5.19.2010

A Management of Change Boost with Organizational Learning and Systems Thinking Tools

As a living system, a company’s risk profile is continually shifting.  The growing attention on sustainability and corporate responsibility (CSR) has stretched companies as they wrestle with ways to characterize and manage their sustainability and CSR risks.

Integrated EHS, sustainability, and CSR management systems provide a robust structure to manage risks.  A key concept in an integrated management system is “the management of change” (MOC), which focuses on identifying and managing risks as operations or the operating environment change.  MOC procedures and process typically kick-in when new equipment or manufacturing lines are installed, during mergers & acquisitions, or during internal re-organizations.  On the corporate responsibility front, forward-thinking companies include the monitoring of third-party monitoring criteria in their MOC process.

Strong MOC processes are part of a company’s front line defense for risk reduction.  The MOC process should pick up most risks that arise in between formal risk assessments. Read More

Posted By Charles Redinger | in Corporate Social Responsibility, Emerging Issues, Innovation, Management Systems, Risk Management, Strategic Thinking & Planning, Sustainability | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

4.29.2010

The Sustainability Gap

McKinsey & Company recently published findings from its February 2010 survey on “How Companies Manage Sustainability.” Nearly 2,000 executives from a wide range of industries and regions participated.  A highlight statement from the survey is that “most companies are not actively managing sustainability, even though executives think it’s important to a variety of corporate activities.”

This gap is attributed to no clear definition of what sustainability means, and as a result, only 30% or the respondents indicated that they “actively seek opportunities to invest in sustainability or embed it in their practices.”

The survey found that respondents framed sustainability in the following way:  55% as an environmental management issue; 48% as a governance issue; 41% as a societal issue; and 56% indicated they define sustainability in two or more ways.  Only 6% said that sustainability is both a C-suite priority and that it was formally and effectively embedded in its business practices. Read More

Posted By Charles Redinger | in Corporate Social Responsibility, Emerging Issues, Risk Management, Sustainability | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

4.28.2010

The Sustainability “Megatrend”

It is common knowledge that sustainability is a big deal.  It is a multidimensional issue that impacts all sectors of society.  Companies wrestle with how they are going to respond beyond the obvious of energy conservation and waste reduction, when sustainability begins to blur with corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Some direction and insights are provided in an excellent article, “the Sustainability Imperative: Lessons for Leaders from Previous Game-Changing Megatrends,” by David Lubin and Daniel Esty.  This article frames sustainability in ways that organizations can take actionable steps to impact their sustainability efforts (Harvard Business Review, May 2010).

Many readers are familiar with Esty’s landmark book, Green to Gold and his work in the environmental policy arena.  Ideas presented in Green to Gold evolve in the Sustainability Megatrends article.  Lubin and Esty assert that the current sustainability movement can be viewed as a megatrend as popularized by John Naisbitt in 1982.  As such, there are lessons that companies can learn by examining other megatrends such as IT and quality. Read More

Posted By Charles Redinger | in Corporate Social Responsibility, Emerging Issues, Innovation, Risk Management, Strategic Thinking & Planning, Sustainability | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

3.26.2010

An Externalities Framework to Develop Sustainability and CSR Strategies

Since the 1987 Brundtland Report that put sustainability on the business map, the Rio Conference in 1992 and its famous declaration, and the concept of a “triple bottom line” put forth by John Elkington in 1994, issues related to sustainability have expanded as a central topic in corporate boardrooms and business strategy.  Along the way in the evolution of sustainability ideas and concepts, they have morphed into the broader area of corporate responsibility (numerous terms are used to describe this, such as corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, and simply social responsibility).

As an important and rapidly evolving area, there is a wild-west quality to defining, executing, and measuring sustainability and CSR initiatives.  With sustainability, concrete issues commonly identified are reduction of energy use, carbon-generation, waste, etc.  With CSR some norms have gained general acceptance, sustainability issues for sure have, as well as child-labor issues and good EHS practices.  But with CSR especially, this is still a very fluid area.  The CSR (or SR) ISO activities (ISO 26000) might help, but it will be many years for this to flesh out. Read More

Posted By Charles Redinger | in Corporate Social Responsibility, Emerging Issues, Innovation, Risk Management, Sustainability | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

3.26.2010

Is Your EHS Audit Program Hitting The Mark?

Auditing is a tough subject.  The term rarely conjures pleasant thoughts.  It’s often a dreaded event for the auditee.  For the EHS department, it is a complex endeavor that the EHS professionals often don’t feel they fully have a handle on, as issues of program validity and reliability swirl around. With internal audit programs in large companies, scheduling can be a nightmare with auditors swamped by primary-non-audit duties.  While the audit job gets done and reports are generated for the C-Suite, Board of Directors and External Third Parties, the EHS audit programs I’ve observed often miss the mark that the EHS department want to hit.

Some of the recent EHS audit program challenges I’ve observed are 1) integrating EHS management system audits with existing compliance audits, 2) developing procedures to close the gap between EHS program/system upgrades and the audit tools measuring them;, 3) training auditors how to audit the EHS management system, and, 4) identifying leading indicators that can hopefully shorten the audit process or be used in site/plant self-assessment activities. Read More

Posted By Charles Redinger | in Auditing & Metrics, Corporate Social Responsibility, ISO News, Risk Management, Sustainability | Tags: , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

2.18.2010

ISO 31000 on Risk Management Published

Many EHS professionals are familiar with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) from its widely known management systems, ISO 9001 and 14001. Over the past five years, that has been activities to extend ISO more explicitly into the area of risk management. Their first two management systems (9001 and 14001) are essentially risk management tools.

ISO published a generic standard on risk management this past November that provides guidelines that can be used in a wide range of setting. ISO states that “31000:2009 can be applied throughout the life of an organization, and to a wide range of activities, including strategies and decisions, operations, processes, functions, projects, products, services and assets; and that it can be applied to any type of risk, whatever its nature, whether having positive or negative consequences.” Read More

Posted By Charles Redinger | in High Performance Teams, ISO News, Risk Management, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: , , | No Comments »