throwing away again soon? If you do need another t-shirt, can you find one of higher quality that you will be able to keep longer?

Appreciating How Things Are Made

I have just spent the past two weeks in China watching how things are made on a scale that is almost incomprehensible.

Making things has been an intimate part of human existence, making shelter, tools - and now things you could never imagine.  Who knew we needed a Hello Kitty shaped laser pointer for kitties?  But we did and we make it.

Interestingly in the USA there is an attention being put on the Makers Movement, which draws attention to the craft of how things are made.  When we understand all the details of how to make something, we appreciate it at such a different level than we would if we just bought the finished product.

cut fabric ready to be assembled

More often than not in the USA and Canada, we buy a lot of finished products.  The time to make something from scratch is almost impossible if we look at everything we use in our homes.

Let’s take the shirt you are wearing right now.  If you were going to make your own shirt at your dining room table right now - what would you need?

There are a lot of pieces to a shirt. We need fabric, thread, buttons, and labels, maybe your shirt has a print on it, and maybe it has elastic.  And we need to think where did the material for all of those things come from too?  The plastic in your buttons, the yarn for that fabric - how did it get to be
the color it is?

So why spend time talking about all the details it takes to make something? 

When I watch that shirt in a factory getting made, from receiving the fabric, counting out each button, cutting the fabric, setting it up in the sewing machine, sewing it, adding a pocket, washing it, pressing and then packaging it.

I can’t look at the clothes in my closet the same again.  I saw each part of my shirt, the details and intricacies of each piece and the time it took to build them and the materials that they are made out of and all of a sudden the way I valued my shirt changed.

Seeing the amount of time and care it took, I should know all of this in order to pay the true value of the product.

And the detail of making something also needs to include what is happening on the social and environmental side.  Were those workers paid fairly? Were their working environments safe? Was the water that left the factory treated correctly? That is only to name a few. 

My take away when I am making a purchase - any purchase, from a fork to tissue paper – is ask the questions: “How was this made?”, “What is this made from?, “What could the social or environmental impact be for this product?”, and "how will I value this product?"

Most of the time I am not going to have the answer, but asking the question gets me thinking and talking.  Since everything we buy has an impact and we all have the ability to ask questions and when we learn the answers, we make better decisions.

This is important to making change.

Chemicals: Villains of the Natural World...or Not

Recently, something fascinating was brought to my attention by a speaker on biomimicry. Interested in what that means? Read on to learn more...

There is a common misconception. This misconception is that chemicals are man-made hazards that pollute and threaten an otherwise chemical-free natural world.

Chemical [kem-i-kuh l] (noun)
1. a substance produced by or used in a chemical process.
2. of or relating to, used in, or produced by chemistry

Chemistry? Remember chemistry class? The science class that tried to teach you about the structure and property of substances and the changes they go through. And the Periodic Table of the Elements! Everyone knows that. But most of those elements didn't seem so evil...Carbon, Oxygen...the building blocks of life are contained in that colorful table.

So maybe chemicals aren't pure evil. Certainly combinations of them can be harmful to the health of living things - but chemicals are the building blocks of everything - natural and not.

There is this perception that the word "chemical" is evil, yet nature offers some incredible natural chemical solutions to very real world problems. Seashells inspiring self-assembling in nanotechnology. Plants inspiring biodegradable plastics made from CO2. Peacocks and butterflies inspiring color with light instead of pigments.

If we are going to truly understand chemistry enough to make real change - we need to stop villainizing chemicals and look to understand them instead. Biologists are being invited to the design table. Taking inspiration from nature to design for a sustainable future.

"Learning about the natural world is one thing. Learning from the natural world, that's the switch. That's the profound switch." -Janine Beynus, Biomimicry
Learn more at biomimicry.net
http://biomimicry.net/inspiring/

The Super Coolest Thing Ever

Remember to step back and appreciate the grandeur of what you do.

Recently attending a conference by Textile Exchange in Portland, Oregon, I listened to an amazing Nike bigwig - Adam - talk about the merits of sustainability at Nike. But Adam also brought up a point that was too good to not share.

