Collaboration, your secret weapon to meeting ESG Goals
Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation, and consensus." – Simon Mainwaring
Upon obtaining my MBA in Business Sustainability, I recall my alma mater surveying our class and asking about our opinion of the program. I immediately volunteered; we are missing one class. What was that class? Change Management.
We rightfully spend a considerable amount of time focusing on energy and water efficiency, waste stream management, resiliency, and the emergence of trends. We realize the critical role data has in enabling us to manage effectively. Still, the ability to enact meaningful change is perhaps the single most important contribution of an ESG program for an organization. To effect change requires collaboration, cooperation, and the development of true relationships with all external and internal stakeholders.
If you are an asset manager or property manager, think about how you get things done. Do you rely on third-party property managers, consultants, vendors, an in-house team? If so, what is your communication with them like? Whether their W-2 has your organization’s name on it or another organization’s name on it, you are a team, and teams function best when members feel seen, heard, and safe to hear their thoughts. The ability to build collaboration developed from reliable communication, whether virtual or in-person, is good for the triple bottom line.
How is collaboration my secret weapon?
Success is rooted in effectively and efficiently realizing your organization’s goals. To accomplish those goals requires innovation and nurturing an environment in which your team brings their “A” game every time. Innovation solves problems, develops new approaches, and generates new ideas. The best ideas originate from diverse perspectives. This means you must build an environment that seeks input from the talent throughout your team and your organization.
Your team will be stronger when they feel connected. This connection helps develop a sense of purpose. We are all in this together, and together there is nothing we cannot accomplish. When we are working towards a common goal, our team's collaboration allows the skill gap’s to be filled, and together we benefit from our combined strengths.
Collaboration provides your organization an opportunity to learn, grow, and lead. When we challenge one another and create an atmosphere that allows us to learn from one another, we can do so much more, think smarter, articulate better, and reach more of our goals. By leaning into one another, we can sharpen our strengths and build up our weaknesses.
6 essential skills for building collaboration
Goal Setting: The team’s purpose and vision of success must be clearly articulated, as well as how you will be determining success.
Communication: Before setting off to change the world, your intentions must be clearly communicated to the team. Clear expectations from you allow your team to set realistic expectations for themselves.
Active Listening: We have two ears and one mouth and should communicate in the same ratio. The importance of listening to each team member’s ideas, feedback, and advice is critical to success. Responses should be considerate and respectful, even when you disagree.
Empathy: Everyone has an important role in getting to the finish line. It is important to get to know one another and understand how they work best. The more you understand each other, the better chance at developing collaboration.
Problem Solving: We are here to solve problems. It takes combined effort and energy to get to solutions. Developing trust amongst your team can help ensure that everyone feels comfortable communicating. We need to get to a point where we can challenge ideas without challenging the person.
Time Management: We are all busy. This means your time together, either virtual or in-person, must be productive. We are all depending on one another, which means prioritizing tasks and setting milestones to ensure we meet deadlines.
Succesful ESG Programs lean on collaboration at all levels
To achieve the return expectations of the investors in our funds requires embracing the elimination of inefficiencies. Assets that are not operating optimally are wasting dollars. Wasting dollars is literally reducing net operating income and compromising returns. Failure to identify and mitigate risks similarly means that investments are not being protected and failure to take advantage of the opportunities means returns are not being fully realized.
I know that sounds like I am referring to financial management, but I’m actually referring to the impact of sustainability on the organization. Sustainability works in tandem with asset management to maximize return and minimize impacts.
To do this effectively means collaboration with asset management and property management. If the property management is a third-party entity, it means collaborating with their organization. Success rests on the ability to align their goals with your goals and purpose. One best practice is to pull the third-party property management company onto your team. If you have sustainability goals, they need to know those goals. If multiple organizations manage your assets, they should be working in concert collectively to optimize your portfolio’s performance. Your performance should be consistent across the portfolio, regardless of whom is actually managing it. Each management company should not be reinventing the wheel, sharing best practices helps us all reach our goals.
There is no part of your organization that cannot contribute towards truly embedding sustainability. From marketing to accounting, procurement to legal, each department has a role to play. From the boardroom to the boiler room, everyone has a part to play, and you are going to need to be the conductor.
Why?
One of the best definitions of sustainability I have ever heard was put forward by Auden Schendler, Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Snowmass, who defined it simply as “staying in business forever.”
Sustainability allows us to create long-term value by considering the ecological, social, and economic environment in which our organizations operate. The concept is built on the premise that developing such strategies fosters company longevity. ESG programs provide a non-economic measurement of what kind of corporate citizen our organizations are, or rather what kind of global corporate citizen. It assesses the transition risks, physical risks, and socials risks of our assets and incorporates a strategy to mitigate the risk and maximize the opportunities associated with each.
Sustainability allows an organization to coordinate with procurement to evaluate the supply chain, minimizing hazards, and reduce embodied carbon before it enters our operations and developments. It provides a strategy to eliminate wasted energy, water, carbon, and poor waste management practices. It embraces the resident experience and creates an atmosphere of engagement and community. It connects us to one another.
In each of these functions, success is rooted in your ability to drive meaningful change in your organization. Meaningful change is only possible with strong leadership and collaboration.
When executed properly, our organizations are more flexible, healthier, innovative, productive, and profitable. We have better alignment with stakeholders, both internal and external. We can foster teamwork and purpose.
You can help reduce the impact of the built environment by sharing this blog with your peers. Together we can impact the 39% of greenhouse gasses attributed to the built environment. It starts with awareness, and we succeed with teamwork.
Stay well!
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Chris Laughman is the ThirtyNine Blog author, a blog dedicated to reducing the impact of the built environment. When not blogging, Chris is helping the real estate industry reduce energy and water impact as the Vice President of Sustainability for Conservice, the Utility Experts. Whether Multifamily, Single Family, Student Housing, Commercial, or Military, we simplify utility billing and expense management by doing it for you. Our insight into your utility consumption provides an opportunity to identify risks. Leveraging innovation and experience, we ignite solutions with real impacts and track performance to ensure the trendline stays laser-focused on the goal. At Conservice, we have developed a true bill-to-boardroom solution to help truly make a difference. We have before us a tremendous opportunity. Standing shoulder to shoulder, we will get this done. Contact me at claughman@conservice.com for more information.
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