Today’s business leaders ought to understand the importance of efficient operations which factors in sustainability. This is even more vital in an era where operation departments are seen as not strategic and are sometime relegated to facility, logistics and supply chain management.
Embedding sustainability becomes a critical business success factor if organisations are to demonstrate their commitments to sustainability. Operation departments are key drivers in this part of success.
Through embedding sustainability in business operations, organisations will help the environment, save money, and improve brand reputation. It is necessary to reorient the departments to position them to take the advantage of being sustainable.
Baselines, data, and reporting form the starting point. Organisation must foremost define their baselines, whether related to carbon emissions, resource use, diversity metrics and satisfaction levels within the delivery areas. Establishing these baselines is key to shaping the desired level of ambition.
Once baseline data is available, setting the relevant targets and measuring progress over the time provides a clear picture of organisational performance as well as content for reporting.
It will be key to ensure that the outcomes and impacts from sustainable operations are included in the impact reports as well as sustainability report.
This will not only help management to manage the business better, but also act a business development tool, particularly for customers who are concerned about sustainability credentials of their suppliers.
Sustainability efforts must be based on legit guidelines and standards as well as being benchmarked with global best practices.
It is clerical that the standards and the best practices are domesticated to the operations jurisdiction of an organisation. Mimicking without consideration of the context will not deliver the desired results.
To succeed and build a culture of operational sustainability, awareness creation and communication are necessary. There is a need for organisations build a culture that makes sustainability thrive.
Traditionally, sustainable operations have been confused for CSR activities within organisations. It is essential to shift the narrative from sustainability being done for the purposes of feeling good, to a level where it is done as good business.
This means the provision of clear business cases of implementing sustainability within operations. Teams within operations should be able to clearly reflect on the return on investment as well as the impact that the organisation benefits from because of embedding sustainability into its core business.
This calls for capacity building programs, awareness creation campaigns as well as having proper communication channels that will evangelise the gospel of sustainability within the organisation, highlighting the why as well as the how.
The leadership and boards must commit and own the journey of sustainability within their organizations to ensure traction toward sustainable operations.
Sustainable operations must go beyond being green. It is very thought-provoking that sustainability is synonymous with green. This is far from the truth as sustainability also considers the social and governance elements in addition to the environment matters.
Unfortunately, the focus has always been going green. Elements such as human rights, occupational health and safety, inclusivity, transparency, accountability have not been considered in sustainable operations.
It is imperative that organizations wishing to have sustainability operations must go beyond being green and consider Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) in totality.
To facilitate sustainability operations, it is important to put in place the right structures, polices and tools.
This calls for organisational structures such as focal persons, champions and board committees that will enable to implementation and oversight of sustainability. In addition, having proper policies in place as well as tools to implement sustainability will bring the legitimacy and order in the implementation process.
For the implementation of sustainable operations, there is also need for the operations teams to get a voice within the organisation. The teams are often seen as not part of the core business of organisation which denies them the benefit of commanding some influence. It is essential to anchor the operations department as a strategic unit if the implementation of sustainable operations is to be successful.
Dr Mungai is a Global Sustainability and Climate Change Expert and Lead Consultant and Partner at Impact Africa Consulting Limited
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