Sustainability Reporting - Developing a Sustainability Strategy

There are four key stages to developing a sustainability strategy.

This stage involves:

• Interviewing key management and staff to capture the story so far;
• Identifying and documenting past sustainability projects;
• Developing a vision for the organisation in consultation with management and staff
• Documenting the values of the organisation.

Once the vision for the organisation has been determined the next stage is to identify sustainable solutions such as:

• Staff programs and opportunities;
• Community involvement;
• Revegetation/regeneration;
• Energy efficiency opportunities;
• Water cycle management;
• Waste and recycling systems;
• Transportation solutions;
• Fuel switching;
• Supply chain management; and
• Emerging technologies.

A range of programs such as those listed above will be discussed and negotiated with the organisation’s management team and those projects considered suitable for achieving the organisation’s sustainability vision can be included in the strategy.

Once programs have been identified, costed and approved by the management team an implementation program is developed that:

• Clearly articulates the various stages required for each solution;
• Documents roles and responsibilities;
• Determines the necessary resources required; and
• Schedules the proposed programs over specific financial years based on the goals and aspirations of the management team.

Note, programs are not set in stone but committing them to paper helps to realise your goals.

Finally, effectively communicating the strategy to key stakeholders is critical to its overall success. This can be done by:

• Providing a presentation to staff about the parameters of the strategy;
• Developing an edited version for the website; and
• Providing input into the design and printing of the sustainability strategy for dissemination to key stakeholders.