5.19.2010
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: ANSI/AIHA Z10, Causal Loop Diagram, CSR, EHS Management System, Integrated EHSMS, ISO 14001, Management of Change, MOC, OHSAS 18001, Organizational Learning | No Comments »
4.30.2010
With the increasing need to address Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues, organizations are faced with several options on how to proceed in developing their internal capabilities. Beyond their sustainability and CSR strategy, there are nuts-and-bolts issues to consider, such as who will lead the effort and how to build the team or department.
A common starting place is to tap the EHS department and their personnel. The logic for this is strong given how central EHS is to sustainability and CSR. While the EHS function and its personnel are a good starting point, sustainability/CSR quickly encompasses areas in the organization well beyond EHS.
The C-suite needs to consider how it is going to identify and develop its people who lead and manage sustainability/CSR. In the case of EHS professionals, those competencies and skills go beyond their solid technical foundation. Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Corporate Social Responsibility, Emerging Issues, High Performance Teams, Strategic Thinking & Planning, Sustainability | Tags: Competency, CSR, CSR Department Building, EHS Department, Leadership Capabilities, Management of Change, Strategic Planning, Sustainability, Sustainability Department Building, Vision | No Comments »
4.28.2010
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: Megatrends, new skills, Risk Management, Sustainability, Sustainability management system, Vision | No Comments »
4.19.2010
With roots in regulatory compliance, it is no wonder that the internal view for EHS professionals is not always rosy. At times even being called or thought of as a cop. There are numerous evolving concepts that impact EHS effectiveness well beyond regulatory compliance. Some of these include the use of EHS management systems and six-sigma. Another area is how EHS audits are conducted and findings used. Still another is the role EHS professionals can play when their context (you can also say “mental models”) shift from one that is compliance-based (cop-on-the-beat) to one of advising and coaching.
A piece to this shift is accountability. In an advising/coaching role, EHS accountability is shared in partnership. EHS management systems help provide a framework for partnerships to flourish.
Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Emerging Issues, Innovation, Personal Mastery, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: Art of Inquiry, Coaching, Corporate Coaching, Dialogue, EHS Accountability, EHS Audit, EHS Coach, EHS Management System, EHSMS, EPA Compliance, Mental Models, OSHA Compliance, Partnership, Six-sigma | No Comments »
4.19.2010
Organizational culture is complex and according to many experts, not well understood. EHS professionals often think about culture in terms of a “safety culture.” While safety is clearly important, the topic of culture is all-encompassing.
An area that I continue to explore is how can EHS departments and their professionals impact overall organizational culture? Said another way, how can you build and leverage your EHS culture?
Professor Ed Schein of MIT is regarded as an organizational culture pioneer. I recently heard him speak. The title of the lecture was “From Managing Organizational Culture to Leading Multicultural Teams.” He shared how his thoughts on organizational culture have evolved over the past several decades and discussed some of the material in the soon to be released 4th edition of his landmark book, “Organizational Culture and Leadership”.
Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Emerging Issues, High Performance Teams, Innovation, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: EHS Culture, EHS Leadership, EHS Management System, EHSMS, ISO 14001, leadership, Learning Organization, Organizational Culture, Safety Culture, Systems Thinking | No Comments »
4.1.2010
This is the second of several blog posts on the EHS Integration model we’ve developed at Redinger EHS, Inc. Please contact us if you’d like PDF of our white paper on this topic.
EHS Functions are often described in terms of levels of maturity. These can also be called stages of development, levels of development, and so on. It’s common to describe these levels or stages with numerical ranks, such as from 1 to 3 or 5, where level or stage 1 represents lowest level of maturity or development and the highest level represents a high degree of maturity.
The EHS Integration model presented here also presents a continuum of EHS Function maturity. This continuum is called “an EHS Integration Continuum,” with seven levels. Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Emerging Issues, Innovation, Management Systems, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: Beyond EHS Compliance, EHS Barriers, EHS Compliance, EHS Integration, EHS Mind-set, EHS Regulations, Implementation Dimension, Integration Dimension | No Comments »
3.30.2010
A recent publication from the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship contains information on the Center’s 2009 survey of 756 small, medium and large companies across the United States. The survey demonstrates the increasing importance of Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Social Responsibility (CC/CR/CSR) in organizations.
It is important for EHS Professions to track these issues. I am seeing a growing number of companies where the EHS Function is being functionalized and/or marginalized by CC/CR/CSR efforts. In these early stages of CC/CR/CSR formulation, there is the potential for diminished influence of the EHS Function.
Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Corporate Social Responsibility, Emerging Issues, Innovation, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Responsibility, Corporate Social Responsibility, EHS, EHS Leadership, Strategic Thinking | 2 Comments »
3.25.2010
I have worked with several EHS departments to increase their performance and cohesiveness. In partnership, we’ve addressed performance beyond simply meeting regulatory compliance, rather looking at ways they could integrate EHS deeper into the organization and impact sustainability and CSR. A starting place in all of these engagements has been to get the EHS management system up-to-snuff and firing on all cylinders. Beyond the EHSMS, we then focused on:
- Team vision. Developing a strong vision based in the team’s collective wisdom.
- Communication skills. Strengthening internal and external communication and generating alignment.
- Team learning. Developing mechanisms for feedback, analysis and integration.
- Systems thinking. Strengthened skills in systems ID and mapping.
Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Emerging Issues, High Performance Teams, Management Systems, Personal Mastery, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: Collective Wisdom, CSR, EHS, High Performance Teams, Sustainability, Systems Thinking, Team Vision | No Comments »
3.19.2010
With increased uncertainty since the financial meltdown, strategic planning cycles in companies have shrunk and created challenges in aligning internal structures and processes with changing strategies. EHS professionals have had to respond with greater flexibility and innovation in breaking down organizational silos to help generate alignment between strategy, structure and process.
The recent issue of the McKinsey Quarterly contained interviews with four corporate Chief Strategy Officers (CSO). While the companies are diverse (Estee’ Lauder, Visa, Boeing, and Smith International) and the CSOs diverge on issues, there are several common points that EHS professionals should note. Throughout the questions, the CSOs continued to point out that planning cycles are shrinking – in many cases, what were once annual cycles are now quarterly and even monthly ones. They also echoed that business assumptions that once seemed indisputable are now coming into question. Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Emerging Issues, Innovation, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: Alignment, Breaking down silos, Collective Wisdom, Corporate Strategy Officer, Strategy | No Comments »
2.25.2010
Documents such as ISO 31000:2009 discussed in an earlier blog, present a good example or framework for improving organizational effectiveness and performance. Frameworks such as these are meant to be general so that individual organizations can tailor them to specific needs.
When applying a new method, approach, or system, organizations need to consider numerous things in developing an implementation/integration strategy that will bring the initiative to life. One of the challenges organizations have in doing this is generating participation. Volumes are written on this subject in the management and organizational sciences. Some of the key points that reoccur are: Read More
Posted By Charles Redinger | in Innovation, Personal Mastery, Strategic Thinking & Planning | Tags: ISO 3100:2009, Quantum EHS Management Systems | No Comments »
