Peace, justice, partnerships and a strategic approach - 7/7 on business and the Sustainable Development Goals

Photo: Flags and goals, Liu Bolin. For more SDG images see the UN's media centre.

Now that the Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals) have had a chance to bed down, how are companies responding to them?  And what about the rather nebulous enabling goals 16 and 17 on peace, justice, strong institutions and partnership: how can businesses translate these into action? 

The seventh and final piece in my series on the SDGs, written for The Environmentalist magazine, is out now.  See it on their website here, or read the pdf version.

What makes a great partnership?

This series has featured many collaborations and partnerships.  Some, like the UN Global Compact, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development or the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development network, are for business and other players across the sustainability spectrum.  Others focus on specific issues or sectors, like the Sustainable Shipping Initiative, the Corporate Leaders Group (which is about climate change) and the C40 network of cities.

This kind of joint working can be disappointing, if clear shared goals and skilful convening are lacking. 

It’s also important to understand that there is a spectrum of collaborative working, from sharing information, coordination and cooperation through one-off collaborative projects and mainstream work delivered jointly right up to collaboration being the new business-as-usual.  Potential collaborators need to listen to each other’s assumptions about how they expect to work together, as well as what they want to achieve.

This spectrum, and other useful frameworks and tips, are explored in my book “Working Collaboratively: a practical guide to achieving more”. 

Strategic responses to the goals as a whole

In exploring what businesses are doing to respond the Sustainable Development Goals as a whole, I have found different approaches being used.

Some, like Acciona the Spanish renewables and infrastructure company, are using them to focus their corporate volunteering.

Cemex, BT and Samsung are among companies which are highlighting links to specific goals in their sustainability reporting.  GRI has mapped the SDGs against its reporting frameworks.

Many are using the SDGs to augment their materiality analysis.  Global consultancy firm PwC has developed a sophisticated and detailed tool which helps clients take their first steps in engaging with the goals.  Louise Scott who helped develop the Navigator tool, said

“Our detailed country-by-country research has helped companies spot things they didn’t realise were important, and catalysed conversations, grounded in geography, about where they can have the most impact.”

Novozymes is using the SDGs as part of filtering and prioritising in its innovation pipeline.  The company has gone further, linking its Executive Leadership Team’s bonus scheme to annual operational targets, derived in part from the SDGs.

Make some noise

DNV GL, the Norwegian-based multi-service assurance, standards and advisory business, is among those business services suppliers who are making some noise about the SDGs.  Bjørn Haugland is their Chief Sustainability Officer, and through his substantial twitter following and DNV’s publications he is spreading the word to businesses and helping shape the business response.

Influencing government action

Business has a powerful voice and can choose to use it to support, or undermine, robust government action in favour of sustainable development.  This is particularly important when it comes to policy coherence, which is targeted in Goal 17.

BT is part of the We Mean Business coalition – thousands of influential businesses and business groups working to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.  Over 120 coalition member companies have signed up to a commitment to responsible corporate engagement on climate change, promising to audit their activity, ensuring consistency and disclosing positions, actions and outcomes.

Across the suite of SDGs, Steve Kenzie Executive Director of the UN Global Compact in the UK, thinks companies should be “holding the Government’s feet to the fire”.

First, do no harm

Expert after expert told me that companies need to look hardest at where they may be – albeit inadvertently – undermining the SDGs.  Ruth Mhlanga, Oxfam’s Private Sector Policy Advisor, stressed

“It’s not just about opportunities, it’s also about responsible conduct and impact.  Don’t undermine one goal while tackling another.  Sustainability leaders will include those who support government efforts to govern for the common good and are willing to stand up to peers who undermine those collective efforts.” 

Collaborate to shift the system

Picking off the goals and targets which seem easiest could be a mistaken strategy, if the actions you take involve trading off progress on one front with undermining it on another.  In its research into the interconnections between the SDGs, The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) highlights an area ripe with what it calls ‘wicked trade-offs’: environmental protection versus reducing food prices.  IIASA found that the most effective win-win would be to reduce the proportion of meat in Western diets.

Oxfam’s Mhlanga also advocates collaborative, system-level action. 

“On issues like freedom of association, single companies can’t fix the problem alone.  Oxfam’s work on labour rights in Vietnam, for example, illustrated that unilateral action is insufficient because the issues are systemic across an industry.  But where companies, governments and civil society work together, making issues like suppliers paying a living wage precompetitive, then no one company is disadvantaged by competitors undercutting.”  

The Business and Sustainable Development Commission’s report "Better Business, Better World" was clear on the need for system-level change:

“ ‘Business as usual’ will not achieve this market transformation. Nor will disruptive innovation by a few sustainable pioneers be enough to drive the shift: the whole sector has to move. Forward-looking business leaders are working with sector peers and stakeholders to map their collective route to a sustainable competitive playing field.”

Stephanie Draper is Forum for the Future’s Deputy Chief Executive.  Looking at progress since the SDGs were announced, Draper said

“Successfully delivering the SDGs requires a really strong systems approach.  That means operating on three levels – joining up with others’ efforts to achieve individual goals; looking at the inter-relationships between all the goals, and delivering the goals in a way that models the characteristics we need for a sustainable society.”

Which brings us back to Goals 16 and 17, with their call for inclusion, participation and collaboration.

‘If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’

We need to go far. And we need to go quickly. So we’d better figure out how we’re going to do both.

Seven and out

You can read the series on The Environmentalist's website (IEMA login, subscription or free trial) or on my blog.

• Part one - introduction, Goals 1 and 5: poverty and gender, in The Environmentalist or on my blog.
• Part two - Goals 2, 3 and 4: hunger, health and well-being, education, in The Environmentalist or on my blog.
• Part three - Goals 6, 12 and 14: clean water, life below water and responsible production and consumption, in The Environmentalist or on my blog.
• Part four - Goals 13 and 15: climate change and life on land, in The Environmentalist or on my blog.
• Part five - Goals 7 and 11: cleaner energy and sustainable cities, in The Environmentalist or on my blog.
• Part six - Goals 8, 9 and 10: work, equality, innovation and growth, in The Environmentalist or on my blog.

