1. Organisational Sustainability
With acknowledgements to colleague Jeremy Eatough

2. What is sustainable development?
The term sustainable development means different things to different people. But, in essence, it is concerned with meeting the needs of people today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
(World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2005)

3. So…
From a business perspective, sustainability [is] a “company’s ability to achieve its business goals and increase long-term shareholder value by integrating economic, environmental and social opportunities into its business strategies”
(Symposium on Sustainability, 2001)

4. Indeed..
As Boudreau and Ramstad (2005: 134) point out “decision makers, opinion leaders, voters, and employees care about sustainability. They want corporations to reduce the externalities that burden future generations. Sustainability is not just good ethics; it is potentially good long-term economics. HR has an important role to play in sustainability”.
Ehnert, I. (2006). ‘Sustainability Issues in Human in Human Resource Management

5. What are Sustainable activities?
Sustainability results from activities which:
extend the socially useful life of organisations
enhance the planet’s ability to maintain and renew the viability of the biosphere and protect all living species
enhance society’s ability to maintain itself and to solve its major problems
maintain a decent level of welfare for present and future generations of humanity
Sustainable organisations engage in activities that contribute in these four ways.
OD but in the frame of society

6. The Change Leadership that Sustainability Demands Christoph Lueneburger & Daniel Goleman MIT Sloan Management Review (May 2010)
As many markets become ever more “transparent” to environmentally conscious customers, the pursuit of sustainability will shift from a choice that companies make to a sheer necessity of survival. It will affect the de facto “license” of a business to operate — a license that customers won’t hesitate to revoke.
Many executives understand how these dynamics will fundamentally alter their businesses, and they understand that sustainability is, ultimately, about the sustainability of their own organizations. But they often stumble in making the transition because of basic misconceptions about what it will take to transform their companies

7. The New World transformed by new technologies
In the late 1990s a few leading organisational theorists began to look at where the Organisational Renewal Movement should go next.
HR and OD had moved into the Boardrooms but what was to be their role in this new world. Dunphy, Griffiths and Benn in 2003 argued for a fusion of the ORM with the environmental movement. This work brings together human and ecological sustainability. To deal with this new world we will need to understand the nature of transformational change and to explore the critical role of HR in bringing it about, as well as grasping the lifeline that new technologies are offering.
transformed by new technologies
increasingly dominated by global organisations
highly competitive
driven by knowledge development
consuming resources at unsustainable levels

8. The dilemma and the challenge
The Dilemma: we cannot continue to conduct business as usual
The Challenge: to create a sustainable economy and society
Can we rely on governments to achieve a sustainable world?
“Like it or not, the responsibility for ensuring a sustainable world falls largely on the shoulders of the world’s enterprises, the economic engines of the future.” (Hart, 2006)
The Dilemma of development and patterns of consumption. The reality of China and India and the activities of multinationals. Need to go beyond the rhetoric of CSR

9. So how will the drive for sustainability affect organisations
So how will the drive for sustainability affect organisations? First, we need to understand that achieving sustainability is a process – organisations advance by stages
Transformational or incremental? Both human sustainability and ecological sustainability are needed for the sustainable organisation
Nudging or leaping?
Copyright Dunphy, Griffiths and Benn, Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability, 2007

10. So what are the opportunities?
Different organisations are likely to be at a number of different stages in relation to embracing sustainability
from denial through to enthusiasm
Let’s look at four different phases
The Reactive Minimalists
The Industrious Stewards
The Proactive Strategists
The Sustainable Corporation
So where are the opportunities particularly the business opportunities associated with these changes?

