This post, from Cam Hoang, Counsel and Assistant Secretary, General Mills,  is the sixth in a six-part series based on Where Sustainability Lives, a new study that indicates that organizational structure matters to sustainability performance.

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The study confirmed many of my suspicions about the correlation between organizational structure and external recognition of sustainability performance – I agree with the authors that more work is needed.  Beyond the question of where leadership for sustainability resides in an organization, I would be curious about how various departments in the horizontal structure collaborate to make sustainable practices happen.

This post is the fifth in a six-part series based on Where Sustainability Lives, a new study that indicates that organizational structure matters to sustainability performance.

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In the course of our research, we found that when a company established a dedicated sustainability function or placed responsibility for sustainability in the legal or corporate/public affairs divisions, that company tended to receive greater recognition than if sustainability was managed by community relations/foundation or human resources departments.

What this suggests to me is a continuation of the accelerating shift away from the perception of sustainability as just a “nice to have” or a “good” thing to do. When sustainability “lives” only in philanthropic areas of the company, it can hardly aspire to have broad strategic relevance with regard to core business activities. Conversely, if sustainability lives in oversight hubs such as legal or corporate affairs, the company’s approach can benefit from broad stakeholder input and the inherent risk-and-opportunity-management focus of those functions. With more companies moving sustainability out of philanthropy and into higher-level, strategic functions, the message we hear is that sustainability is and will continue to be a driver of long-term success.

As to companies that have chosen to designate a sustainability function or a “CRO”: it will be interesting to track the success of this approach. A relatively new phenomenon, it seems to be effective in helping companies to reap the benefits of a centrally coordinated approach (see the recent post from Dave Stangis of The Campbell Soup Company).

The question is whether all companies need such a department to achieve results. My guess is no, and that we’ll continue to see an evolution in and diversity of sustainability placements and organizational structures that reflect unique company cultures for some time to come.

We’d love to hear about the evolution of your company’s sustainability function: where did it originate, where is it now, where might it eventually wind up… just click on the comment link below to post your thoughts!

Apple 2008 Environmental Update PDF

This post is the fourth in a six-part series based on Where Sustainability Lives, a new study that indicates that organizational structure matters to sustainability performance.

One of the core conclusions of our research is that companies need to integrate sustainability into their management structures and align it with core business practice in order to derive maximum value.

We turned to Dave Stangis of the Campbell Soup Company for his perspective on this conclusion. Dave was recruited to Campbell to build an executable business strategy around sustainability and CSR, areas of performance that have been elevated to be one of the company’s seven core business strategies. We asked Dave to comment on his day-to-day experience in driving this agenda.

CSR and Sustainability as Business Strategy

I realize I may be stating the obvious – but considering CSR and sustainability as business strategies, and driving them as such, is really what I enjoy about my role.

In just the past few weeks, I have participated in several external events, each positioned with a different focus. At the beginning of the month, I was on a lunch panel for the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future (WNSF). 

In addition to Campbell Soup, the panel also included Ogilvy and Herman Miller and focused on the challenges and opportunities of getting environmental marketing right. I’m not a big fan of environmental marketing. I do, however, advocate for telling the truth. If a certain product uses less packaging, or perhaps less energy or water to manufacture than a previous or competing product, I think that information is fair game to be shared with interested consumers. One key point I tried to make on the panel was that communication, regardless of whether it is advertising, social media, or content such as a CSR report, should all be part of a communications strategy anchored in audience needs.

A week later, I participated in USA Today’s Cause Branding Summit. This was my first time at such an event and I found it very interesting. The corporations were far outnumbered by the nonprofit organizations in the audience.  Listening to all the examples of partnerships between large corporations and well-known nonprofits, I was struck by how few of the examples I had actually heard about. This is one area where there is no lack of good work to be done. Efforts are only limited by dollars, desire, or bandwidth. A key takeaway message from this day for both the companies and the nonprofits was that, goodness aside, differentiation and credibility were the result of focus and strategic alignment … of both partners.

Last week, and arguably most importantly, I participated in Campbell Soup Company’s Investor Day at our Maxton, NC plant. Because our commitment to CSR and Sustainability is called out explicitly as one of only 7 core business strategies, it is a subject that is not only routinely addressed by the company’s leadership, it also drives behavior and long-term thinking inside the company. In addition to the business update provided to the analysts, we also took them on a tour of our plant and operations.  Two of the stations on the tour included Sustainability and Safety. Each station included plant and company leaders explaining our strategies and results.

Asking and being able to answer the tough questions about how what we do makes our company more competitive today and better positioned for the future. That is what being a CSR professional in a corporation is all about.

This is another test / updated post.

To drive innovation and brand value, companies should elevate responsibility for managing sustainability. Read my guest column in yesterday’s Environmental Leader.

