Toolkit for Driving CSR

When I speak to organizational leaders, many are seeking tools to develop a sustainable corporate social responsibility strategy. I find most organizations experience challenges in driving this systemic change.  While the benefits of becoming a socially responsible organization include attracting employees and clients with similar values, improving relationships with communities, suppliers, and governmental agencies, reducing risk, and creating new opportunities. In my experience, leaders struggle with truly embedding social responsibility into their organizations. In order to facilitate this transformation, I am sharing the ISO 26000 resource to provide guidance on your CSR journey.

ISO 26000 is a voluntary set of guidelines to help organizations operate in a socially,

environmentally, and ethically responsible way. Since it is a guideline rather than a standard, it is not certifiable but rather serves as a tool to improve an organizations social responsibility. ISO 26000 builds upon linkages in international standards such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), UN Global Compact, and the UN Declaration of Human Rights to create an actionable set of guidelines.

For an organization to be socially responsible, it means that management considers the impacts of its actions on society and the environment. In addition, it means that a governance structure is created to ensure that this process of contributing to sustainable development is managed in an ethical and transparent manner taking all stakeholders requirements into consideration. For an organization to be socially responsible, they must fully embed these concepts into the culture of the organization so that they become part of their people, process, and policies.

ISO 26000 7 principles to drive socially responsible impact are:

1.     Accountability

2.     Transparency

3.     Ethics

4.     Respect for Stakeholders

5.     Respect for the Rule of Law

6.     Respect for International Norms of Behavior

7.     Respect for Human Rights

These 7 principles establish an underlying framework for socially responsible decision making and foster creating a community to support these standards. As you undertake your social responsibility journey, please remember that this is a continuous improvement process that gets better with practice.

In order to identify key socially responsible issues, we break into 7 core subjects as outlined in Exhibit A. 

Exhibit A: Identification of Social Responsibility Priorities

 The 7 Core Subjects are: organizational governance, human rights, labor rights, environment, fair-operating practices, consumer issues, community involvement & development. Using a Deming cycle approach ( Plan, Do, Check, Act), begin by selecting the most relevant socially responsible issues, identify your organization’s desired position, highlight the current gap between vision and actual, identify models of success, implement best practices, identify areas of weakness and seek root causes, select priorities, create a plan, implement, measure impact, modify as needed and repeat. Of course, stakeholder engagement is a vital part of this prioritization process. Once you have prioritized, consider your sphere of influence such as your partners, suppliers, clients, competitors, etc and consider how you can begin to make an impact beyond your own organization.

For additional details and tools, go to

https://www.iso.org/iso-26000-social-responsibility.html

As I have written in Becoming a Sustainable Organization, creating a corporate social responsibility organization is a journey. While the ride may be bumpy the creation of a world where the SDGs are achieved will mean a better life on planet earth for all. Best wishes for your CSR journey!

Visit Our Linkedin Page

As part of expanding our social media presence, we have an updated Linkedin page for BEcoming Sustainable. Please follow our page for updates on our activities, trends and conversation on social impact and sustainability. We look forward to engaging with our community on this new platform.

Here is the link to follow us:https://www.linkedin.com/company/becoming-sustainable/

International Project Management Day 11/2/17

Happy International Project Management Day. To celebrate, Kristina Kohl, MBA, PMP, Principal of Becoming Sustainable presents "Building a More Sustainable Project Outcome" for Nokia's International PM Day. Global project management professionals are learning about:

1. Sustainable Development Goals and the Triple Bottom Line  
2. The Sustainability Journey and the Value Added by Project Management Methodologies
3. Projects and Best Practices for Embedding Sustainability into Organizations
4. Case Studies and Tools for Building a More Sustainable Project Outcome

Project managers can have a significant impact by driving organizational environmental, social, and governance vision through the PM process. Here are some ideas:

1. Incorporate Sustainability Criteria into the Portfolio Selection Process
2. Align Project Benefits with Business and Sustainability Goals
3. Engage Diverse Stakeholders
4. Create Organizational Value by Embedding Sustainability into Program Management Methodologies
5. Provide a Vehicle for Addressing Organizational Challenges and New Opportunities
6. Promote a Culture of Sustainability Through Adopting Sustainability as a Component of All Projects

How is your organization celebrating International PM Day?

10 Strategies to Build a More Sustainable Organization

Kristina Kohl, MBA, PMP, and Principal of HRComputes and Becoming Sustainable presented a webinar for Ascentis as part of the "Build a Strong Organization Series." The following are some of the top 10 ideas for HCM professionals to promote sustainability with your organization:

1. Participate in the development of C-suite strategic sustainability vision.
2. Engage with internal and external stakeholders to understand, educate, and inform of needs and requirements.
3. Develop leadership competencies and development programs to create sustainable leaders.
4. Redesign job functions, descriptions, and performance metrics to align with the organization’s sustainability mission.
5. Share your organization’s sustainability story to attract and retain top talent.
6. Empower employees to embrace CSR and to contribute ideas and suggestions that impact locally and globally.
7. Develop training materials to educate and inform employees and to help them align personal and organizational goals.
8. Support organizational redesign to break down silos and promote cross-functional collaboration.
9. Create and support communication strategy that meets employees where they are on their sustainability journey.
10. Define success and measure with metrics.

In order to read the blog post and find the recorded webinar, visit:

http://www.ascentis.com/2017/10/free-hr-webinar-on-sustainability/