In her thought-provoking 2020 article, Laura Liswood exposes "The Illusion of Inclusion," where companies appear diverse but lack genuine inclusion. In this blog post I extend this idea to "The Illusion of Sustainability Impact Effectiveness," where businesses seem committed to sustainability but achieve minimal real impact. By adapting Liswood's Inclusion Stress Test, I drafted a version of the assessmnt that can be a usueful tool for companies to genuinely assess and enhance their corporate responsibility efforts across all dimensions.
This manual was originally drafted when I was astonished by the way how ‘doublespeak’ is being used in organisations to prevent change. Any change. Including – but not limited to – sustainability related ones.
It is a cynic-sarcastic-semi-realistic manual on how to be reasonably successful in disempowering an organisation. It is applicable to all areas that encompass change including innovation, sustainability, internationalisation, digitalisation and so forth.
This time around I want to make it explicit: If a company is not performing in sustainability terms, it as good as always down to senior leadership. Both, executive leadership – CEO, COO, CFO, CMO,
CSO etc. - as well as non-executive leadership at board level.
For one, arguably simplistic, reason: sustainability deliverables are oversteered by
‘higher priority’ KPIs. And what does mean? Fundamentally, it is down to decisions where the ball stops at the top leadership level.
Do you recognise these scenarios?
How does digitalisation impact and link to corporate responsibility? This is the question we look into in this post.
Combining the two disciplines results in a range of interesting questions. For example: If humans create non-human agents (e.g. in the shape of AI): For what, towards whom are these responsible? And: are they responsible at all - or is it their creator who is?
Corporate responsibility, business ethics, sustainability, ESG. Whatever the terminology there are three fundamental questions that underpin all decisions, actions, strategies in this regard. These questions are strategically relevant for any board of directors. Because they are the basis upon which fiduciary duty is constructed. And: they outline the framework within which the fiduciary duty of a board is bound to evolve over time.
Over a decade ago, Simon Sinek pointedly demanded: Start with Why.
Targeted at a then rather uninspiring marketing and branding industry, 10 years on is still as valid as ever.
Just now, we need to ask businesses: Why are you bothering with investing millions, and thousands of hours into sustainability?
Often the answer will be: because we have to. An answer just as uninspiring as the sales slogans Sinek was bashing a decade ago.
Because when it comes to Sustainability: Know your genuine Why. Or don't bother.
Unless the top line of company executives are held accountable for and judged by their contribution to the company’s risk management and mitigation efforts, including importantly CSR and sustainability performance, the company will struggle. Without senior commitment and engagement, the system only ever allows for minor ‘bug fixes’.
In a recent blog post, we referred specifically to ‘eco’ labels that you may find on an outdoor product – or its hang-tag. Of course the key question is: what labels that you may encounter when shopping for alpine kit, are (reasonably) trustworthy?
Here an overview.
In the discussions within companies around risk management and indispensable moves towards more sustainable processes and business practises, there’s habitually unmentioned elephant in the room, namely: Where, in all what needs to be done in the corporate world, does the responsibility of the individual factor in?