This post is the second in a six-part series based on Where Sustainability Lives, a new study that indicates that organizational structure matters to sustainability performance. Cecily Joseph, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Symantec, weighs in on the importance of securing the CEO’s support. She argues that it’s not so much a question of “where sustainability lives” but rather “does sustainability live at the CEO level?” that ultimately determines a company’s success.

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I recently read your study on the impact of where sustainability sits in an organization to the overall external recognition of the program.  Although I agree that there might be some correlation, I feel the strongest indicator of how well a CR program does and is perceived externally is how engaged the CEO is in the CR agenda. Simply stated, if the CEO is a driver of CR then regardless of where the CR staff sits – the program will outperform other CR programs where the CEO is not as engaged.

Perhaps what your study is really showing is that in those organizations where the CEO is more engaged in CR – he/she tends to elevate the program so it has more visibility.  However, it’s not that action that is driving the external recognition but rather the CEO’s ongoing actions to promote and integrate CR within their business. Having a CR team that reports higher into the organization is just a byproduct of the CEO’s interest and support of this – it’s not the reason the program itself is more successful.

When a CEO drives and promotes the CR agenda then all aspects of the business become engaged at an accelerated level.  This is the action that truly drives the success of a CR agenda including external recognition. So it’s not so much the general question of “Where sustainability lives” but rather “does sustainability live at the CEO level?” that determines success.

This post is the first in a six-part series based on Where Sustainability Lives, a new study which indicates that organizational structure matters to sustainability performance. Please check back in the coming weeks for further insight and analysis from the Framework:CR team and various corporate practitioners.

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With respect to vertical structure, Where Sustainability Lives concludes that a company is more likely to receive external recognition if the sustainability function lives higher within said company’s organizational structure. The data, upon which the study is based, offers compelling evidence in support of this conclusion. For example, companies in which the sustainability function is just one level removed from the CEO are recognized nearly twice as often as companies in which the sustainability function is four levels removed from the CEO.

So here’s a question to ponder. Why? Why does vertical structure matter? In my opinion, it boils down to two simple—perhaps obvious—factors: power and money.

Power:  Like it or not, our titles and the perception of our influence—or lack thereof—can precede us in the workplace. Hence, the extent to which a company’s sustainability function can influence stakeholders and secure buy-in depends largely on their position within the corporate hierarchy. Think about employee engagement, for example. Employees are likely to respond differently to a request (read: polite appeal) from a junior executive than they would to the same request (read: direct order) from a senior executive. Thus, a senior executive in charge of sustainability can exert more leverage, gain more traction, and, therefore, build a more successful program than his/her junior counterpart who manages a similar program at a competing company.

In turn, senior executives are better positioned to engage with their CEOs on sustainability-related topics, because senior executives have direct access to the CEO and other C-suite executives, whereas junior executives may not. I would be remiss to not point out how advantageous this is for the senior executives in terms of raising awareness, gaining cross-functional support, and ultimately building momentum behind sustainability. Clients tell us time and again how critical CEO support is to the success of their respective programs and initiatives.

Finally, we have to consider scope. Senior executives are often responsible for a range of business units or geographic regions, whereas junior executives have narrower responsibilities. In reviewing the responses to our survey, it seems that— in addition to sustainability— most senior executives also oversee the likes of communications; public relations; environment, health, and safety; and/or other functional areas. These structures allow those senior executive to drive sustainability down into the other business units for which they have control.  Junior executives, by comparison, may have to work up through senior executives and then back down into other business units to achieve the same results.

Money: Money, of course, goes hand in hand with power, so I won’t belabor this point. However, we must recognize the important role that money and budgets play in determining a successful sustainability effort. Junior executives must often request and apply for budget dollars, whereas senior executives allocate them. From this premise, one would expect the senior executive, who is allocating budget dollars, to protect his/her budget first. The junior executive overseeing a similar responsibility is unlikely to take any precedent. He/she may have limited budget or no budget, especially in a downturn economy like this one.

Presented by Framework:CR

Hosted by the Altamont Group 

 A sustainability strategy requires the support of senior business leaders. Leadership in sustainability, however, begins and ends with your employees.

Join us and learn how to position employee engagement as a critical part of your overall sustainability strategy.

• Develop an employee engagement approach that aligns with your company culture and core business strategy
• Identify internal sustainability leaders and champions
• Target various constituencies within your organization
• Foster a culture of personal accountability
• Leverage social media platforms

PRESENTERS: Kyle Whitaker and Aleksandra Dobkowski-Joy, Principals at Framework:CR 

TIME: 1:00-2:30PM (EST) on July 16, 2009

REGISTER: Via the course brochure or register@altamont-group.com 

SINGLE ATTENDEE: $249 (early registration)

ADDITIONAL ATTENDEE: $99