Who will catch me when I fall?

Photo: Robert Tadlock, flickr

In the last couple of months I have taken up climbing again, after a break of about ten years.

It’s exciting.

The atmosphere at the indoor climbing centre I go to is upbeat, dynamic, friendly. 

When you hire out a carabiner and belay device - the small, beautifully engineered bits of metal which could save your life - the heavily pierced man in the hire shop will accept an RSPB membership card instead of a credit card as a deposit.   It’s that kind of place.

The background music is familiar and chosen to make you smile: ABBA, early 80s pop, 70s funk.

There are cheerfully written signs dotted around to point you to the café, yoga room and organic garden as well as to the more challenging ‘Stack’ and ‘Catacombs’ – fancifully named climbing walls.  Notices tell you that dogs are welcome, outside of peak times, but must not be tied to the safety equipment.  

There are people whose job it is to set routes that you climb on the walls.  They bolt on the brightly coloured artificial ‘holds’ in carefully planned patterns that allow for all levels: starting at an easy peasy grade 3 and carrying on right up to a surely impossible 8a.  They include tricky little challenges that you have to puzzle out and then implement – can I really get my foot that high and then push down on my hand to shift my weight on it?

Sometimes!

But don’t be fooled by the jollity and bright colours.  12 metres up is still 12 metres up, even if the holds you are balanced on look like spotted turtles or alien jellies.

I climb tied to a rope which runs from my harness through a metal chain fixed at the top of the wall, then drops back down to the bits of metal secured via another harness to my climbing partner.  This is known as “top roping” and the act of holding and carefully taking in the rope - which the non-climber does - is called ‘belaying’.  Your belay is the person in charge of making sure the rope will save you. 

Don’t worry, there is more to this post than a lesson in climbing terminology!

If you climb this way, with a partner who is your belay, there’s something a bit funny – in fact, a bit alarming - that I’ve been taught to do at the beginning of a session.

When you have climbed up high enough that your feet are above your belay’s head – around two metres - you are supposed to fling yourself from the wall, without warning the belay.

Why would you do that?

You fling yourself from the wall to prove to you both, the climber and their partner, that they will hold you.

And the beautiful symmetry of the partnership means that as soon as you are back on solid ground and have wiped the sweat off your hands onto your trousers, you swap over and belay your partner as they make their way up the route they have chosen.

You can also climb without a partner.

It’s not just humans who might stop the rope slithering through, halting your rapid descent and leaving you swinging gently instead of writhing in agony on the floor. 

Where I climb, there are also automatic belay devices – simple mechanisms which take up the slack rope for you and, like a car safety belt, stop you if you fall. 

So the thing keeping you safe when you climb – actually, keeping you safe when you fall - might be a person or it might be something else.  You test it just the same.  You fling yourself off the wall from a relatively safe position.

I am afraid of heights and I am especially afraid of falling.  Both those fears magnify a third fear – I am afraid of not being in control.

Even a couple of metres off the ground, I really don’t want to fling myself from the wall.  My palms sweat.  My feet - already in a gripping shape due to the tight, tight climbing shoes - curl further inwards in a reflex reaction to the very thought of falling.  They are trying to grasp the footholds.  I psych myself up and chicken out.

We fling ourselves from the wall at a safe height, so that we can be sure of being safe when we need to make a truly risky move twelve metres up.

Why we fling ourselves off the wall

In my life, I have put off doing some things that I really want to do, for fear of how bad it will feel if I fail.  I am afraid of the shame, the crushing of my self-confidence, the public humiliation.

Your fears may be different. These are mine and I suppose they must be very precious to me because I still cling on to them after all this time.

What’s enabled me to go ahead and do the exciting things anyway – including just in this last year - is my previous experience of coming back from failure and from the excruciating shame I feel when I think I have failed.

This fear of failing is strong stuff.

Even the anticipation of that shame is really powerful too.  I don’t have to actually fail, to feel the shame.  I just have to imagine it happening.

In fact my palms are sweating now!

I have lately come to accept that I will feel bad while I contemplate and plan my daring actions.  I will fall off the wall.  I still feel bad – I haven’t learnt to avoid the fear, and I’m not sure I ever will.  It’s more that I now see it as the price I pay for doing something really cool.  

I know that feeling bad is temporary.  I have strategies for feeling better again.  I have a coach, a 'thinking partner', supportive groups, yoga. When I fall, and I do, I am caught. 

Taking a test fall

I’m on the climbing wall.  My belay partner is relaxed and ready.  They have done this before, they trust the ironmongery and the rope.  They trust me.  They want me to experience the exhilaration and triumph of beating the challenge from the fiendish route-setter, of getting to the top.  

And yet, and yet….

OK, this is it. If I wait any longer, my pretend fall won’t be enough of a surprise to test the team. 

I reach for a hold with my arm, pushing away from the wall with my legs at the same time.  I’m airborne and falling for a split second, before the rope goes taut and I’m jerked to a stop.

And breathe.

A few minutes later, I’m 12 metres up, stretching for a hold I can’t quite reach, but launching towards it anyway because - what’s the worst that could happen?

I’m no gecko, but knowing I’m roped up to someone, or something, that will catch me means I’ve definitely left the grade 3 routes behind.

In fact, if I’d never fallen and been caught, I never would have made it beyond beginner graded climbs.

In our lives, we can all be climbers. We can all take practice falls.  We can all belay for someone else.

Over to you

·      What are you afraid of, that holds you back from doing the cool stuff? 

·      Who or what catches you when you fall?  

·      Who do you catch, when they fall?

Knowing that we will be caught when we fall – by a person or by something else - enables us to do greater things. 

Let us climb, fall, be caught. Let us catch others. 

First outing...

This blog post is based on a presentation I made at this weekly gathering of like-minded fellow-travellers. There's a periscope recording here. 