He told a story where he was on the plane. The guy next to him was reading an article in a magazine about Nike releasing garments made from recycled water bottles. Thrusting the magazine into Adam's face, his eager neighbor exclaimed, "Have you heard about this bro? Water bottles into clothing?? That is the super coolest thing ever!"

At this point, Nike had been working on textiles from recycled water bottles for several years. Adam had been integral in this process, dealing with the growing pains of whether 50% waste or 20% waste was enough of a hurdle - or if zero waste was the only acceptable option. Hours and years of struggles with this a topic inspired less than a "just do it" feeling in the pit of Adam's stomach.

A little put off by his seat-buddy's overzealous introduction and feeling unamused with the subject, Adam leaned forward to respond when words suddenly hit him a little deeper -

That is the super coolest thing ever.

He thought: We make clothing out of water bottles. Something that didn't exist not too long ago. We found a way to recycle something hard on the environment and creating waste in our world. We are making a difference.

"You know what?" Adam conceded happily, "you're right. That is the super coolest thing ever."

This simple anecdote reminded me of how often when we work so hard towards a goal, churning on the problems and obstacles standing in our way for too long, we lose sight of how amazing and important the work we are doing really is. When you are feeling frustrated by minimal progress, staunch opposition, or just being stuck - let's step back and give our journey a chance to speak for itself.

The work we do is important - it will take years, many people, and lots of energy to take the little steps that eventually carry us over the finish line. The work we do is not easy - but the struggle makes us stronger and teaches us lessons for a better future. And, who knows? The work we do, when shown to an outsider - say, an excited dude on a place - might just be the super coolest thing ever.

Find out more about Nike uniforms made from discarded water bottles: http://www.ecouterre.com/nike-outfits-world-cup-teams-in-jerseys-made-from-recycled-bottles/
http://www.ecouterre.com/watch-how-nike-recycles-plastic-water-bottles-into-football-jerseys-video/

By Design, Not by Default

For a long time, there has been a major assumption about Sustainability in business. Not always explicitly stated, but clearly communicated through actions taken by the majority of businesses: Sustainability should happen by default.

Whether through the power of intrinsically-motivated leadership or due to the nature of the industry, some companies just "get it". Outsiders assume these leading companies default to sustainable actions - seemingly at odds with stakeholder interests or other business goals. 

Other companies wait until their hands are forced, by bad press from negative consequences of unsustainable practices or other means. These companies ignore sustainable options until they are in the middle of controversy and must respond quickly, without preparation, and often under the scrutiny of the public eye. 

But as a whole, people are beginning to recognize that true sustainable business practice must happen by design and not be default. Those first companies succeed not because they stick to sustainability despite good business sense - it is because they have incorporated sustainability into the core of their business strategy. Sustainability is a lens through which we can view our business practices and make decisions not to the detriment of stakeholder value, but to enhance everything we do as value creators. 

The other kind of company may not have holistically implemented sustainability into its business strategy - but still is beginning to recognize the value of considering sustainability as a highly effective method of risk management, as a tool for capturing more customer value through marketing, as a longer term and truer financial valuation of the company not just in the snapshot of today but as it will exist ten years in the future. 

So, wherever you are of the spectrum of completely integrating Sustainability into your business strategy or just looking to explore how sustainability can enhance your business strategy, grab your drafting pencils and blueprint paper. As in building anything else, constructing Sustainability into your business strategy starts from the foundation. It is a material with which we use to build structure and strength into our businesses - not a coat of green paint we apply liberally to the outside whenever green is en vogue. Sustainability ensures we will succeed, sustain, and thrive well into the future. 

Hello 2015

Hello 2015!
As another year comes to a close, we may find ourselves looking back - but we also are looking ahead. While we have many exciting projects with current and future clients to look forward to, we also want to make a commitment to be more present. Both in our lives, but also here on our blog. So expect to see lots more of us. Please don't hesitate to write in if you have any ideas you'd like to see a blog about or even share as a guest blogger. In this new year, we can't wait to bring you new content, new perspectives, new stories - as we begin another adventure at Sustainability in Review.