Monthly Archives: July 2009
This post, from Cam Hoang, Counsel and Assistant Secretary, General Mills, is the sixth in a six-part series based on Where Sustainability Lives, a new study that indicates that organizational structure matters to sustainability performance.
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The study confirmed many of my suspicions about the correlation between organizational structure and external recognition of sustainability performance – I agree with the authors that more work is needed. Beyond the question of where leadership for sustainability resides in an organization, I would be curious about how various departments in the horizontal structure collaborate to make sustainable practices happen.
This post is the fifth in a six-part series based on Where Sustainability Lives, a new study that indicates that organizational structure matters to sustainability performance.
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In the course of our research, we found that when a company established a dedicated sustainability function or placed responsibility for sustainability in the legal or corporate/public affairs divisions, that company tended to receive greater recognition than if sustainability was managed by community relations/foundation or human resources departments.
What this suggests to me is a continuation of the accelerating shift away from the perception of sustainability as just a “nice to have” or a “good” thing to do. When sustainability “lives” only in philanthropic areas of the company, it can hardly aspire to have broad strategic relevance with regard to core business activities. Conversely, if sustainability lives in oversight hubs such as legal or corporate affairs, the company’s approach can benefit from broad… More
Apple 2008 Environmental Update PDF
