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Lesson 3 Best Practices

Module 6: Green Transition Chapter 3 How To: Make your office and company sustainable and green (a toolbox for small but impactful changes within an organisation) Lesson 3 Best Practices

Best Practice Tool I – Deloitte Green Maturity Matrix

The maturity matrix is an indicative tool, designed for organizations to identify potential gaps and possible next steps across two areas:

Their ability to address green challenges (climate change, pollution, waste, etc.)
Their green capability of internal functions (HR, IT, Finance, etc.)

This tool can be easily adapted to any sort of organization and sustainability targets via Excel.

Current abilities, potential weaknesses and strengths, areas for improvement and possible synergies between departments and different levels of your organization can be mapped and highlighted.

Can be used for analysis as well as for strategy planning. The Toolkit can be found here: Link

Theme	Understanding	Developing	Performing	Leading
Management	Sets a commitment to reduce carbone missions in line with 1.5°C pathway and identifies wider sustainability goals Identifies executive sponsor to beaccountable for delivery of firmwide Strategy	Categorises climate-related risks over short, medium and long term Embeds risk management processes into business operations and creates a governance structure to oversee it Mobilises teams to identify and prioritise sustainability initiatives	Utilises performance management systems to incentivise actions in support of sustainability commitments Certifies internal procedures against relevant local and international standards Continuously plans and track sustainability actions	Outlines ambitious environmental targets that go beyond net zero, that put back more value into the environment than they take e.g. reaching carbon positive, Biodiversity Net Gain Is recognised as a leading organization for championing acceleration towards a low-carbon sustainable future
Procurement	Identifies sustainability requirements, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and risks associated with each procurement Category	Requires that suppliers share their emissions data Establishes and implements process to ensure minimum sustainable and ethical standards are met in procurement and contracts	Includes supplier requirements to set net zero and sustainability strategy commitment as part of contracts Develops and tracks supplier sustainability key performance indicators for further monitoring and Analytics	Builds capacity for training suppliers to further enhance their sustainable supply chains

Best Practice Tool II – Deloitte Blueprint of a Model Organization

The blueprint of a “model organization” paints a picture of an organization that has embedded green skills across all job families, sharing the organization’s responsibility to meet consumer, stakeholder, and regulator demands in the green economy.

This tool helps identify green skills gaps across job families. It provides an organizational overview that works for all sizes of organizations. The tool reflects 3 levels (leadership, management and operational), identifies external drivers for change and competencies. It can be used for analysis as well as for strategy planning. The model is a simple matrix and can easily be adapted for any organization.

The Toolkit can be found here: Link.

HR/People
Core Competencies	Leadership, change management, strategic planning, coaching, training.
Key external drivers for the change	Diversity and inclusion. Purpose and value led organisations.	AI, automation, robotics and blockchain. Aging workforce and pensions.

Green Skills:	Knowledge	Technical Skills	Behaviours	Competencies
Leadership	Aware of trends towards purpose driven roles to attract and retain staff.	Builds incentive structures, talent reviews and development that are aligned to sustainability strategy.	Creates a culture of organizational and individual learning of green skills tailored to jobs.	Builds future capability in green skills and jobs. Change management that brings the workforce on the sustainable journey.
Management	Aware of green skills needs in all roles across the organization	Develops unbiased recruitment practices to encourage diversity. Delivers training for core green skills	Coaches and mentors employees through greener sustainability careers.	Attracts and retains employees in roles that deliver social value.
Operational	Awareness of staff motivations and their understanding of climate change.	Writes job roles, competency frameworks and learning pathways that incorporate green skills.	Champions organisational sustainability initiatives to create a purpose driven organisation.	Follows sustainable recruitment processes, minimising impact.
Current State

Best Practice Tool III – Blockers & Enablers

This matrix summarizes the common blockers to green skills adoption and a number of potential enablers to overcome these blockers.

The content is based on discussions and interviews with sustainability professionals but as with the other two tools, this can be replicated and adapted through interviews with employees, customers and other stakeholders more specific to the respective field of an organization.

Understanding possible obstacles others have encountered and comparing them to your own organization and field of interest will allow to build a stronger sense for necessary improvements and limitations in Green Transition. This tool contains 4 levels of maturity, several blockers and enablers and descriptions for each. The Toolkit can be found here: Link.

Maturity	Blocker	Description	Potential Enablers
Level 1: Understanding	Establishing a base level of knowledge	Employees have limited understanding of the green transition, why sustainable practices are important, and how they will affect their day-to-day roles, business, sector, and the UK economy generally	Employee engagement campaigns with clear and consistent messaging on sustainability Role-specific training Interactive Environmental Management System (EMS) that shows environmental performance and impact
Level 1: Understanding	Leadership understanding of the value of green skills	Leaders have limited understanding of how sustainability and green skills could add value in their organisation and are unclear on the business case for change	Presenting the business case for green skills Showcasing quick wins with job families that are already changing
Level 2: Developing	Limited strategy, planning and investment	Organisations are not sure where the gaps in green skills are, or how to measure and prioritise them. Lack of a clear strategy and plan of action means investment is hard to secure	Use the model organisation blueprint to identify green skill gaps across job families in your organisation Work with Learning and Development functions to create development plans
	Rigid processes and structures inflexible to change	While governance is important for supporting change,bureaucracy and red tape can hinder the ability to flex ways of working in order to adopt new green behaviours and develop a green culture	Forming mission-based teams to focus on outcomes Utilise green networks which may sit across organization structures, to share learning
	Competing priorities and time management challenges	Green skills training is seen as time-intensive Competing priorities mean that sustainability practices are seen as less important or as an additional ask on top of busy schedules	Blended learning in the form of modular training and on the job learning Prioritisation of work based on company values Reorganisation of team structures to reflect priorities Adoption of agile working

Best Practice Tool IV ISO – 14001 Environment Management System

ISO 14001 is an international standard for designing and implementing an environmental management system (EMS).ISO 14001 requirements provide a framework and guidelines for creating your environmental management system so that you do not miss important elements needed for an EMS to be successful.

An EMS (ISO certified or not) is all-in-one solution (usually on an intranet server, can be replicated for free on services like Google Drive, Teams, OneDrive) that contains everything (tracking tools, databases, tutorials and trainings, leadership and organizational structure, monitoring and evaluation, terms and definitions) related to the management of an organization’s environmental / sustainability transition operation. The ISO standard can serve as a guideline for building towards an overall better system.

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