Driving Company Culture to Embrace Sustainability
By Cathy Hansell, Skytop Contributor / October 4th, 2021
Cathy Hansell has over 35 years of leadership experience in safety, health, environmental (SHE), product and manufacturing quality experience, holding various senior-level roles at several international corporations including BASF, AlliedSignal, Honeywell International, American Standard, and Trane. Most recently as the Corporate VP of Safety and Occupational Health at American Standard/Trane, she led a strategy throughout 500+ manufacturing, sales, and service operations globally, to create a company-wide safety culture and drive for risk prevention and wellness.
Cathy is currently a member of ASSP, CSSE, NSC and the NJ and American Bar Associations. Cathy is currently a member of the Corporate EH&S Management Roundtable, the NJ, and American Bar Associations, ASSE, CSSE, and NSC. She is an affiliate with Yellow Dynos and Breakthrough Marketing Technologies. Cathy was previously the nominated US delegate to the EU-US Joint Conference on Occupational Health and Safety in Portugal, the International Sustainability Conference in the Canary Islands, and the Safety Professional Exchange with China.
Cathy holds a BS in environmental science/wastewater engineering from Cook College, an MS in environmental toxicology from NYU Institute of Environmental Medicine (GSAS) and a JD in environmental law from Rutgers University Law School. Cathy is a certified Malcolm Baldrige examiner and instructor from Crosby, Deming and Juran Quality Institutes, a Total Quality Master, certified Six Sigma Belt and a certified CSR practitioner. She received the BCSP Certification as a Safety Management Specialist and ASSP Certification in Executive Safety Management.
She was awarded the 2010 Woman of the Year in the Safety and Health Field from the National Association of Professional Women, and one of the Top 100 Women in Safety Engineering from the ASSP.
Cathy is also an adjunct professor at the West Virginia University, College of Engineering and the Founder of Breakthrough Results.
Change is usually not easy for most people to embrace. It requires moving out of comfort zones and into unfamiliar and uncertain territories. New roles, responsibilities, knowledge, skills, tools, tasks, environment, people, and relationships can all be overwhelming. For many, even if the current situation is not satisfactory, it is still believed better to maintain the status quo, rather than to move into a future state, which is unknown.
Culture is repeatedly stated as the most important aspect of a successful business, with cohesive and aligned processes, and all designed to drive desired actions, behaviors, and results. However, to have an effective culture, it must first be clearly understood by everyone. To be understood, it must be clearly defined in sufficient detail and appropriate rationale. Many organizations have not defined their desired culture in the level of detail needed to enable its people to know and understand the ultimate objective and elements of the new culture, including their new roles and processes to get the job done with the new measures that will be used to track progress.
Change and culture combines two challenging concepts with their own issues. This is certainly a challenging task, but one which is not new and does have an answer. The solution is based on proven business practices. The most effective change model includes the following:
Make the future state, or vision, very clear, positive, and motivating.
Outline a strategy and specific a road map to guide future programs, funding, and behaviors.
Provide systems, processes and tools which make following the road map easy, clear, and desirable.
Drive and implement through a logical change model.
The following describes the elements of vision, mission, and strategy in more detail, based on establishing a culture that incorporates and values sustainability. The following article will describe the processes and the change model.
Vision and Mission
A vision establishes a clear and specific direction. It answers the question of why sustainability is important to our organization as well as how sustainability is relevant to the organization’s core values. Vision statements are bold, ambitious, and motivating. The mission defines the few, high level actions that will be taken across the entire organization to fulfill the vision. They become the cornerstones by which all actions are taken and measured.
Example of a concise Vision Statements from Patagonia:
“At Patagonia, we appreciate that all life on earth is under threat of extinction. We’re using the resources we have—our business, our investments, our voice and our imaginations—to do something about it.”
Example of a succinct vision and mission statements from Apple Inc:
Corporate vision is “to make the best products on earth, and to leave the world better than we found it.”
Corporate mission is “to bring the best personal computing products and support to students, educators, designers, scientists, engineers, businesspersons and consumers in over 140 countries around the world.”
Sample vision and mission statements from PepsiCo:
Corporate vision statement is “to deliver top-tier financial performance over the long term by integrating sustainability into our business strategy, leaving a positive imprint on society and the environment.”
Corporate mission statement is “to provide consumers around the world with delicious, affordable, convenient and complementary foods and beverages from wholesome breakfasts to healthy and fun daytime snacks and beverages to evening treats.” This mission statement highlights PepsiCo’s desire to satisfy customers. In conjunction with the mission statement, PepsiCo also states, “We are committed to investing in our people, our company and the communities where we operate to help position the company for long-term, sustainable growth.”
Strategy
From a clear vision and mission, a strategy is developed. From extensive benchmarking and decades of successful practice, the following outlines a complete and effective strategy:
Three Elements of a Sustainability strategy to create a lasting and balanced culture transformation
1. Sustainability Culture
Sustainability is a company value, beyond a top priority because priorities may shift over time.
An organization understands and accepts its roles and responsibilities for sustainability.
All people, in all areas and functions in the organization, are enabled and empowered to be successful in achieving those roles and responsibilities.
2. Sustainability Talent and Resources
Sustainability leaders possess both technical and leadership skill-sets to assume their roles as leaders and coaches.
Sustainability leader’s reporting structure are best aligned with operations and engineering, and at the highest level of the location or business, which help to create the needed visibility, support, and impact.
Strive to have the right people with the right skills in the right role in the right structure.
3. Sustainability Processes
Sound programs and procedures form a foundation to proactively identify and prevent or mitigate risks and negative impacts and seek out new business opportunities.
Leading metrics are designed to measure key aspects of the process and culture.
Sustainability is systematic, integrated, risk preventative and creates new business opportunities.
Four Key Elements of a Sustainability Culture
1. Visible leadership drive, commitment, and personal involvement
Actively and personally demonstrates commitment to sustainability.
Provides vision, education, tools, and processes to guide and facilitate sustainability progress.
Sets expectations, roles, and responsibilities for everyone to be involved in sustainability.
2. Active employee participation and ownership in sustainability
Employees are actively engaged in sustainability improvements and activities.
Employees genuinely care about sustainability, the impacts locally in sustainability; and that of co-workers and communities in which we operate.
3. Systemic sustainability integration into business processes, tools, and decisions
Sustainability considerations and issues are integrated into all business processes, tools, and decisions.
Functional leaders know and understand their roles in facilitating and driving sustainability improvements within their functional areas of expertise.
4. Relentless drive to eliminate risks using systematic tools (like six sigma and lean approaches)
Use disciplined analysis of all incidents to identify and remove system-based root causes.
Create statistical analysis to provide details of incidents and performance trends.