“If you wish to go quick, go alone. If you wish to go far, go collectively.”
This proverb couldn’t be more true than for these working inside sustainability management.
Sure, particular person firms, governments or nongovernmental organizations can have a fabric affect. However to realize real scalable transformation, organizations should work in tandem towards widespread targets or to encourage others inside their sphere of affect.
The best partnership can amplify the affect of your environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments exponentially. It’s what’s often known as the “multiplier impact.” Talking at our latest Influence Leaders Lab, a month-to-month occasion at which main sustainability specialists present sensible suggestions, Sarah Beaubien, affect and sustainability lead at Mondelēz-owned Clif Bar, summed it up like this:
“Should you drop a pebble within the water and thru considerate, intentional model or enterprise activation, it grows right into a ripple, and that ripple ultimately turns into a wave. That is the place transformational change occurs,” she mentioned. “We’re a small firm that punched above its weight due to these partnerships.”
Listed below are 5 methods to make your subsequent partnership a hit.
Suppose outdoors the field
Don’t make the error of limiting potential companions to trade friends, and even opponents. Think about how NGOs or charitable companions, suppliers throughout your worth chain, your staff, and even the top client of your services or products can turn out to be mutually helpful companions, too. Beaubien outlined how the snack model has participated in a plethora of various relationships, from activating firm staff by means of its Clif Corps program, an employee-led neighborhood service program that achieved 90 p.c participation in 2023, to leveraging its relationships with high athletes. In 2022, for instance, the corporate partnered with tennis champion Venus Williams and nonprofit Outside Afro to offer entry to a spread of out of doors experiences. By pondering extra creatively in regards to the forms of partnerships that might be mutually helpful, you open your self as much as a much more numerous, much more inventive set of companions.
Use a framework to prioritize alternatives
These main sustainability groups at massive organizations might discover themselves fielding a number of requests for partnerships. How do you choose the suitable one? Clue: The key isn’t to maintain saying sure till you’re at zero capability. As an alternative, filter every request by means of an goal framework that maps provides — and inner concepts, too — in line with a set of clear standards. To what extent would it not use a corporation’s present sources, for instance? Does it align with core enterprise technique? What funding does it require? What’s the long-term potential of the venture? At Clif, the workforce even considers rigorously whether or not a selected program will assist in attracting and retaining expertise, in line with Beaubien, given how aggressive the present hiring panorama is. Analyze potential partnerships by means of this framework and use its clear metrics to realize the C-suite buy-in.
Be open to (true) collaboration
The very best partnerships are borne from a real want to collaborate. Which means with the ability to settle for outdoors concepts, delegate duties and know when to take a step again. Crucially, should you’re the lead group on a venture or trigger, that doesn’t imply you need to oversee every aspect of its execution. As an alternative, set out the technique after which purpose to encourage others to co-deliver, relatively than instruct. As Beaubien identified, that’s the fantastic thing about the multiplier impact. “All of the work would not should be accomplished by our workforce,” she mentioned. “We’re simply kind of the supply of the ‘mild,’ after which that ripples out. We then have firms and organizations approaching us saying, ‘We have this nice alternative, we have this nice coalition, do you wish to be a part of it’?”
Establish the place you’ll be able to add worth
If it’s not in your wheelhouse — not strategically linked to your core enterprise — then assume twice about getting concerned. If a partnership doesn’t clearly align together with your core services or products, or to your wider affect technique, then you may find yourself changing into a burden to your individual stakeholders, relatively than appearing as a catalyst for constructive change. As an alternative, make investments most closely in these points of a partnership that align together with your core enterprise targets and use present sources, relatively than asking for brand spanking new funding. This amplifies your affect and likewise supplies you with the best credibility, each internally and publicly.
Outline what success seems like on the outset
Earlier than you begin delivering on a partnership, either side ought to have already agreed on the enterprise and neighborhood outcomes and impacts. As an example, how will they measure success and who within the partnership will probably be accountable for capturing the information?
This isn’t at all times easy. Whereas purely business tasks can usually be analyzed in line with quantitative key efficiency indicators resembling revenues, revenue or buyer acquisition, the identical can’t be mentioned for partnerships rooted in ESG targets. That’s why it may be helpful to utilize exterior frameworks that measure success, such because the London Benchmarking Group Methodology.
Once I led the London Benchmarking Group, a member group of 100-plus FTSE250 firms listed on the London Inventory Alternate, centered on measuring, managing and reporting on their strategic neighborhood investments and partnerships, we helped firms to set targets on the outset. These targets have been organized into two elements: the enterprise and the neighborhood. What have been the enterprise inputs (money, time or in-kind investments) and the enterprise outputs (variety of folks fed, and many others.) vs. neighborhood inputs (volunteers or venture administration time) and outputs (variety of homeless offered lodging)?
Measuring outcomes is a key a part of making certain partnerships are efficient, mutually helpful and generate a strong return on funding for each stakeholders and shareholders alike.
The best partnerships may be invaluable in amplifying affect inside sustainability. However to make sure they speed up progress, relatively than act as a hindrance, it’s essential that leaders contemplate rigorously which partnerships present one of the best match for his or her group and what’s required to realize quantifiable success.
