The journey towards running a more sustainable business can be a daunting one. Here are Beatrice Otto's tips on how, and where, to begin
- Be strategic
The first step for an individual organisation (business or public sector) is to figure out what sustainable design means for you, why you want to do it (to save money, improve performance, meet legislation) and how you could most benefit from it. View it strategically, not as a bothersome afterthought.
- Pick the low-hanging fruit
Assess where you have the greatest impact and start with the smaller or easier things first – most organisations are laden with low-hanging fruit and this can give quick and rich pickings. Furthermore, as one engineer put it, ‘fruit grows back’ – Dupont began an annual low-hanging fruit picking contest, and found that it had a momentum of its own – its employees kept finding new and better fruits to pick, year after year. Start with a brainstorm on where you could be in 10 or 25 years, building scenarios of future possibilities, then work backwards to what your first steps might be.
- Find a champion
No matter how well intentioned, sustainability can get side-tracked by apparently more immediate and pressing concerns, even if this can harm the organisation in the long run. Therefore, it tends to be most successful where it has a champion, preferably somebody with influence. Since sustainability tends to straddle functions, being multidisciplinary, a champion can stop it falling through the cracks because nobody 'owns' it.
- Form a team
Again, because of the multidisciplinary nature of sustainability, it's a good idea to bring in people from different functions. No one department can deliver it on their own, so aim for a mixed team including a combination of, for example, designers and engineers, finance, marketing, purchasing and strategy. Once formed, regular meetings can stop things losing momentum. Eventually, the concept will become embedded in people's everyday thinking, but this takes time and it needs nurturing until the benefits become apparent and people are comfortable with what it means.
- Win people's enthusiasm
A lot of the impetus for sustainability comes from negative-to-terrifying prospects such as `unless we change, we’re going to freeze/burn/drown...' This is not to belittle some very real threats we face, social and economic as well as environmental, due to our impact on nature. Yet it can make people feel less excited about the potential for sustainability, or simply overwhelmed by the scale of the problem. It’s perhaps better seen as a means to explore vistas of possibility, including the positive - begin with some back-casting or other scenario building technique, just to loosen up people's minds about how things could be. Try to help them get a taste for sustainability as if it were chocolate (‘Like a little nibble? Nice? Another piece? A whole bar?’) rather than pouring it down their throats like cod liver oil (‘Of course it tastes horrible, but it’s good for you’).
- Start early
Sustainability works best as an integral part of a process rather than an afterthought. If it can be introduced at the beginning of any product (or service) development discussion, it can save a lot of backtracking and grief later on, and is likely to yield far greater rewards – some companies have discovered unforeseen gains such as increased morale and productivity. They might start with a prosaic energy-saving step (better lighting) and discover that people can see better and have fewer headaches so work better – such added bonuses can dwarf the savings originally aimed for.
- Start small
If your organisation is new to sustainable design, try to choose manageable projects so people can try out its principles on familiar terrain. If they can see how it works they might feel more confident progressing to bigger or more daring projects.
- Start simply
There are software tools and hefty guides to sustainable design. Perhaps begin with a simple paper-based checklist, not to hand over to people with orders to work through it, but as a basis for exploring the elements of sustainable design and allowing them to discuss what feels most relevant and most manageable.
- Engage people and involve everyone
Perhaps set up an internal competition to see who can come up with the best ideas for a more sustainable way of operating. Many companies have been surprised not only by the number of good and profitable ideas this can generate, but by what it can do for morale and commitment; they’ve also discovered it can create a kind of informal training programme, with employees learning from each other. There are numerous examples of firms using company-wide suggestion schemes and seeing the rewards pile up.
- Don't be overwhelmed
Sustainability can seem like a vast area - it's easy to get a sense of how big it is, how endless the ramifications, how one thing can lead to another. The temptations can be to put it to one side and open a beer. Open the beer by all means, but don’t get bogged down in vastness or minutiae. There’s a lot you can do on intuition and common sense even if you can’t prove to the nth degree that material X is more sustainable than material Y because of variables of transport, weight and so on… Do the things that make most sense for and to you and you’ll learn as you go.