Final places remaining - book now! Still conversations for sustainability leaders

Just a week to go until the second ‘still’ conversation.  Here’s what some people thought of the first one

“Thank you, Penny, it was a really powerful event you created a wonderful opportunity to reflect, listen, think and learn.  A really enriching experience and I would encourage any of my network in the sustainability community to consider signing up for one or more of your other forthcoming 'still' conversations.  A very worthwhile investment for both senior managers or practitioner level.” Thomas Enright, former Head of CSR, Affinity Water

“Thank you for your generosity, kindness and skill in making such a trusting space possible.”  Kath Dalmeny, CEO, Sustain

“Penny has created a unique space to reflect and share experiences. The carefully facilitated session provided new insights and a real sense of shared purpose with the other attendees.”  Matt Loose, Director, SustainAbility

There’s just one space left for next Wednesday, 12th April.  To find out more and book that place, click here.  The third 'still' conversation in this season is about getting sustainability into your organisation's strategy, and will be on 10th May.

To be kept informed about future ‘still’ conversations, drop me a line at still@penny-walker.co.uk

Work, growth, innovation and equality - Sustainable Development Goals and business

Stonewall and P&G's work to promote equality for LGBT staff in Spain, Rype Office's repurposed office furniture for Public Health Wales, Willmott Dixon Interiors working with the Amber Foundation to help vulnerable youngsters into work... These are just some of the businesses featured in part six of my seven part series for The Environmentalist on how business can help support the SDGs.

Credit: Nicki Priem.   Mafikizolo raised a flag to represent Goal 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth, at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, South Africa, to support the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

Learn more...

You can read the article in its proper home, The Environmentalist magazine here, if you are an IEMA member or a subscriber.  Or if you sign up for a free trial. 

If that all sounds like too many clicks, there's a pdf of it here.

Where next for your sustainability strategy?

In these turbulent days, with right-wing populist movements rising and an unpredictable political context, you may be asking yourself how this should be reflected in your sustainability strategy. 

Perhaps there are critical business and organisational issues which need addressing, regardless of political uncertainty. 

Or are you looking at what the Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals) mean for the materiality analysis and the opportunities for collaboration that they bring.

If you are pondering these questions - or others - about your sustainability strategy and would like to think aloud with peers facing similar choices, do take a look at the second of this season of still conversations: where next with my sustainability strategy.

There are a few places still available, and you'll be in conversation with sustainability specialists from a major high street bank, an engineering company, a local authority and others.

Personal resilience hits a nerve

Image: David Caines

Every single place at this first still conversation has been snapped up - its theme of personal resilience has clearly touched a nerve.  Coming along are people like the CEO of a sustainability NGO, the head of sustainability at a local authority, the group sustainability manager at a nationally known construction company and a director from a pioneering sustainable business think tank. 

Why is it so popular? 

Trump and Brexit have a lot to do with it: turbulence, uncertainty, and the sudden swing from new orthodoxy to populist backlash mean that we need to recharge our batteries and gird our loins for new struggles.

The bad news in the data about things like temperature rise, ice melt and coral reefs lead to real grief and disempowerment.  Seeing how hard-hearted some of our fellow citizens are about people who are not ‘like them’ can make us question our assumptions.

It is right that we should examine how we are doing things.  And still conversations promise a chance to do that in a wholly supportive, trusting and nurturing way.

I’ll be running a waiting list, so do get in touch if you would like to join that.  And with this level of interest, it’s likely to run again and you can be among the first to know.

Other still conversations

In April our theme will be 'where next with my sustainability strategy', and in May we'll talk about 'getting sustainability into the organisation's strategy'.  If you're a sustainability leader and these themes appeal to you, please take a look.

Still...... a new season of workshops for spring

Images: David Caines

I'm very excited about this season of workshops that I'm piloting - still conversations. 

It's a vision I've had for a while, and it's begun to take shape over the last six months.

The groups will be small - a maximum of ten people in each conversation.  The atmosphere will be easeful, open, creative.  People will learn from each other and from the opportunity to think aloud with others who understand what it's like to grapple with sustainability - trying to move fast enough while bringing others with you; finding the authentic way to be truthful and motivating. 

To begin with, I'm offering three conversations on different topics and people can come to one, two or all three.  The themes are:

• personal resilience for sustainability leaders - sold out.  If you would like to added to a waiting list, or to be notified if this session runs again, please email still@penny-walker.co.uk.
• where next with my sustainability strategy
• getting sustainability into my organisation's strategy

It's an experiment, so the price is deliberately low with discounts (for multiple bookings, self-funded people, people who took part in the survey earlier in the year, IEMA members).  So it's just £100 plus VAT for a single session (discount if you book more than one).  And I'll be looking for feedback on how to make them as useful as possible for people.

It's a chance to take time out and be still. Think aloud with other sustainability leaders. 

I've emailed and sent personal invitations to people via LinkedIn, and the feedback is that now, more than ever, those who don't already have these kind of supportive professional-yet-personal networks in place are keen to get involved.  The Personal Resilience theme is definitely striking a chord.  

Find out more and make a booking here.  

Clean energy, thriving cities: Sustainable Development Goals #5

Qiciao and Qixi, a pair of giant panda twins, inspect a flag to represent Goal 7, Affordable and Clean Energy, raised at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China, to support the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Credit: Mr. Yuan Tao and Ms. Yan Lu

Bringing affordable off-grid renewables to remote communities in developing countries; using cutting-edge data analysis to save money and carbon in modern buildings; micro-managing students' energy use to balance the national grid: some of the brilliant things that are featured in the latest of my series on how businesses are helping contribute to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. 

This article in The Environmentalist also looks at making cities more sustainable: better buildings, convenient and reliable public transport and new technology which helps blind and partially sighted people navigate and enjoy the neighbourhood.

You can read it online here (IEMA login or subscription, or take a free trial) or there's a pdf version here.

What do we need now, from sustainability leaders?

Belaying. Aimee Custis Photography, flickr.

When I got the news about the US Presidential election result, I went through a lot emotions that I'm still processing.

One that may have been shared by those of you who are looked to for leadership - in ways big or small - was uncertainty about what to say to people who are wanting guidance.

I had to think about this pretty quickly, as I'd been asked present on leadership in the closing session of a four-day workshop on sustainable business.

So what now?

What kind of leadership do we want, what kind of leaders do we need to be, when the going gets really tough?  For me, it boils down to resilience and responsibility.