11. The Reactive Minimalists
Objective: Seek to be compliant to the law and all environmental, health and safety requirements and relevant community expectations.
Typical actions:
Determine what is relevant legislation, regulations and community expectations
Build an effective risk management system with an informed workforce committed to compliance
Establish organised monitoring system.
Positive outcomes:
Risk minimisation
Easier finance
Basis for positive reputation
Improved relationships with regulators.
The Reactive Minimalists are those making the first major step forward on the road to creating more sustainable organisations. While this is a minimalist approach it is a vitally important step.
Executives in these organisations are surveying the key legislative and regulatory requirements of their industry. Governments are increasingly raising the bar on environmental pollution, OHS, energy and waste etc. The costs of ignoring this can be significant the real payoff is your licence to operate.
Basically these organisations are making a step forward by cleaning up their act. Mining giants for instance, have been hit by the collapse fo tailings dams or other such disasters and are trying to put positive programs in place to prevent further occurrences.
At its best these companies have effective programs of risk management. A recent KPMG survey found that 85%of executives believe that an effective risk management strategy is critical to achieving the objectives of their company.
A great resource in this area is the Compliance Institute of Australia which has hundreds of members and runs courses in identifying areas of concern in achieving compliance and risk minimisation.
You have to walk before you can run and there is no point in skipping this phase.

12. The Industrious Stewards
Objective: Progressively eliminate waste and increase process and materials efficiencies.
Typical actions:
Reduce resource use (energy, water, materials)
Design/redesign buildings/plant to dramatically reduce ‘footprint’, create adaptable spaces
Recycle/remanufacture (cleaner production)
Dematerialise –service provision rather than material production
Redesign products: sustainably produced and environmentally friendly
Potential business benefits:
Cost reduction; savings
Increased employee productivity
Increased employee involvement/engagement
Better teamwork and lateral communication.

13. The Proactive Strategists
Objective: Pursue the strategic opportunities in sustainability.
Typical actions:
Re-brand and build wider stakeholder support
Increase employee and stakeholder engagement to source innovative ideas
Innovate with new models of stakeholder governance
Concentrate on adding value and innovating.
Potential business benefits:
Increased revenue and market share
Stronger stakeholder support (reputation and commitment)
Higher customer retention rates; faster attraction of new customers
Employer of choice – attract and retain skilled managers and professionals
Operate at high value-added end of market.

14. The Sustainable Corporation Phase:
Objective: Redefine the business environment in the interests of the core strategies of the firm aligned toa more sustainable world
Typical actions:
Participate in public policy formation
Reorganise the company’s supply chain to ensure that the whole production process is sustainable
Participate in international agreements
Seek external auditing of sustainability
Build a constructive culture that encourages openness, debate, innovation and participation.
Potential business benefits:
Global leadership in the sustainability movement
Enhanced reputation and stakeholder support and involvement
Attraction/retention of talented, highly motivated employees.
Increased share value

15. The leadership objective:
Sustainable organisations that
add financial value for shareholders
produce valued goods and services for society
sustain those who work for organisations
sustain our social world
sustain and renew the biosphere

16. Major instruments of sustainable HRM
Thom, Zaugg, & Blum model, University of Berne 2001
Recruitment: requirement & job profiles; HR marketing; labour market research
Deployment: health management; staff composition (older employees!); advanced working-time management
Development: encouraging continuous education; career planning; promoting individual responsibility & participation
HR marketing; image analysis & improvement
Retention: sophisticated incentive systems
Disemployment: exit interviews; outplacement
Management & Leadership: participative management styles; MbO; assessment of superiors

17. Third wave organisations
Value-driven and transformative
Responsive to emerging shift in global values
Making corporate citizenship and corporate sustainability core business strategies

18. Additional Resources
B Doppelt Leading Change Toward Sustainability: A Change Management Guide for Business, Government and Civil Society, Greenleaf, Sheffield UK, 2003.
D. Dunphy, A Griffiths and S. Benn, Organisational Change for Corporate Sustainability, 2nd ed., Routledge, London, 2003
Q. Jones, D. Dunphy et al, In Great Company: Unlocking the Secrets of corporate Transformation, Human Synergistics, 2007
D. Grayson and A. Hodges, Corporate Social Opportunity - 7 steps to make corporate social responsibility work for your business, Greenleaf, Sheffield UK, 2004
J. Porritt, Capitalism: As if the world matters, Earthscan, London, UK, 2006
B. Willard, The Next Sustainability Wave: Building Boardroom Buy- In, New Society Publishers, Canada, 2005
R. Wright, A Short History of Progress, Text Publishing, Melbourne, Australia, 2004