1.
How to Accelerate HR’s Role in
Sustainability:
The Next Big Step!
December 9, 2015
Impact Hub NYC
Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D.
Transitioning to Green, LLC
Building a Culture for Sustainability

2.
Introductions
Transitioning to Green, LLC
Your connection between sustainability and success.
We assist every organization we partner with to…
• Align corporate strategy and operations with financial
resources, risks and profitability.
– Adapting your Purpose for Prosperity.
• Responsibly manage supply chains, material resources,
facilities and products.
– Respecting natural systems.
• Engage employee passions for creativity, innovation
and inspired performance.
– Nurturing your people to thrive.

3.
Purpose for today
• Educate and inspire leaders and managers in every
function in how to mainstream sustainability into all
aspects of your corporate culture.
• Play a pivotal role in unleashing talent in service of a
sustainable future
• Create a purpose driven, conscious, connected workforce,
and help steward a shift toward total employee involvement
in sustainability
• Embed eight essential elements for creating authentic
sustainability cultures

4.
Brief Introductions
Introduce yourself:
Name, affiliation, background in sustainability
What brought you here today?

5.
“Enough …for all …forever”
African Delegation to Earth Summit II Rio +10, 2002
Envisioning a Sustainable World, 2050

6.
Systems
thinking
Core Sustainability Concepts
Intergenerational
responsibility
Socio-economic
justice
Enough … … for all … … forever.

7.
People Make Sustainability Happen!

8.
Human Resources and Sustainability/CSR
Perfect Together?

9.
Engage Employees in Sustainability
Modern Survey’s “Spring 2012 National Norms Survey.”

10.
• Companies with engaged employees
grew profits 3 X faster than competitors
(Corporate Leadership Council)
• Highly engaged organizations have 87% less staff
turnover and 20% better performance than
average (Corporate Leadership Council)
• Operating income of companies with engaged
employees improved by 19% in one year vs. a
decline of 33% for companies with low levels of
employee engagement (Global survey by Tower Perrins-ISR,
involving an 664,000 employees in 50 companies)
• 59% of engaged employees say their job brings out
their most creative ideas vs. 3% for disengaged
employees
Engagement Drives Results
WBCSD, “People Matter – Engage: Inspiring Employees about Sustainability,” August 2010.

11.
Five Talent Elements to Align with
Sustainability and CSR
1. Attracting Talent
2. Recruiting Talent
3. Developing Talent
4. Engaging Talent
5. Retaining Talent
“It’s the talent that
makes it all happen!”

12.
Making an Impact Increases Satisfaction
Net Impact’s “Talent Report: What Workers Want in 2012,” June 2012,
Based on a survey of 1,726 senior university students and employed graduates. .
Employees who say they have the opportunity to make a direct social and
environmental impact through their job report higher satisfaction levels than those
who don’t, by a 2:1 ratio.

13.
CSR & Engagement Matter
CBSR and Hewitt Associates, “Engaging Employees Through CSR” webinar, Jan 2010

14.
CSR and Engagement
From a slide used by Jay Dorio, Kenexa, at a UNEP FI meeting, March 31, 2011. Based on Kenexa’s
WorkTrends 2010 data base from 10,000 U.S. employees surveyed.

15.
• Tie Sustainability education to the company’s
mission and goals
• Make it relevant to job performance
• Make Sustainability outreach personal and
voluntary
• Focus employees on community outreach
• Focus on key impact areas and set
improvement goals
• Make learning easy and fun!
Engaging Talent: Best Practices

16.
Source: Dan Pink, Drive, 2011
DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About
What Motivates Us

17.
Retaining talented people:
Why does it matter?
Soaring costs
• Experts agree that the cost of replacing
workers can easily be two times their
annual salary…
• And that’s not including the “hidden”
costs of lost tacit and explicit knowledge
• Other costs are impact on morale,
increased stress and inefficiency

18.
Retaining talented people:
Why does it matter?
More Soaring Costs
• Add on direct costs of replacing talent, such as
advertising, interviewing, and sign-on
bonuses, and the hard to measure costs of
orientation, training, putting work on hold,
lost productivity, and lost customers, and the
total is staggering!

