UTSpeaks: Sustaining BusinessDexter Dunphy – 27 October, 2011
sustainability is a process
organisations advance by stages
each stage presents new opportunities, including business opportunities
Each stage has new kinds of waste to target
The Sustainability Phase Model
Organisational Change for Corporate Sustainability, Routledge, London and New York, 2003; revised edition 2007
Rejection
Non-responsiveness
The sustaining corporation
Compliance
Efficiency
Strategic proactivity
Phase1
Phase3
Phase6
Phase4
Phase5
Phase2
- the freeloaders and stealthy saboteurs
- the “bunker wombats”
- the reactive minimalists
- the industrious stewards
- the proactive strategists
- the transformative futurists
Rejection
Non-responsiveness
The sustaining corporation
Compliance
Efficiency
Strategic proactivity
- the freeloaders and stealthy saboteurs
- the “bunker wombats”
- the reactive minimalists
- the industrious stewards
- the proactive strategists
- the transformative futurists
Organisational Change for Corporate Sustainability, Routledge, London and New York, 2003; revised edition 2007
Phase1
Phase3
Phase6
Phase4
Phase5
Phase2
Leave to experience increasing
isolation and financial penalties
The real opportunities begin
HERE
Rejection and Non-responsiveness - the freeloaders and stealthy saboteurs
Objective: Pursue the strategic opportunities in sustainability.
Key business opportunity: Become market leader through pursuing the strategic potential of sustainability.
Typical actions:
• commit strongly to sustainability• re-brand and build wider stakeholder support• be early in on new product/service demand curves• creatively destroy existing product designs,
manufacturing models and re-invent the organisation, leapfrog competition by early breakthroughs
• increase employee and stakeholder engagement to source innovative ideas
• shift the prevailing business paradigm in environmental and social ideas
• innovate with new models of stakeholder governance• concentrate on adding value and innovating.
Strategic proactivity - the proactive strategists
Phase5
“LEAD IN
VALUE-ADD &
INNOVATION”
Value added: – increased revenue and market share – stronger stakeholder support (reputation and commitment)– higher customer retention rates; faster attraction of new
customers– established lead in developing new markets– employer of choice – attract and retain skil led managers and
professionals– operate at high value-added end of market.
Waste to target at this phase– Lost revenue and market share– Hosti le or apathetic stakeholders– Loss of customers– Failure to enter and secure a place in new markets– Low skil led managers and employees– Operations at the low value-added end of the market– Redundant operations and units embedded in the old world
Strategic proactivity - the proactive strategists
Phase5
Making the change: phase by phase 1 2 3 4 5 6
1
2
3
4
5
6
THE UNSUSTAINABLE CORPORATION
THE ECOLOGICALLY CONCERNED CORPORATION
THE SUSTAINABLE CORPORATION
THE PEOPLE-CONCERNED CORPORATION
Human sustainability
phases
The sustainability change matrix: Incremental paths
Ecological sustainability phases
If you are in this position, it’s hard to get an overview
