Blog Post

How to Get Started: Step 1

  • By Kevin Foley
  • 31 Mar, 2019
This is the 3rd article in our three-part “Intro to Sustainability Series” and will explain how to get started on your sustainability journey.

If you have not read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we suggest you go back and read them. They will give you a solid understanding of what sustainability is and why it is important for organizations like yours.

The Most Important Step

The first and most important step you can take when setting out on your sustainability journey is to create a “Sustainability Program Roadmap.” A sustainability program roadmap is a single document that contains all the essential elements needed to design, launch and grow your sustainability program. A well designed roadmap will help you navigate your journey and guide you safely to your final destination.

However, before you begin building a roadmap, it is important to have a basic understanding of a few essential characteristics of your organization and its operations.

Before Getting Started

In order to create a meaningful roadmap should first have a clear understanding of the following:
  • How your business uses resources (water, electricity, natural gas, etc.) 
  • Your organization’s overall mission and values 
  • Your organization’s financial structure and tax appetite 
  • The capabilities of the personnel within your organization 
If you do not have a basic understanding of these elements, we suggest you do some data gathering. Knowing this information will be essential to creating a roadmap that is both practical and effective.

Creating Your Roadmap

In order to help you on your journey, we've developed a sustainability roadmap guidebook. The guidebook will help your business develop clarity and structure around its sustainability efforts. The guide will define exactly what a roadmap is, who it is for, why it is important, and how to create it. It will also detail exactly what content must go into a sustainability roadmap.

To learn more about the sustainability roadmap guidebook, please contact us.

Call to Action

Achieving any major goal, whether in life or business, requires thoughtful planning and disciplined execution. Your roadmap will help you with the planning and inform the execution. Planning is essential to ensuring your actions have a massive impact. You must exercise patience and discipline, just like a chess player plotting his or her next move.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future is literally in our hands to mold as we like. Tomorrow is now.” Use your roadmap as the starting point in your efforts to mold the future of your organization. It is the starting point for leveraging your resources, increasing profitability and gaining a competitive advantage.

We hope you enjoyed the article. Please let us know if you have any questions or would like help getting started.
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As an adult watching the new remake nearly 25 years later, I was equally captivated.

As most who have seen the original Lion King can attest, it is chock full of invaluable life lessons. It effectively illustrates examples of leadership, courage, forgiveness, justice, faith and purpose, to name just a few. Like the original film from 1994, the remake did an excellent job of capturing and illustrating all of these lessons. This time around, one lesson that really stuck out to me, which I hadn’t caught in years past, was that of sustainability.

As a 31 year old who has dedicated my entire professional career to sustainability, I am constantly on the lookout for little gems of sustainability wisdom. Whether or not I intend to, I view just about everything through that lens…including Disney remakes of old classics. In this new version of The Lion King, I found one of these gems that I am always looking for. As a quick aside, if you have not seen the Lion King (original or remake), some of what lies ahead could spoil some of the movie for you. If you fall into that category, proceed with caution.

While in the movie theater, I didn’t have a pen and paper with me, and the lights weren’t on...so I was unable to take any notes or write down any quotes related to the gems of sustainability wisdom I witnessed. Since I was still thinking about the movie weeks later, I decided to go back and watch the original movie at home, so that I could take notes, pause and rewind as needed, and see if my observations about this classic movie truly held their own.

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