Resilience

It will be tough. There will be defeats and failures.  People will try to stop the things we are working for.  For some of us the challenges will be unbearably hard.  For some of us they already are.  (I know I speak from a position of privilege as a white, well-educated, able-bodied, straight, comparatively wealthy person from a Christian cultural background - I don't know I'm born.)

Part of what defines stepping up to lead - wherever we find ourselves - is that we are resilient and find ways to continue the work, especially when it is tough.

This doesn't mean that we can't take time out - rest, recharge, recuperate, get some R&R - these things are part of keeping ourselves resilient.

As Rabbi Tarfon said:

It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.

Responsibility

Knowing isn't enough.  We need to take responsibility.  Find the intersection between what we think is needed and what we are able to do, and step into that space.  If you are there already, thank you.

If you are able to step up, thank you.

What if you're not sure, yet, what is in that intersection?  Then keep doing the good you were already doing, and when you are sure you can step up. You're unlikely to be doing harm in the meantime.

Collaborate and support

Not all of us need to be leaders all the time.  Being a great supporter is an essential job too.  The climber relies on the woman belaying, in the picture. If the work you are doing is to enable and empower others to lead, thank you.

The event

The workshop was part of the 2016 Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Value Chains, part of the suite of brilliant executive education on sustainability offered by the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership.  Thanks team for asking me along!  The full slide set I used is here.

Campaigners, community groups, activists and faith groups - run your business meetings better so you can get on with the important stuff!

Five minute meeting makeover.

If you're involved in a local group - campaigners, activists, community action, faith group - there will be some really important things you want to achieve in the world.  And you'll have some kind of team, committee, council or similar organising the activities behind the scenes.  How are those meetings?  Clear, engaging, effective?  Or dull, interminable, frustrating, repetitive?

I've led a couple of two-hour training sessions this year for groups on how to run meetings which make clear decisions that stick.  So that they can spend time on doing the stuff that really matters.

Here are the handouts from the workshop I ran in mid November.  

If you think your group would benefit, get in touch to see what I can do to help you. 

Peer learning workshops - some emerging ideas

I'm excited about ideas for peer learning workshops that have been bubbling away in my head and are beginning to take shape.

Focused, coachy, peer learning

I want to bring together sustainability people of various kinds, to be able to talk with each other about their challenges and ideas in a more expansive and easeful way than a conference allows. 

People really benefit from being able to think aloud in coaching conversations.  I've seen the transformations that can happen when supportive challenge prompts a new way of looking at things.

We also get so much from comparing our own experiences with peers: finding the common threads in individual contexts, exploring ideas about ways forward. 

I’d like to combine these things by making the peer learning available in smaller groups and smaller chunks, where the atmosphere is more like coaching. 

What's the idea?

The idea is to run half-day workshops, with between 6 and 10 people at each event. The intention is that they are safe and supporting spaces, where people can talk freely.  We'll meet in spaces that are relaxed, creative, private, energising and feel good to be in.  (More comfortable than the stone steps in the picture.)

Each workshop would have a theme, to help focus the conversations and make sure people who come along have enough in common for those conversations to be highly productive.

I'd run a few, on different themes, and people can come to one, some or all of them.  They don't have to come to them all, so the mix of people will be different for each workshop.

I'd charge fees, probably tiered pricing so that it's affordable for individuals and smaller not-for-profits, but commercial prices for bigger and for-profit organisations.

The content of each workshop will come from the participants, rather than me: my role is to facilitate the conversations, rather than to teach or train people.

Choices, dilemmas, testing

When I've tested this idea with a few people, many have said that the success of the workshops will depend on who else is there: people with experience, insight, credibility.  People they feel able to trust, before they commit to booking.  I think this is useful feedback.

On the other hand, I'm unsure about the best way to ensure this.  Is it enough to include a description of "who these workshops are for" and leave it to people to decide for themselves?   Or should I set up an application process of some kind: asking people who apply to include a short explanation of who they are, what their role and experience is, and why they want to come along.

If I set up an 'application' process, will that be off-putting to the naturally modest?  Too cumbersome?  Adding extra steps (apply, wait, get place confirmed, then pay...) feels risky: at each step, the pool of likely participants will get smaller.  Will this make the workshops unviable?  Who am I to choose, anyway?

Another option is to make the workshops 'by invitation' with people having the option of requesting an invitation for their friends, peers, colleagues - or even themselves.  This is what I'm leaning towards at the moment, based on gut feel.

Will this increase people's confidence in the workshops - that not just anyone gets a place, their peers will provide quality reflections and be people worth meeting? Will it make those people who do get an invitation feel special, better about themselves?

And will I really turn down anyone who asks for an invitation?  What will they feel?

I've set up a survey to gather views on this, as well as on the topics that will be most interesting to people.   Please let me know here where's there a short survey. Discounts and prizes available!

How it feels to experiment

I'm not a natural entrepreneur.  Some people love to experiment and learn from failure.  Fail faster.  Fail cheaper.  Intellectually I'm committed to experimenting with these workshops: testing out ideas about formats, marketing, pricing, venues, topic focus vs emergence, length, the amount of 'taught' content vs 'created' content and so on. 

Emotionally: not so much. I want to get everything right before I start (which is why it's taken me about six months to even get to this stage).  I'm getting great support from lots of people, and boy do I need it.  Even sitting here, I can feel the prickly, clammy, cold physical manifestations of the fear of failure. 

I need to move through the fear and into the phase of actually running some test workshops.  I know they'll be great.  I can see the smiles, feel the warmth, visualise the kind of room we're meeting in and the I already have the design and process clear.  I have a shelf of simple but beautiful props in my office.  I am 100% confident about the events themselves, it's the communications and administration of the marketing that freaks me out.

Learning from the learning

So already I'm learning.  About myself, about what people say they need, about how venues can be welcoming or off-putting, about how generous people are with their time and feedback.

Sweet like chocolate - protecting Earth's life support systems

In the fourth of my series on business and the Sustainable Development Goals, I found out about how Nestle and Mondelez are working to secure their long-term supply of cocoa,  about how companies are calling for greater action on carbon emissions and how the pension fund of England's environment regulator is divesting from fossil fuels.  This part of the series looks at Goal 13 Climate Action and Goal 15 Life on Land.