19.
Retaining Talented People:
How can you keep them?
As a manager, you ask:
• How can I make work more satisfying for my
people?
• How can I better understand their career
ambitions?
• How can I better respect the work-life issues
they face?
• How can I bend the rules to support them?

20.
Retaining Talented People:
How can you keep them?
As a manager, you:
• Tell them where they stand
• Tell them where they need to improve
• Have fun and encourage [respectful and
appropriate] humor in the workplace

21.
What is the Manager’s Role?
“Managers need to step into their roles as
managers and spend time learning about their
employees and their career aspirations and help
craft development opportunities as part of the day-
to-day work.”
Edie Goldberg, 2012

22.
Associate Engagement
Starts with asking and listening
• Listening doesn’t mean you have to make any promises
or commitments….just listen
• Questions to ask:
– Do you feel recognized for your accomplishments?
– Do you feel challenged in your work?
– Are you getting enough feedback?
– Is the training you want available to you?
– Do you see a fit between your career goals and the
opportunities available to you?
– What can I do to support your goals?
– What are you struggling with?
– What would make your life easier?

23.
Employee Initiatives to Engage in
Sustainability
• Launching “Green Teams”
• Providing opportunities for Employee Volunteerism
• Developing “green” products and services
• Greening your supply chain
• Conducting life-cycle analysis of your products
• Reducing your carbon footprint

24.
Communications: Creating an
Ennobling Conversation for the
Future
Craft a compelling and inspiring sustainability
story…Make it inclusive and widely shared inside and
outside the organization.
Engage the entire organization in a conversation
designed to give rise to a vision of what’s possible, with
sustainability being the fuel that unleashes everyone’s
energy, exciting and ennobling them by giving new
meaning to their work and bringing whole new
possibilities into being.
Wirtenberg, 2010

25.
Learning and Development:
Embed Sustainability Training in All Functions
• Fundamentals of
Sustainability
• Marketing,
Communications, &
Social Networking
• Human Resources
• Strategy and Metrics
• Operations/Facilities
• Finance
• Supply Chain
• Greening Information
Technology

26.
What if?
Every employee
had goals
around
sustainability,
working in
concert with the
business’ goals
to solve some of
our most
intractable
problems? And every employee could articulate what that
means to them personally?

27.
Sustainability happens when…
Managers make
decisions and take
actions every day that
take sustainability
gain and harm into
account.

28.
Sustainability Pyramid Framework

29.
The Next Big Step in Sustainability is
CULTURE.

30.
BUILDING A CULTURE FOR
SUSTAINABILITY:
PEOPLE, PLANET, AND PROFITS
IN A NEW GREEN ECONOMY
Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D.
President, Transitioning to Green and
Co-Founder/Senior Advisor, Institute
for Sustainable Enterprise, Fairleigh
Dickinson University

31.
* Purpose of the book
– and at all stages…from those
just starting their journey to
sustainability to those who are
seeking to accelerate and
deepen their positive impacts on
people, reduce their
environmental footprint, and
enhance their financial bottom
line in the short, medium, and
long-term.

32.
*Megatrends 2013-2050
• Growth of the Middle Class
• A Resource Crunch
• Persistent inequality
• Major demographic changes
• Urbanization
• Growing human health vulnerability
• Growing connectivity
Source: Richard Wells, “To Build Long Term Sustainability, Envision the Future First,” GreenBiz, 2013.

33.
*Building a Culture for Sustainability:
Nine In-depth Company Case Studies tell the story…

34.
*How do we get there?
• The good news is that culture is
fungible. It can change, and
business leaders and managers can
help shift the balance to sustainable
mindsets and behaviors by
influencing their own and others
belief systems and behaviors.

