The Corporate Director of Sustainability

July 12, 2009

What would you do if you were asked to fill the company's newly created role of Corporate Director of Sustainability for a worldwide manufucturing organization? There would be so much to do, starting from scratch as you are. Besides working on creating and setting a strategic vision, I would do two things right away: understand the business risks and opportunities of cap-and-trade and other looming programs, and, find something to pay my salary. I would cast around for actionable undertakings with quick paybacks, like making:

• a more efficient vehicle fleet 
• facilities more efficient using an outsourced program like TAC's EnergyEdge    
• demand side reduction agreements, if they weren't already in place 
• paperless communication the norm
• telecommuting an endorsed company behavior
• videoconferencing, net-meeting and skyping encouraged over traveling when it makes business sense 

With my non-productive corporate overhead existence paid for and secure, I would then explore opportunities to put us on the leading edge of sustainability. Could we play around with the Holy Trinity (Smart Grid, Smart Car, Smart Building)? Do we have a place of business where a Smart Grid demonstration project is taking place? If so, as a one-off experiment, let's EnergyEdge our building, power it with renewables, and have an all-electric company vehicle or two with a charging station. See what we learn, implement broadly if there's something worth implementing, continue to monitor if not.

We're a manufacturing organization. What could we steal from carpet company Interface's Mission Zero, to have no negative environmental impact by 2020? 

Could we do things to make our company friendlier, healthier, a place where people look forward to going to work? Focus on those elements of LEED that try to make buildings more comfortable: daylighting, thermal comfort, clean indoor air. Attack the huge, but intangible, opportunity to increase employee productivity by making comfortable workplaces that people are not subconsciously driven out of.

It may be that the original purpose for a company setting up a sustainability department was to market the face of the organization to the rest of the world. Done right, the undertaking could be so much more than originally envisioned, with pluses on the bottom line to delight those originally doing sustainability simply to keep up with the Joneses.

Photo: gloria on flickr