You can see the article over at The Environmentalist's website here.  Login if you are a subscriber or an IEMA member, or register for a free trial.  If that's not for you, the pdf is here.

Explorer Inge Solheim raised a flag representing Goal 13, Climate Action, in the community closest to the North Pole, to support the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Image c/o Global Goals media centre.

She is Sustainable - sustaining the sustainers

Vertically, horizontally or circularly ambitious? Mothering or child-free, by choice or randomness? Urban or rural? Partnered for life or a free agent? Gay or straight or something else? Employed, entrepreneur or freelance?

Women who work in sustainability are all these things and more. 

She is Sustainable was invented by five UK-based sustainability women (Becky Willis, Solitaire Townsend, Amy Mount, Hannah Hislop and Melissa Miners) who thought

Every woman makes decisions about her career, her ambitions and her family. As five women who have shared their learnings, successes and failures, we know one thing for sure – there’s a lot we can learn from each other.

We want to take time out to talk about women and changing the world. Not about politics, but about personal lives and choices.

That’s why we organised She Is Sustainable: London in February 2016, a two-day gathering for women working in sustainability, allowing women to share their stories and take part in discussion sessions on all aspects of women’s work and life.

She is Sustainable spawns sprogs

Becky and the rest of the gang weren't intending or expecting that SiS would become a thing, but it has. There have been SiSs in Cambridge and Lancaster, organised on the same shoe-string lines, for love, to give younger women at the start of their sustainability careers a chance to hear from older women who've journeyed ahead of them and have a few of the battle scars to prove it.

I was lucky enough to get involved with SiS Lancaster, offering some facilitation support while I mulled on my own life and my idea for a SiS for older women.  I can see links with coaching, with peer learning and with the kind of support that sustainability change agents are crying out for, in my experience.

academic insights

The Lancaster event was beautifully organised by Becky Willis and Jess Phoenix, with support from the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business, part of the Lancaster University.  Being run at the university meant that we got to hear from some brilliant women who could bring us rigorous academic insight into gender and sustainability leadership. 

Prof. Judi Marshall, whose work on the lived experience of being a sustainability change agent I've admired for years, shared insights on 'insider outsiders' and the role of gender in this. The cultural assumption and unconscious bias about the credibility and prestige of men means that there are difficult choices to be made about guest speakers at events: in the short term, is it better for our cause to have male contributors, because people will listen to them more?

We also heard from Prof. Gail Whiteman about the uncomfortable experiences early in her career which were "precious" because "they tell you what's important to you". Gail set up the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business and is bringing arctic ice to the attention of global boardrooms.  Literally. She's got plans to establish an arctic base camp at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Now that I'd like to see.

To complete the trio of professors, Prof. Caroline Gatrell shared stats on the place of women in leadership including the glass cliff: women are more likely to access top positions during periods of crisis or risk.  Maybe it's because they are seen as more creative or more safe. Maybe it's because they are seen as expendable. Theresa May springs to mind, as do Margaret Beckett and Harriet Harman who have both 'held the fort' for Labour between 'proper' leaders.

what was it like?

As well as these insights from academic research (and the academic life), She is Sustainable made room for more personal life stories from older women, and lots of sharing among participants. The atmosphere was so warm and supportive, as well as being inspirational.  Younger women heard from older women and from each other about their careers in sustainability and how these interwove with life choices and unchosen circumstances.

We spoke together about following your heart and using your head, about finding your place and moving on. We shared experiences about balancing career with caring responsbilities, and about the different kinds of women we can be and want (or don't want) to be.

We used random everyday objects to open up about how we see ourselves as women who work in sustainability.

The world's most disappointing tombola...

Speaking about the unspoken

I was lucky enough to facilitate two open space sessions, where topics were proposed which perhaps might not have been if the group had not been women-only.  Yes, there really was a session on periods and yes, there really was quite a lot to be shared and discussed about the impact of menstruation on work.

There was everyday sexism in the stories: the woman whose junior male colleague was addressed as the boss all the way through a business meeting; the casual assumptions about who will take the notes and make the tea. 

And there was conversation about racism, ethnicity and being a woman of colour in the sustainability field.

Yes, we did talk about periods in the open space session.

She is (still) sustainable

I went along partly to test out my guess that SiS could be tweaked a bit to provide a brilliant way for older women to discuss their choices: if you're mid-career, would it be useful to consider what's next?  Perhaps it's an "after children" conversation, or perhaps one about daring to take the next step upwards or sideways. Perhaps it's about being ready to change direction, to slow down or branch out.  or to take on your biggest challenge yet. Perhaps its about how you keep credible and energetic when your body is starting to let you down.  

I don't know what the conversations are that sustainability women at this later stage will want to have, but I do know that there was enthusiasm for the idea when I tested it, and I am brimming with ideas about how to adjust the SiS approach for this group of women. 

Let me know what you think!

Fresh water, salty water and sustainable resource use - business and the Sustainable Development Goals #3

Free diving world champion Umberto Pelizzari, raised a flag to represent Goal 14, Life Below Water, off the coast of Formentera, to support the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Credit: Enric Sala. http://www.globalgoals.org/media-centre/

In the third of my series on what business can do to support the Sustainable Development Goals, published in The Environmentalist, I look at goals 6 clean water and sanitation; 14 life below water and 12 responsible consumption and production.

I found lots of interesting action - most of which predates the SDGs - and was able to squeeze in impressive strides in reducing water use by Levi Strauss, Maersk Group starting to shift the entire ship breaking sector through its work in India and some head-to-head competition between Tesco and Sainsbury's on reducing food waste.  And much more...

You can read the article in its rightful home on The Environmentalist's site here, or if you're not an IEMA member or a subscriber you can download a pdf here.

The inevitable referendum blog post - what now?

I'm really sorry

A former colleague of mine is researching whether he's entitled to German citizenship because his Dad was born in Leipzig. His Dad was brought to the UK aged 3, to escape Nazi persecution. The colleague is looking into this because his own young daughters are aghast at having their opportunities to live and work in the European Union so drastically curtailed. The layers of irony are inexpressible. 

