Sustainability & behavioural change

Sustainability & behavioural change

The sustainability transition might be the most urgent and complex issue of our time. Not only laws and regulations force organizations to make more sustainable choices, but even customers are also increasingly demanding it. But how do you prevent ‘sustainability’ from being nothing more than a set of lofty promises in your yearly report, how do you actually make real impact?

The behavior of leaders and employees is the key to success: they will have to make brave choices, dare to take risks and turn promises into action.

Despite good intentions and nice sustainability plans, we see that companies have difficulty realizing these plans. The complexity is too great, it creates too many dilemmas for the current business model, or the approach is too fragmented.

Besides a good substantive approach with a clear strategy, business case and reporting, energy, support and a shared conviction in the organization and acting accordingly are crucial. Because whether you want to work on sustainability because you want to be compliant or because you want to be a thought leader, everyone will have to go along in order to make a real impact.

What we can help with:

Developing and integrating a vision and strategy on sustainability

When a vision and strategy on sustainability needs to be developed or integrated in the organization strategy, we help in setting direction, making choices and identifying what behavior change is needed. A practical ‘Sustainability maturity scan’, a materiality matrix and/or an integral (change) story are the starting point for bringing these goals to life and realizing them.

The result:

  • Insight into the current and desired maturity with regards to sustainability, on strategical, organisational and cultural level
  • Integral overview of all strategic sustainability goals, initiatives and projects
  • A clear and inspiring story about what the organization stands for in terms of sustainability and what their goal is, translated into attractive communication tools
  • A clear direction on sustainability, appropriate to the organization and strategy

Bringing the sustainability strategy to life and making it happen

To ensure that sustainability ambitions are not only embraced but actively realized, it is necessary to create the right conditions, such as:

  • Creating awareness and mobilizing energy at all levels of the organization with the right balance between necessity and opportunity

  • Translating sustainability ambitions into decision-making and management, together with the board and managers

  • Actively involving teams in translating the sustainability ambitions into their concrete daily work

  • Creating an environment in which a contribution to the sustainability ambition is stimulated (e.g. performance management)

  • Providing insight into what drives the behavior of people in the organization and developing effective ways (e.g. gamifications and nudges) to stimulate the required behavioral change

The result:

  • Positive energy and commitment among employees

  • The why, what and how of the sustainability strategy is clear to employees

  • Accelerated realization of the sustainability strategy through co-creation with employees

Activating sustainable behavior of clients and customers

In addition to making an impact with your own operations and employees, there is enormous potential in inspiring customers and encouraging them to make sustainable choices.

We help to determine where the best opportunities lie to make an impact. Then we develop one or more (digital) concepts to make sustainable choices easier for customers. We support this with an appealing campaign.

The result:

  • More radical, unexpected choices and improvements that make sustainable choices easier for customers