35.
*How do we get there?
• Companies don’t need to resort to top-
down command and control, coercion,
or even peer pressure because…
• People already care about these issues.
• Companies need to offer the enabling
environment, encouragement and
reinforcement for people to contribute
what already resides within them!

36.
WHAT DOES A CULTURE FOR
SUSTAINABILITY LOOK LIKE?

37.
Essential Elements of a
Culture for Sustainability
• Sustainable Values
• Sustainable Mind-Set
• Leadership for sustainability
• Visionary
• Employee engagement
• Multi-disciplinary
• Diversity, inclusion, social
justice
• Wisdom

38.
Essential Elements of a Culture for Sustainability
• Sustainable Values; sees organization in context of
community, society, and earth
• Sustainable Mind-Set; systems thinking
• Leadership for sustainability; leads with purpose and
authenticity
• Visionary: Envisions the future we want to create
• Employee engagement; builds agility and resiliency;
engages imagination; fun
• Multi-disciplinary; Embeds sustainability throughout
learning and development
• Diversity, inclusion, social justice; deep caring for all
people
• Wisdom: emotional, social, and ecological intelligence

39.
Essential Elements of a
Culture for Sustainability
Exercise
• Sustainable Values
• Sustainable Mind-Set
• Leadership for sustainability
• Visionary
• Employee engagement
• Multi-disciplinary
• Diversity, inclusion, social
justice
• Wisdom

40.
COMPANY EXAMPLES
AND BEST PRACTICES

41.
A NOBLE VISION THAT EXCITES PEOPLE:
“We’re going to connect the unconnected world. We’re
going to make sure the 2 billion people with no access to
communication services for health care, for life, for
education, for learning have all that in the next 20 years.”

42.
Employees find meaning, passion, and inspiration
in the company’s vision—“to realize the potential
of a connected world.”

43.
They incorporate sustainability thinking into every job
function they perform, whether in procurement, facilities,
product development, network design, marketing, finance, or
Human Resources.

44.
• “Engage”: Maximizing
Communication
through Social Media
• Collaborating across
Stakeholders and
Industries

45.
Systems approach is the “Verbund”
concept, which permeates every function,
facet, and operation of the organization.
Verbund is an
interconnected system of
relationships generating
greater value than the
sum of its parts

46.
BASF’s global people strategy is a comprehensive
approach to creating and maintaining a culture of
sustainability
• The global people strategy was
developed through future forecasting
and mapping the gap
• The strategy is organized around 3 categories:
1. Excellent people
2. Excellent place to work
3. Excellent leaders

47.
Corporate Communications Programs for
Engaging People
• “We Create Chemistry
World Tour”
• Simply Dare!

48.
Case Example:
BASF Market Customer Focus Teams
• Action learning mode: “Anchor in the work that people
do and give them space to practice new behaviors.”
• Seattle Mariners, member of Green Sports Alliance,
pledged to divert 85% of waste from landfills.
• BASF team leveraged its material technology to create
100% compostable snack bags, made from BASF’s
Ecoflex.
• Created successful new product line using biopolymer
technology, now marketed to Universities and sports
teams worldwide.

49.
• It’s all about Mind-set
• Respecting and Learning
from Failure
• Reporting the Bad with the
Good

50.
• Integrating sustainability
into the way it does
business
• Manifesting it in how
everyone approaches the
work they do every day
• Instilling a sustainability
mind-set internally
• Helping customers
become more sustainable

51.
• Capturing Employees’ Hearts and
Minds Through Employee-
Centered Initiatives
– Green Teams and Certification
– Sustainability Champions Drive
Change
– One STEP Forward – Personalizing
Sustainability
– Values: From Home to Workplace
– Life-Cycle Thinking

52.
• Creating and Sustaining
Customer Value
– Segmenting the Marketplace
– Creating a Green Portfolio
through Open Innovation
– Outcome-Driven Innovation
– Applying ODI to Sustainability
Challenges at Ingersoll Rand
– Ingersoll Rand’s Green Portfolio