A young woman I know lives and works in London.  We met this morning, and she was in tears. She's German. She's fearful about her job and her life here. She's feeling alone and unwelcome.

Social media is full of examples of people being openly and aggressively racist towards white Europeans, and also towards the more familiar victims of such abuse: headscarf-wearing Muslims, people of colour, foreign-looking or sounding.  The result seems to have given people permission to unleash their worst selves. It's hard to practice assuming good intent.

Like another former colleague, I feel the need to keep apologising to friends and neighbours: it wasn't me, I voted remain, I stood in the rain handing out leaflets.  I'm really sorry.

A little bit of theory

In conflict resolution, there's a neat conceptual framework which helps explain how to find common ground in the face of irreconcilable positions.   PIN - Position, Interest, Need - basically invites you to ask 'what would that give you?', when faced with a positional statement. By telling each other about their interests and needs, the common ground shared by seeming opponents can be found and potentially expanded.

A referendum is a positional situation par excellence.  The question has two - and only two - possible answers, which are mutually incompatible.  

‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’

It's designed to oblige people to declare a position with clarity, to be definitive.

It's clear now that people had many distinct, different reasons for voting 'leave' - some of which were tangential to EU membership.  But the binary referendum question doesn't make nuances and reasons explicit - we have to guess the motivations.

What we need are conversations which help us understand the interests and the needs.  And I think it's best if the conversations are about the future (what country we want to become, what we want our relationship with EU to become) rather than the past (why we voted (or didn't) how we did) and who misled who.

understanding each other

I have heard a lot of remain supporters talking about the need to heal, reconcile, understand the complaints of leave supporters.  And at least one notable leave supporter, Dominic Raab, spoke on BBC Question Time today (Sunday) about the need to reach out to the 48% who are 'nervous' (14m50s onwards). 

This is not a question of wise, insightful people in one camp understanding the baffled and misinformed in another camp so that they can persuade them more effectively.  That is doomed to fail.

As Karen Armstrong says,

Do not enter into dialogue unless you are prepared to be fundamentally unsettled.

That kind of dialogue only works if people from all the perspectives want to enter into it. If they want to better understand each other.  If they actively want to find common ground and move forward together.  If they want to test and discover the

...far more in common than that which divides us.

The purpose of a new conversation

I think there is a role for deliberative conversations about two related questions.

• What kind of relationship do we now want with the EU?
• What kind of country(ies) do we want to build and how shall we do that?

The first is important because the mandate to leave didn't contain within it any detail about what kind of leaving people were voting for.

This second is important because leaving EU won't solve the all the problems that leavers hope it will solve, just as remaining wouldn't solve all the problems that remainers want it to.

Who could convene it?

Some people have been enjoying the idea that no-one wants to hold this particular dirty-nappied baby.  "You touched it last" is being played and it's giving rueful remainers a good laugh.  Who should lead the Article 50 negotiations?

I'm attracted to the idea of a national unity Government of some kind, a thought echoed by Giles Fraser on the same edition of Question Time.  Whether or not that is what we get, some body with the power to implement the mandate and which has some degree of credibility with leavers and remainers of many perspectives, could convene or commission this kind of process.

And if we are in the business of organising or convening those conversations, we need to be careful to scrutinise our own assumptions - 'they' only voted like that because they were misled by campaigners or the media, because they are old or poor or badly educated, or because they are young and wealthy and have degrees. Patronising and looking down on others is not a good way to enter into dialogue. If you can't keep your personal perspectives out of the room, then join in as a participant, not as a facilitator.  The facilitators will have their work cut out, helping people listen to each other with respect.

Whether or not the negotiators choose to listen to the deliberations, we need to understand each others needs and concerns with compassion and empathy which outshines what we've managed over the last few weeks.

Petitions, legal technicalities and clutching at straws

I - bitterly sorrowfully - regret the result of the referendum.  I wish it hadn't been called.  I wish the campaigns had been more honourable and honest, less shrill.  Less about rich white men deciding which of them gets to run Daddy's estate.  But I think the campaigns to seek a re-run or treat it as advisory are futile and a bit dangerous in themselves: perpetuating the positional divisions and putting off the time when we being to find common ground again.  Remain supporters look like sore losers, and that will cement the views of those who voted leave as a response to feeling disenfranchised and alienated.

What the result changes, and what it doesn't

The laws, taxes, spending programmes, climate change commitments we end up with will continue to be negotiated and decided on by politicians influenced by campaigners, lobbyists, the media and more-or-less formal test of public views.  This will continue whether we are in the EU or not.  I'm not convinced that trying to stop Brexit is the right strategy. (I reserve the right to change my mind, unlike referendum voters.)

Far more important to me, right now, is the agglomeration of individual conversations and interactions we have with each other - person to person. The referendum has shone a brutal light on divisions in our country, which are echoed and repeated across Europe and elsewhere.  How shall we live together, in an increasingly frightening and resource-constrained the future?  How shall we distribute power, agency, resources more fairly?

How shall we make sure that when the floods come, we rise out of the water carrying each other and not carrying guns?

Give your collaboration some backbone!

All collaborations need a strong, flexible backbone, holding it all together, channelling communication and letting the interesting bits get on with what they’re really good at.  I first came across the term ‘backbone organisation’ in the work of US organisation FSG, writing about what they call collective impact, but the need for a central team of some sort has been obvious throughout my work on collaboration.   

What is the 'backbone' and what does it do?

Sometimes called secretariat, host or convenor, the role of the central team encompasses three kinds of activity:

• Helping the collaborators identify and build on common ground, and resolve differences of view (facilitation);
• Being a secretariat – a point of contact, repository of information and supporting the terms of reference or other governance of the collaboration;
• Project management or coordination roles in both governance-related activities, and the ‘doing’ of the work of the collaboration- although I have a big caution around this, which is explored below.

