Making Sustainability Stick

“Super practical. Wilhelm shares the way to get things done, combining industry best practices and wisdom from his real-world consulting experience.”

--HUNTER LOVINS, President, Natural Capitalism Solutions

“This is a book about culture change, fully woven into a book about sustainability. How to change culture is the holy grail of sustainability champions. Kevin nails it.”

--BOB WILLARD, author and speaker, The Sustainability Advantage

“This is the quintessential ‘how to’ guidebook for companies that want to implement sustainability and make it last.”

--GIFFORD PINCHOT, Cofounder and President, Bainbridge Graduate Institute

“This book encapsulates the best of Drucker, Collins, Senge, and Willard in one place and focuses it on how to operationalize sustainability.”

--MIKE BELLAMENTE, Director, Climate Counts

A Complete Blueprint for Driving Business Value from Sustainability--Now and for Years to Come

To realize the enormous financial, social, and environmental benefits of sustainability, you need to integrate it into everything your company does. Many companies have set out to do this, but few have fully achieved success. This book helps you transform sustainability from “something the company does” to a core source of value creation and innovation for the business--one that everyone can see, measure, and buy into.

Drawing on his experience helping more than 75 companies profit from sustainability, Kevin Wilhelm helps you identify opportunities, overcome numerous barriers and obstacles, engage employees, gain deep executive and stakeholder support, implement policies, and drive the behavior change necessary to get results. Wilhelm shares insights from dozens of business and thought leaders, including many who’ve gone “off the record” to be stunningly frank about the lessons they’ve learned.

This book is packed with tips, checklists, worksheets, and strategies for making sustainability real. It helps you identify your best opportunities to drive value through sustainability--and systematically integrate it into every decision, product, function, job, and market.

• The Business Case: Why You’re Playing The Game

  Proving the added value of sustainability: from cost savings to risk reduction to customer loyalty

• The Fundamentals: “Blocking and Tackling” Building Blocks

  Setting goals, baselining, and gaining the management and stakeholder support you need

• Long-Term Value Creation: Scoring and Winning the Game

  Managing change, engaging employees, and institutionalizing sustainable systems

• Getting from Here to There--From Wherever You Are Right Now

  Assessing where you stand, what to do first, and how to bring that vision to reality

This book provides the blueprint for implementation, breaking down barriers, and the steps required to integrate sustainability successfully into any business.  It is laid out in easily digestible chapters, with action steps backed up from interviews with sustainability thought leaders, case studies, and the real life experience of the author, as well as over 40 interviews with CSR and Sustainability Directors at various companies on how to “get things done” based on their successes and temporary setbacks.  It provides the step-by-step roadmap for implementing sustainability successfully and focuses on “how” companies can realize the benefits of sustainability by engaging the head, heart, and hands of their employees.  Also included is a checklist for implementation and tips on how to regain momentum or get “un-stuck” at the end of each chapter as well as additional helpful resources and exercises to overcome the most common barriers towards implementation.

Kevin Wilhelm is the one of the world’s preeminent business consultants in the field of sustainability and climate change. He is the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, a Seattle-based consulting firm focused on demonstrating the bottom-line business benefits of sustainability and then leading companies through successful implementation. Kevin brings nearly two decades of experience working with businesses ranging from Fortune 500 multinationals to medium-sized businesses. His clients include Nordstrom, REI, The North Face, Alaska Airlines, Redbox, Expeditors, Drugstore.com, Puget Sound Energy, and more than 75 others.

Previously he wrote the acclaimed Return on Sustainability: How Business Can Increase Profitability and Address Climate Change in an Uncertain Economy, and he is a professor at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, where he teaches various courses on sustainable business.

Introduction     1

How to Use This Book     5

Chapter 1: The Business Case     9

Chapter 2: Defining Sustainability     45

Chapter 3: Understanding Your Stakeholders and What Is Material to Them     53

Chapter 4: Baselining Sustainability to Measure What Matters     75

Chapter 5: Goals/Vision and Your Sustainability North Star     103

Chapter 6: Management Support Is Essential     129

Chapter 7: Understanding Change Management to Guide Implementation     141

Chapter 8: Engaging Employees Around Sustainability     177

Chapter 9: Systems, Decision Making, and Internal Alignment     201

Chapter 10: Institutionalizing Sustainability     227

Chapter 11: Communicating Sustainability Internally     245

Individuals Interviewed for This Book     265

Citations and Endnotes     267

Index     279