15.02.248:00 AM byAndy Cameron-Smith
When a business decides to become more sustainable, how we engage and what we engage about, will always be the critical first step to gaining organisational “buy in”.
Jo Shields, Head of sustainability and ESG at whg
There are many things that influence how much support you do or don’t get and there isn’t a silver bullet or a one size that fits all. After 25 years, I can share some key observations and approaches that can begin the process of change.
Understanding your organisation’s culture and how open it is to change is key. This can provide an indication of how hard or easy the journey ahead may be, so it’s worth spending time getting a sense of this before you begin.
Understanding the motivations of the business to be sustainable is important. How will being sustainable help to deliver primary objectives? This requires an alignment piece of work to understand what is already happening and to map across how sustainability can contribute and add value. Professionals in this space will know it adds value, but you need to show how this looks to others in a language they can understand. There will be some things that simply won’t change but finding what can is vital.
A materiality assessment can help with this and establish what is important to stakeholders. It also facilitates dialogue on what sustainability looks like across different areas of a business and how it might apply to outputs, impact and opportunity.
Before you can influence you must listen. Taking time to understand colleagues’ priorities and what is most important to them and their service will help you build a supportive strategy.
Measuring impact is also critical to informing the business on its core areas of influence. Carbon emissions reporting and accounting is hard enough to understand at the best of times. After all, ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ so knowing what you can impact and what you can’t is a good place to start. Whilst having an electric fleet may look good (and absolutely has its merit) if it accounts for less than 1% of your overall carbon emissions footprint, you may want to focus on the larger areas of opportunity.
There are, and will, continue to be many external drivers that support the need to embrace and embed sustainability as business as usual. There is also a lot of noise and propaganda around global warming, the state of nature and human contribution to it. The political and global position on this agenda is complex, often corrupt and hugely challenging. Whatever we choose to believe, the science is clear and the evidence overwhelming. We are all experiencing the impacts of global warming in some way in our day-to-day lives, as are our customers.
whg dedicated their colleague conference to the theme of low carbon living
Our sector is under enormous pressure to deliver healthy and affordable homes, to create sustainable communities and deliver net zero emissions across our portfolios and stock.
We are landlords so will continue to manage homes and build new ones. But sustainability does not have to be an additional challenge to these other priorities. It can, in fact support delivery. Meeting the needs of our current tenants does not have to exclude operating in a sustainable way or compromising the future of the next generations. Sustainability enhances the work we already do, making homes more efficient, tenants warmer, communities safer and people healthier. It presents us with an opportunity to build stronger communities, innovate with new technologies and provide evidence-based proof that carbon can be reduced as we retrofit at scale.
The best way to engage colleagues with climate action and sustainability is to talk about it. For example, we dedicated our entire colleague conference to the theme of low carbon living. This included all 750 colleagues receiving a 20 minute introduction to our carbon literacy programme. This was followed up with an opportunity to receive further training via our Learning and Development offer in house.
Over 10% of whg staff have become accredited as carbon literate
When I arrived at the start of 2022, whg knew it needed to promote behaviour change but was unfamiliar with carbon literacy and had yet to integrate climate action into the business plan.
I knew the potential carbon literacy had to transform whg and embed sustainability as part of our everyday practices. However, it’s how you introduce the sustainable conversation that is critical to whether it will effect change. My approach was to create a programme that would engage colleagues, secure buy-in from senior leadership and build upon whg’s strategic plans.
Our bespoke ‘Interactive Carbon Literacy for Social Housing’ course co-created with Future We Want was signed off by the Carbon Literacy Trust in 2022.
Leading by example our senior leaders, along with a group of Board members, completed our specialist training and are now accredited as carbon literate. As a result, they can cut through the noise surrounding the climate crisis and are better positioned to support colleagues to deliver our sustainable strategy and objectives.
Since then, over 10% of colleagues have become accredited as carbon literate. The business has also become accredited as a Bronze level organisation for its broader commitment to supporting carbon literacy.
The Carbon Literacy Project provides all the tools needed to begin the conversation as well as the facts to empower colleagues rather than confuse them.
To compliment the accredited training a shorter three hour course known as the ‘lite’ version has also been created, which has already been attend by 23 colleagues since it started.
Pledges from colleagues are linked to operating plans and strategy objectives. This creates a significant culture shift with colleagues actively partaking in the delivery of the sustainability strategy and an overall exciting commitment to lower carbon initiatives within whg.
A growing network of sustainability champions acts as my ‘ripple’ across the organisation.
You can’t unknow what you know and the key to success is feeling empowered to effect change in your own area of service delivery. Ultimately, this is all about choice.
My aim is to ensure the business can make informed decisions that include sustainability and carbon to manage our risks and increase resilience. It isn’t about the destination but the journey to get there.
Jo Shields is Head of sustainability and ESG at whg
Accommodation providerBuilt EnvironmentClimate changeNet ZeroViewpointsWest Midlands