53.
Sanofi’s 4 CSR Pillars
“The key to a culture for sustainability
is full participation, to make everyone
feel they are part of something
greater and bigger.”
‒John Spinnato, VP of CSR,
N. America

54.
“Because of Wyndham’s
massive reach and ability to
influence change, we know
it's important to inform and
educate our guests, investors,
employees and business
partners about being green.”
-- Wyndham’s website

55.
HOW TO GET THERE

56.
• Creating a grand vision
• Making the business
case: Sustainability is a
business imperative
• Starting at the top
• Embedding
sustainability in the
organization’s DNA

57.
• Setting priorities and
making commitments
• Communicating with
authenticity and
transparency
• Recognizing
accomplishments and
disclosing areas for
improvement

58.
BASF’s culture for sustainability is
relationship and people-driven
• Take the passion for problem solving, bring it to
sustainability and make that the focus of the
business.
8 ELEMENTS:
• Changing Mind-Sets
• Getting Close to Customers
• Finding solutions to Intractable Problems
• Letting Science Decide
• Making the Shift from Functional to Solutions-Driven Strategy
• Integrating Sustainability into Everyone’s Goals
• Creating Sustainability Champions
• Igniting Contagious Passion

59.
• Take a Strengths-Based Approach
• Build Partnerships
• Recognize the link between Sustainability
and Premier Performance
• Tie Sustainability to the Company’s Brand,
Promise, Vision, and Purpose

60.
• Create a Rallying Point and a Focus
area for Alignment
• Translate Sustainability into
Customer Value
• Set a Small Number of Strategic
Priorities

61.
Evolving CSR/Sustainability
• Passion to help people
• Environmentalism
social consciousness
innovation
• Fostering a culture of
innovation
• Connect with
employees in every
function

62.
• Tie Sustainability to
Innovation
• Integrate
Sustainability Fully
into Company
Strategy

63.
Employee Giving Fund
and Volunteerism
• Volunteer
opportunities
• Partnerships with
NGOs

64.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

65.
Integrated Thinking
Core Capacities
1. Systems Thinking
2. Strategy Development
3. Collaboration and Teamwork
4. Integrating the Bottom Line

66.
Do it yourself  Can’t do it alone
You
Kindred
Spirits
Their
Networks
Whole
Company
Whole
Industry
All
Industries
The
World
“Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world; indeed, it's the only
thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead ―
“Give me a lever long enough and a
fulcrum on which to place it, and
I shall move the world.”
― Archimedes ―

67.
Common Attributes of Collaborative Cultures
 Promote frequent, cross-functional interaction
 Leadership and power are spread through organization
 People are accessible regardless of their level
 Mitigate fear of failure; failures are turned into
opportunities
 Encourage broad input into decisions

68.
Common Attributes of Collaborative Cultures (continued)
 Provide opportunities for cross-pollination of people
 Support spontaneous or unscheduled interaction
 Structured and unstructured interaction, as
appropriate
 Formal and informal mentoring
 Available tools fit work objectives

69.
3 Challenges to Collaboration
1. People hold back from contributing
their best work
2. Inadequate conflict-handling skills
3. Poor communication skills abound

70.
Appreciation not blame…
Encourage the expression of diverse viewpoints
and opinions
Discuss and assess their relevance, fit, and overall
importance
Judge well and often – in regard to input, actions
and outcomes
Go with the best overall decision, given the
information at hand – including the assessment
of risk and consequences
Recognize the value of the work different people
contributed

71.
Cultivating Collective Intelligence
“A life-affirming leader is one who knows how to rely
on and use the intelligence that exists everywhere in
the community, the company, the school, or the
organization. A leader these days needs to be a
host—one who convenes people, who convenes
diversity, who convenes all viewpoints in creative
processes where our intelligence can come forth.”
--Margaret Wheatley