Reassuring the collaborators about how collaboration works

The central team also needs to have a keen understanding of how collaboration works, so that they can help the collaborators negotiate the inevitable challenges that arise (see series of posts on six characteristic challenges of collaboration).  They also need to be able to spot when the collaborators are relying on them too much to do the work of the collaboration – which should really be done by the collaborating organisations.  If the collaborating organisations can’t put their own time and resources into the work, then this raises questions about their commitment to the outcomes that the collaboration is seeking to achieve.  Perhaps they haven’t found joint outcomes which are truly compelling, and shouldn’t be collaborating.  The central team can help them spot this warning sign, and reflect on it.

So the central team needs skills which enable them to do a range of things, from top-notch administration to in-the-room facilitation skills and a good dose of assertiveness.

Does the backbone need to know, and care, about the issues?

Do they need technical knowledge about the subject that the collaborators are working on?  Do they need a commitment to the agenda or cause?

There are a couple of ways in which expertise and passion can be a downside.  This may seem a bit heretical, so I’ll explain my thinking.

When a collaboration begins, then the central tasks probably need to be shared among the potential collaborators, and shoe-horned into people’s already busy day jobs.  But very soon there will be more work of the facilitation and secretariat kind than can be easily accommodated in that way.  So dedicated resource is needed.  What might happen next?  Here are some scenarios.

Organisation A is passionate about the potential of the collaboration to meet its own goals, and steps forward to offer that resource.  There’s space in its office, and a staff person is put on the case.  Very soon, all the collaborators begin to see it as Organisation A’s ‘project’.  The staff person’s line manager sees it that way too.  Organisation A becomes too influential in the decision-making, and also sees itself as carrying the other collaborators.  The commitment which led them to step forward is fabulous. But it unbalances the collaboration, which collapses back into being a set of less engaged supporters of Organisation A’s work.

In another collaboration, Organisation B is contracted to provide the central role.  They are answerable to a small mixed board of some kind, and so the decision-making continues to be balanced and shared between collaborators.  But Organisation B was chosen for its technical knowledge, rather than its skills in collaboration.  Perhaps it gave a very keen price for its services, because of its commitment, which added to the attractiveness of its offer.  Organisation B has lots of opinions on what the collaboration should be doing and either wants to influence the content, or becomes too much of a delivery organisation rather than a facilitative organisation.  The collaborators begin to view it as the sole way that the collaboration is ‘doing’ its work, and their own active commitment to using internal resources and expertise in a coordinated way to meet the collaboration’s outcomes begins to fade.  

Organisation C is a purpose-led non-profit with ambitious goals.  It decides to convene a collaboration around one of those goals.  The collaborators who come together agree with the goals, but individually are not so committed or ambitious.  Organisation C finds itself acting either as a facilitator of conversations between the collaborators (but frustrated at its inability to input its own ambitious ideas) or as a challenger and motivator to higher ambition (and therefore agreeing with some collaborators and not others, compromising its ability to facilitate).

Can one of the collaborators be the backbone?

My strong advice would be to avoid this if at all possible.  It is very hard to avoid the pressure from the rest of the organisation to ‘make’ the collaboration do X or Y.  And it’s also very hard to counteract the slide towards it being seen as something other than collaboration. 

Should the backbone have commitment and expertise in the content?

This can work, but there are risks which the collaborators and central team need to be alive to: having all the ‘actions’ dumped into the centre, and getting the balance of challenge vs neutral facilitation right.  Collaborations need both an ‘organic leader’ and an ‘honest broker’.  There’s more on how this might be done in this blog post.

Real-world collaborations

When I was writing Working Collaboratively, I interviewed a few people about this.  Craig Bennett, currently Executive Director of FOE EWNI, told me about his time convening the Corporate Leaders Group.

“If you have more than a small number of parties, then don’t underestimate the value of proper neutral facilitation and a secretariat.”

Whether that third party role should be truly neutral was less clear.  Signe Bruun Jensen of Maersk Line valued the facilitation combined with the challenge and conscience role that Forum for the Future brought to the Sustainable Shipping Initiative:

“You need that challenger role.  If you can find it in a facilitator then great – he or she can help create a sense of urgency and purpose that pushes the process along. I think the real challenge is for the facilitator – whether he or she can balance that potential conflict of interest. That’s why we ultimately decided to split the role in the later stages of the process.”

While you can buy in a neutral facilitator (if you have the resource to do so), you cannot invent a trusted, powerful ‘organic’ leader - who has credibility among the collaborators, understands the subject and has ambition for transformative solutions - if they are not already in the system.

You may be such a person, or you may need to get such a person on board. 

Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director of Forum for the Future, has been involved in catalysing many collaborative initiatives, including the Sustainable Shipping Initiative.  He said:

“You have to be able to get the right people into the room at some stage. If you don’t have that ability yourself you have to find someone who has.”

So you need that ambitious, challenging, exciting expertise. Heart, guts, brain. And you need, separately, your backbone.

What are your 'engagement aims'?

Three purposes of engagement - the engagement triangle

I love helping teams plan their engagement at an early stage of their thinking.  It's often done in a workshop, and we end up with an excellently solid shared understanding of what their engagement process is for, which then guide choices about methods, sequencing, aims for individual elements of the process and which stakeholders to engage.

One of the hardest disciplines to stick to - and yet one of the most useful - is to get really clear about the (multiple) engagement aims.

Sometimes known as the Public Engagement Triangle, this way of understanding "engagement aims" was developed originally by Lindsey Colbourne as part of her work with the Sciencewise-ERC, for the Science for All Follow Up Group.

The triangle helps the team get clear about:

• What they need to transmit to people outside the team - more everyday words like 'tell', 'educate', 'raise awareness', 'inspire', 'persuade' also fit under this heading. 
• What they need to receive from people outside the team - 'ask', 'insight', 'research' which might include both objective facts and opinion or preferences.
• What they need to collaborate with people outside the team, to 'create', 'decide', 'agree', 'develop'.

There are a few more things to note about engagement aims.

Aligned with "what's up for grabs"

Engagement aims should align seamlessly with "what's up for grabs": if you've really already decided there will be a new range of water-efficiency equipment in your stores, don't ask people whether you should start selling it. Tell them you are going to.  Ask them what would make the range successful, or collaborate with them to co-design a promotional partnership.  

If you have preferences about the range (price points, supplier's sustainability credentials) then tell people about these so that their responses can take appropriate account of those criteria.

