From Apathy to Action: Unlocking Strategic Opportunities in Decarbonisation
In the journey toward decarbonisation, organisations face a diverse array of stakeholder opinions that can significantly influence strategy. Different stakeholders – ranging from employees to investors to customers – often hold varying views on the urgency and importance of decarbonisation. While some may see it as a critical business imperative, others might perceive it as a costly distraction or an unachievable goal.
Challenges to Opportunities
The diversity of thought amongst your stakeholders is an opportunity to unlock strategic growth.
When we engage with the challenges stakeholders have it enables us to assess potential strategies from multiple perspectives. This often raises opportunities – in response to the challenges – that may have gone unnoticed.
When we delve into stakeholder specific concerns and beliefs, we can tailor our decarbonisation strategies to speak to and address wider needs.
We find that because stakeholder concerns are often rooted in business challenges, they also help to integrate decarbonisation with wider business imperatives.
Identifying Who Your Stakeholders Are
It is vital to identify all the relevant stakeholder groups. These groups will vary, depending on what your organisation does.
The groups will often include:
- Employees from all areas of the organisation
- Executive Team
- Customers / Consumers
- Suppliers
- Partner organisations
- Government bodies
- Businesses, communities
- Non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
This cross section of views is important because an employee’s concerns may centre on how sustainability initiatives impact their day-to-day work. Whereas customers concerns may be around whether it will increase the price or impact the quality of the product.
Engaging your Stakeholders
Gathering views from different stakeholders effectively, requires building trust and using appropriate methods of engagement. Some of the following methods can be useful in information gathering:
- Conduct Surveys and Polls: These are efficient for collecting quantitative and qualitative feedback. Tailor the questions to address your specific stakeholder groups.
- Host Focus Groups: Smaller, interactive sessions allow stakeholders to share insights and discuss issues openly. This format is particularly useful for diving deeper into specific topics.
- Organise Public Forums or Workshops: Larger events provide a space for diverse groups to express their views, hear the views of others and exchange ideas.
- One-on-One Interviews: For key stakeholders, individual conversations help to foster trust and get a more detailed, nuanced perspective.
It can be beneficial to leverage online platforms such as webinars, virtual town halls, or social media polls to engage stakeholders who may prefer digital interaction. It’s possible to engage a broader audience this way.
It’s worth considering whether you can offer people the opportunity to feedback anonymously. This can give stakeholders greater confidence to express themselves freely. You may hear from people and get information you otherwise wouldn’t in an open forum.
Once you have gathered the stakeholder feedback it is important to follow up with people and keep them in the loop as the project progresses. This demonstrates that their views were valued and acted upon.
Complex Value Chains
Cala Sustain’s work to help the Ministry of Defence reduce carbon emissions from their equipment is a great example of diverse stakeholder groups. This project involved significant engagement along the length of the value chain. We discovered that each stakeholder group within each organisation had varying opinions on what would prevent decarbonisation.
Understanding this enabled Cala Sustain to develop strategies to unlock value in areas including:
- Carbon benchmarking
- Supply chain efficiency
- Collaborative ways of working
- Process efficiencies
- Operational needs
- Cost saving opportunities.
Cala Sustain created bespoke communications for each stakeholder group. This enabled us to acknowledge their challenges and present a compelling argument for how we would turn those challenges into opportunities.
Inclusive Approach
This inclusive approach improves both buy-in and increases the likelihood of achieving decarbonisation goals through linking them to tangible business opportunities. Decarbonisation as a growth lever is a more compelling strategy than decarbonisation as a cost.
In summary:
- Listen
- Understand
- Diversify thinking
- Integrate decarbonisation with business-critical issues
- Personalise your strategies
- Personalise your stakeholder engagement
