Getting started - 'Discovery'
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Understanding the context in which you are operating
The first step is to understand the internal and external environments in which the strategy will be operating, and to identify what the most important elements are to your organisation from a sustainability perspective. How to do this is covered below. There is no set way in which this information should be gathered, but it is recommended the findings are recorded for two main reasons:
- Firstly, in order to be able to share the understanding with others to help them understand (or sign off on) the logic and rationale, and/or provide a sense-check for you in areas of their expertise. This will also help if you decide to follow a standard such as ISO14001 or ISO20121 which require organisations to be able to demonstrate how they arrived at their identified issues (and that they are aware of things such as relevant legal/ regulatory obligations).
- Secondly, in order to review the considerations underpinning the strategy when you periodically review it, and to have a place in which to add additional learnings that inevitably happen throughout the process of creating and implementing your strategy.
Be clear on the values and positioning of the party creating the strategy
A sustainability strategy is the means by which an organisation identifies and approaches the social, economic, and environmental issues which are important to it. It is therefore essential to review your organisation’s purpose, its values, mission statement, and strategic objectives to understand what the sustainability strategy should be helping to achieve.
Map out why you are creating the strategy
Organisations and events often pursue sustainability for various reasons, including:
- Meeting regulatory requirements or standards,
- Enhancing brand reputation or aligning with core values,
- Addressing stakeholder expectations or market demands, and/ or
- Contributing to broader societal or environmental targets. Understanding this will help to frame the broader objective of the strategy, the likely levels of internal support and ambition, and provide context to weighting stakeholders and identified issues in the analysis stage of this phase.
What is the external context?
This is the environment in which your organisation / event operates. Key considerations are (globally and for the region(s) in which you operate):
- What are the legal and regulatory obligations?
- What are the trends within your sector (and how is your organisation currently responding to them)?
- What are similar organisations/ events (or competitors) doing in regards to sustainability? How are they promoting this? What are the challenges / opportunities from doing something different (or not?)
- What are consumer and societal expectations and values in your sector, and where can you monitor this (i.e. print media, social media, etc)
- How do the media cover and report on sustainability in your sector?
- What kinds of organisations are in your supply chain and what sustainability opportunities or challenges might they present?
- What are the regional capabilities for utilities (power, water, waste etc) in your region? What kinds of materials can be recycled? Is renewable energy available?
- What tax-relief or grants are available for implementing sustainability measures?
- What are the cultural expectations and values in the region(s) you operate?
What is the internal context?
What factors within your own organisation will influence the creation and implementation of your strategy? For example:
- How is your organisation structured? What are the departments / teams?
- Are there potential areas of cross-over with other departments such as HR (welfare), facilities/ operations (accessibility), marketing (brand) etc?
- What policies are already in place around accessibility, welfare, material use, energy and water use, waste, etc?
- How is decision making managed in your organisation? How is change managed? What initiatives have been successful / failed and why?
- How does your organisation manage reputational risk?
- What is the budget for sustainability?
- What is the current level of sustainability maturity within the organisation?
Risks and opportunities
Whilst undertaking discovery, it is helpful to start to note sustainability risks and opportunities they are observed. In particular:
- What risks could impact the organisation / event, particularly regarding operation, compliance, and reputation?
- What opportunities could there be to enhance the organisations operation, reputation, financial returns etc?
- How resilient is the organisation currently to upcoming regulation, trends, competitor actions, and/or environmental changes such as biodiversity loss or climate change?
- What gaps are there with current regulations or sector standards?