How to develop a sustainability strategy? 

With tier one contractors and clients consistently asking their supply chain for sustainability information and data, many tier two and three contractors (and beyond) are developing their own sustainability strategies. Sustainability strategies are key to understanding what your impacts are, and identifying how you manage and report on them in a structured way.

There are many different elements which go into developing a sustainability strategy. However, here are the five key areas you need to focus on when it comes to developing a sustainability strategy.

1. Prioritise your sustainability issues

You can’t manage everything, so focus on the issues that are key to your business. Understand what your risks and impacts are, what’s driving your organisation to be more sustainable and what is considered ‘good’ within your sector and to your clients.

2. Set objectives and targets

Objectives and targets are where the detail of your strategy comes out – you need a focus on what you are trying to achieve, making sure that it is achievable but also challenging. Achieving your sustainability strategy isn’t a ‘tick box exercise’, it should be difficult and require effort!

The objectives and targets you set are an output of understanding what your priorities and drivers for sustainability are. Making them SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) and quantifiable allows you to collect data and manage your performance, more of which later on.

3. Develop a framework and create your action plan

Engage your stakeholders in the process of developing your strategy. By engaging with colleagues early on, this encourages buy-in from the beginning and helps you to set realistic and achievable goals.

When defining your sustainability framework, use easy-to-understand and SMART terminology. This helps all stakeholders to understand what you’re committing to and what you’re delivering.

Once you’ve developed your simple framework of goals and commitments, keep an action plan so that you can track progress and break down the targets into manageable, smaller actions. Identify who will be responsible for delivering the actions, what the timescale is for delivery and whether any support or resources are required.

4. Communicate your strategy

Share your strategy with your stakeholders. Inform your clients on how you can support them. Let your employees know what the company is doing and how they can support. Let your suppliers know your direction of travel. Putting the details of your strategy on your website indicates what your sustainability vision is and what stakeholders can expect from you.

This step is important in holding yourself to account – we’ve seen organisations put all the hard work in to develop their strategy and then not communicate it or push forwards in delivering their strategy. Don’t let your hard work or enthusiasm go to waste!

5. Measure your sustainability performance

When delivering your strategy, you need to know how you’re performing against your targets so that you can see progress and understand where your hotspots are and where you need to improve. Measure your baseline to understand your current performance and set realistic targets – after all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure!

By considering all of the five key areas above when developing your sustainability strategy (or even refreshing your current strategy), it’ll help you to communicate a realistic and well-thought-out framework for managing your sustainability impacts.

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