Crafting a Comprehensive Sustainability Policy

Sustainability isn’t just the latest hype word companies use to sound “in” or “woke”—it’s become a must-have for businesses. People are caring more and more about environmental and social issues, so brands need to get on board or risk losing customers to more sustainable competitors.

Where do you even start with such an endeavor? The answer lies in a solid sustainability policy. It’s the foundation for managing all those pressing issues, from climate change to human rights.

This post defines it, outlines what should be included, and discusses how to create one that drives real impact. You’ll see that important issues like this can be pretty simple instead of sleep-inducing.

Understanding the Basics of Sustainability Policy Creation

Ranging from simple to complex, there is no universal right way to create such a policy. Still, we should level-set and explain what these programs entail. 

A sustainability policy states a company’s commitment to managing its impacts. These effects are both environmental and social. However, it’s much more than just a P.R. statement since a meaningful plan like this outlines clear goals across areas like:

• Energy, water, and waste reductions
• Lower greenhouse gas emissions
• Ethical sourcing and supply chains
• Respecting human rights

An authentic framework brings improvements that carry much more weight than empty promises. Action follows words. The procedure connects to real business priorities across the company. Progress happens, and results are achieved—no more greenwashing.

Building a Better Policy: The Key Ingredients

Impactful corporate sustainability strategies typically contain three key components, although you may tweak this standard to your liking:

Clear objectives: Measurable goals (i.e., 30% reduced emissions by 2025) that drive noticeable change. 

Action plans: Roadmaps for reaching those goals throughout the company’s operations.

Tracking processes: Monitoring systems to measure progress. So you know what’s working (and what’s not).

Defining Your Sustainability Priorities

If you’re reading this, chances are it’s your turn to enact a policy. Some soul-searching is in order first—what should your team focus on? The first step is articulating your desired commitments.

Look at how sustainability aligns with your current structure. See if vision and mission statements emphasize clean practices. Find gaps between talk and walk, which helps define priority areas for procedures.

You can further refine focus areas by establishing goals. More on these later.

Connecting Existing Efforts

Many companies already have some form of sustainable policy, although it is not always fleshed out. It may have been put together quickly years ago and has been collecting dust since. If that sounds familiar, excellent—build on those!

Check if relevant management systems, like ISO 14001, are already in place. Look at current targets, practices, and reporting procedures. The policy should bring everything under one umbrella.

It must also comply with all relevant regulations from your home country or worldwide (like the U.N.) Naturally, these vary across industries, so you might want to lawyer up so as not to forget anything. 

Conducting a Sustainability Assessment

It’s basic knowledge that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Before moving forward, you need a check-up to understand where you can make the biggest impact with your actions. In a nutshell, assess the current state of your organization. That means all your operations and supply chain. The audit should highlight:

• Current social and environmental impacts
• How well existing initiatives address them
• Where you can make the most difference

Engaging Stakeholders in Policy Development

Reflect for a moment about who it was that asked for this sustainable focus in the first place. Perhaps it was customers, investors, or your genius new manager? Whoever initiated it, now’s the time to get other key stakeholders on board, both in and outside the company. Talk to:

• Employees
• Investors
• Customers
• Suppliers
• Local communities

You’ll find that there are two primary approaches for soliciting stakeholder perspectives. Surveys and interviews give quantitative/qualitative insights into stakeholder priorities. Focus groups are for deeper discussion. And workshops bring cross-functional teams together to brainstorm ideas. 

In both cases, you’ll want to highlight the win-win(s), such as cost savings. Risk reduction and enhanced brand loyalty are the cherry on top of the sundae.

Setting Your Targets

After getting the lay of the land, define the aims. It would help if you had a solid understanding of current priorities by this stage. With these, you can start defining sustainability targets.

As always, these should be SMART. Look to recognized reporting frameworks for goal-setting guidance and science-based benchmarks to help with climate issues. Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) to track the progress of each goal. Example:

• X Tonnes CO2e reduced
• Y Percentage of renewable energy used
• Z Number of suppliers audited

We want these clear goals to guide our plan of action. It will be much easier to know what to do if you see where you’re going. It also helps us evaluate whether our efforts are working or if we’re spinning our wheels.

Communicating and Implementing Environmental Policies

The plan is in motion—the next step is all about execution. Launch the policy through company-wide communications and training programs. All employees must understand the commitments and their role in achieving them.

Remind them when you can through onboarding, handbooks, intranet updates, and recognition programs. Make it part of everyday operations rather than a side hustle.

When writing a sustainability policy, you may also think about creating a shorter or simpler version for external stakeholders. Make it attractive with visuals like graphics so you can repurpose this for your social media and website.

Following Through

Don’t let nicely worded policies collect dust. Who will do what? Define roles and responsibilities at the heart of your team for achieving aims. Managers should be in the loop about all the related KPIs they must hit to help drive performance.

We can guess that 100+ other more pressing tasks require your team’s attention, so audits only need to be done periodically to evaluate compliance across facilities and operations. These surprise check-ins are adequate to see if the organization as a whole is moving together. 

And after about a year of this hard work, it’s wise to publish transparent reports, even if you didn’t hit the mark. The important part is communicating your progress and showing you are actively trying. 

Integrating Sustainability into Company Culture

This initiative can’t be a one-and-done effort because you are doing much more than just chasing numbers. You want to build something that will last. 

As such, you need to prioritize cultivating an organization-wide culture. A culture focused on sustainability is the only driver for systemic change. 

C-suite executives should exemplify good behaviors and operate as sustainability champions; that’s a given. But all employees should be encouraged to contribute equally. Have them participate in green teams or volunteer initiatives and listen to their input. 

Recognize those leading the charge with rewards or even something as simple as a thank-you note or their names highlighted in a manifest.

Keep Up The Hard Work

At last, the wheel is turning, and it seems like nothing can stop you from making a pragmatic change. 

Not so fast! Effective policies are constantly evolving based on progress. There are new lessons learned and changing societal expectations by the day. Review them annually at minimum, assessing their relevance. Update the targets where progress is lagging and expand successful initiatives. 

With the insight gleaned from this guide, you are now ready to develop an impactful sustainability policy for your organization.