Introduction

When I opened my office back in 2004, sustainable business was a fairly new topic, and it was frustratingly hard to get companies to understand the business case for sustainability. At the time, they really needed to understand “the why.” Years later, after having consulted with more than 75 companies across 17 industries and spoken at countless sustainability conferences, I’ve realized that the challenge now is to help companies figure out how to implement sustainability, how to make it last for the long term, and how to get “unstuck” if their programs have stalled.

That is why I’m writing this book.

I want companies to fully realize the triple-bottom-line (financial, social, environmental) benefits of implementing sustainability by truly integrating it into everything they do. For years, Patagonia and Interface have been held up as examples of companies that have done this, but I’ve often wondered why is it that still ten years later we have no other recognizable brands held in the same regard. The reality is that while many companies have set out to do this, few have gone all the way and been successful. I want to change that.

This book pulls from my firsthand experience helping companies implement sustainability using steps outlined in this book, as well as from industry best practices, publicly available case studies, and interviews with sustainability leaders. It is full of wisdom from some of the best thought leaders in the business, leadership, change management, and sustainability worlds, including Jim Collins, Peter Drucker, Peter Senge, Daniel Pink, Stephen Covey, Gifford Pinchot, Bob Willard, and many more. The book is equally balanced between success stories and lessons learned so that you can learn from other peoples’ stumbles and failures while minimizing your own.

Many of my clients have agreed to be featured and go on record, while others have preferred off-the-record conversations so that they could be as frank and as honest as possible and share their lessons learned with you and with a larger audience for the greater good.

Implementing sustainability is tough work. When someone asks me, “How do I implement sustainability successfully?” my gut reaction is to respond that it is almost like asking someone, “How do I raise a child?” There are many different ways and distinct variables, so there really is no single answer or magic bullet. In each case you will have a unique context of culture and society that is changing all the time. The same is true with implementing sustainability within your company because you will be facing complex challenges that are unique to your business, people, industry, and geographic reach.

Making Sustainability Stick is written to help you face those challenges. It is not only about providing you with the knowledge of what to do, but also about the keys to behavior change that are so crucial for overcoming the numerous frustrations, barriers, and potential setbacks that you will undoubtedly face.

This 11-step guidebook is designed to provide you with the tools for engaging the head, the heart, and the hands of the people within your organization so that you can successfully integrate sustainability into everything you do—into every decision, product design, market, job description, and business unit!

So if the idea of integrating sustainability into everything your company does seems overwhelming, realize you are not alone in this journey. This book is full of helpful tips, worksheets, new strategies, and illustrative examples that are replicable, funny, and easy to emulate.

We need you! We need your passion and knowledge in this fight. We are at a critical point in history: We are potentially in the middle of a decade of economic malaise, the effects from extreme weather are increasing rapidly, we just passed a critical milestone of 400 parts per million in terms of CO2 levels, while simultaneously experiencing unprecedented levels of income inequality. Never in our history has the planet faced such daunting social and environmental challenges, and we need all of us working diligently to integrate sustainability into our jobs and companies because business may be the only institution that has the resources that can move fast enough to address these issues. It’s up to us—not our kids’ generation, but ours. So read on for how to do it and good luck!