72.
Collaboration is holistic and personal
www.collaborateup.com

73.
About Collaboration
It is not unlike dancing. In collaboration, one must
pay attention to the whole of the project and the
whole of the team…Anything less is mechanical, a
going through of the motions of a process someone
else set up, check-listing a set of activities
asynchronously, rather than creating cohesively
something of value.
David Coleman and Stewart Levine
Collaboration 2.0. Technology and best practices for collaboration

74.
Self-Interest Mutuality
The Team Dynamic of Self-Interest and
Mutuality

75.
Attributes of
High-Performance Teams
(especially for sustainability)
Participative
leadership
Shared
responsibility
Aligned on
purpose
High
communication
Future
focused
Focused on
task
Creative
talents
Rapid
response
Source: Robert Kreitner & Angelo Kinicki, Organizational Behavior, Tenth edition, 2013

76.
Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Inattention
to
RESULTS
Avoidance of
ACCOUNTABILITY
Lack of
COMMITMENT
Fear of
CONFLICT
Absence of
TRUST
Based on the work of
Patrick Lencioni

77.
Example: A threat to Group Effectiveness
• Groupthink
– “a mode of thinking that people engage in when
they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group,
when members’ strivings for unanimity override
their motivation to realistically appraise
alternative courses of action.”
Source: Robert Kreitner & Angelo Kinicki, Organizational Behavior, Tenth edition, 2013

78.
Symptoms of Groupthink
Invulnerability
Inherent
morality
Rationalization
Stereotyped
views of
opposition
Self-censorship
Illusion of
unanimity
Peer pressure Mindguards
Source: Robert Kreitner & Angelo Kinicki, Organizational Behavior, Tenth edition, 2013

79.
Groupthink Research
and Prevention
• Groups with a moderate amount of
cohesiveness produce better decisions
than low- or high-cohesive groups.
• Highly cohesive groups victimized by
groupthink make the poorest decisions,
despite high confidence in those decisions
Source: Robert Kreitner & Angelo Kinicki, Organizational Behavior, Tenth edition, 2013

80.
Three Big Tipping Points
1. Co-Creation
2. Bottom-Up
3. Long View

81.
Lessons
Learned
• Create a shared focus on
solving a global problem—
such as the dilemma of the
digital divide.
• Make use of frameworks
and tools that have already
been proven and that work

82.
Lessons Learned
• Culture change is a team sport
• Linking sustainability to business success brings
along even the hard core skeptics.
• Systems approach (e.g., Verbund) supports
embedded sustainability

83.
Conclusion: People, Planet, and Profits in a
New Green Economy

84.
Critical Issues and Challenges that Must be
Addressed

85.
Company Conundrums in Addressing
Sustainability-Related Challenges
• People-Related Challenges
– Changing Mind-Sets and Behavior
– Filling the Pipeline from STEM Disciplines
– Overwhelming Workloads and Competing Priorities
– HR Needs to Step Up to the Plate

86.
Company Conundrums in Addressing
Sustainability-Related Challenges
• Planet
– Consumer Perceptions that Green Costs More, and
Finding a Workable Trade-Off
– Being Sustainable versus Touting It
– Tree Hugging, Cutting Edge, or Bleeding Edge?

87.
Company Conundrums in Addressing
Sustainability-Related Challenges
• Profits
– Measuring ROI of Sustainability Initiatives
– Dealing with Short-Termism
– Working with Different Measurement Systems and
Methods around the Globe

88.
Promote Well-Being
by Cultivating
Sustainability-Inspired
Habits and Practices
• Silent Reflection
• Mindfulness
• Listening generously
• Both-And
• Being, Satisfaction
• Caring, Compassion, and Service
• Gratitude
• Collaboration
• Balance

89.
Thank You!
Jeana Wirtenberg Ph.D.
jwirtenberg@transitioningtogreen.com
Phone: 973-335-6299
@Trans2Green
@jeanawirtenberg
Transitioning to Green
www.transitioningtogreen.com
Transitioning to Green Foundation
www.TTGFoundation.org
Institute for Sustainable Enterprise
FDU www.fdu.edu/ise