If you are entirely open-minded about some aspects, then people can have free rein to come up with ideas.

Be clear who is deciding what

If you are asking people for information, ideas, options and so on, make sure that you tell them who is making the final decision, or how it will be made. People very often mistake consultation (a receive activity) for shared decision-making (which sits in the collaborate corner). 

Voting in a local council election is shared decision-making: the number of votes completely determines who wins the seat.  Consultation on a planning application gives members of the public an opportunity to voice their perspective, elected councillors may take those views into account when determining the application.  Once the decision has been made, the planning authority will then tell people what the decision is.

In particular people interpret mechanisms which look like voting, as meaning that decision-making power has been devolved. Hence the grumpiness about Boaty McBoatface.

Consensus is a way of reaching a decision in a collaborative setting (although it is not the only one).  If you are receiving views (and then making the decision yourself) then, while it can be interesting to discover areas of consensus, it is not essential. Understanding the range of views (and the needs and concerns that underlie them) can be as useful.

The aims will change as the process unfolds

Just as the things which are fixed, negotiable and open will change over time, so will the engagement aims.  During an option-creating phase, things are likely to be more collaborative as people co-create possibilities.  You are also likely to want to receive a wide range of views and information.  Once options have been identified, then preferences and feedback are useful, but you may not want to encourage people to come up with entirely new options.  (Of course, if none of your options are acceptable, you may well need to to do this.  In effect you will be going back to being open, rather than having negotiable options.)  And when you've decided on a fixed outcome, tell people. 

Aims for individual activities within the wider process

Some activities are brilliantly suited to tell aims, others to ask aims and some to collaborate aims.  A feedback form on a newsletter is unlikely to elicit a well-worked up option supported by multiple parties.  A focus group isn't a good way of getting your message out. 

Here's a table of appropriate techniques.

Engagement methods and the kinds of aims they are most suited to

Aims for different stakeholders

Depending on the kind of 'stake' they have, you will want to engage different stakeholders with different levels of intensity and it's highly likely that you will have different engagement aims for different stakeholders or types of stakeholder.

When developing a strategic flood plan, for example, you may want to tell residents and people who work in a particular area that the plan is being developed, how they can keep informed about its progress, what their opportunities are to input and in due course, what you have decided.

You will want to ask landowners, parish and town councillors and those people managing particular businesses, nature reserve, utilities and vital services what their aspirations and needs are over the time period of the plan, and for data about geology, biodiversity, demographics and so on. 

And you will want to collaborate with key decision-makers whose support and active involvement is vital for the success of the strategy - e.g. county council, lead local flood authority and so on. 

Plan and improvise

This kind of strategic, analytical approach shouldn't be seen as a way of tying you down. The engagement plan should be a living thing: not sitting on a shelf gathering dust.  In fact, it gives the team a great foundation of shared understanding of the context and objectives which makes improvising in response to changing circumstances much more successful.

5 minute meeting makeover

We know it shouldn’t be like this, but sometimes we find ourselves in a meeting which is ill-defined, purposeless and chaotic.

Maybe it’s been called at short notice.  Maybe everyone thought someone else was doing the thinking about the agenda and aims.  Maybe the organisation has a culture of always being "too busy" to pay attention to planning meetings.

For whatever reason, you’re sitting there and the conversation has somehow begun without a structured beginning. 

This is the moment to use the five minute meeting makeover!

Using your best assertiveness skills, ask that everyone just pause a moment to check the agenda before you get going properly.

The makeover questions

Here’s your checklist of questions:

• What do we need to cover in this meeting?
• What’s our end time?
• Who will chair / run the meeting?
• Who will take the note of decisions and actions?
• Who’s here (useful if not everyone knows each other, or it’s a telecon)?

An agreed, structured meeting plan

Using flip chart or white board, record the answers to these questions.  See the pictures for a mind-mapping way to do this that I’ve found really effective. 

I always begin by putting in the fixed points: that there will be an opening and a closing.

Who and when, and the unchanging opening and closing sessions.

Next, establish the aims.  Keep the 'what do we need to cover' answers at the level of ‘topic’ at this stage e.g. “product launch timescale”, “expanding the team”, “budget”.

Summary titles for the items to begin with...

Then, for each item, ask the group and then write up what it is that the group needs to go in relation to that item.  Is it to share updates? To generate ideas? To choose between options? Being clear about the task(s) that the group needs to accomplish in relation to each item really helps.

...then the tasks for each item...

When all the ‘items’ that need to be covered are written up, ask what order they need to be taken in.  Number them in this order.  This might be a good point to set timings for each item.

...and the order that the group wants to take them in.

The final ‘item’ is the closing conversation. This should cover:

• Confirming any decisions and actions that have been agreed.
• Agreeing who will circulate the note of the meeting, to whom and by when.  This might also include identifying specific people who need a personal briefing.
• Agreeing the date of the next meeting (if one is needed).
• Reviewing the meeting.  I like to use a simple three-stage round of ‘To what extent did we meet our aims? What helped? What got in the way?'

When a task or whole item has been complete, give yourselves a happy, congratulatory tick.

Happy ticks when an item has been completed.

It really does take just five minutes to get a clear, agreed meeting agenda sorted out of rubbish meeting chaos.

Try it!

If you need more help building up the skills to facilitate great meetings, in-house training or one-to-one coaching might help.

A global purpose: the Sustainable Development Goals and business #2

Business can help society meet the Sustainable Development Goals (aka Global Goals). Find out more about work on hunger, health and quality education.

Thanks to the lovely people at IEMA's The Environmentalist magazine, for the invitation to write this series on business response to the SDGs.  It's given me a reason to talk to lots of people doing important work inside lots of businesses and NGOs.

The second article is now out (May 2016), and it covers goals 2, 3 and 4:

• Zero hunger
• Good health and well-being
• Quality education

You can access the article, and plenty of other environmental news, here, either sign in with your IEMA login, subscribe or take a free trial.

Alternatively, there's a pdf of it here.   The first article in the series, giving an introduction to the SDGs and looking at Goal 1 (poverty) and Goal 5 (Gender) is here.