STEP 3: CREATING A REPORT PLAN
After you have set up your goals and how to approach them, it is convienient to write all this down in a report plan that possible could communicated towards stakeholders on performance against commitments and targets and report whether we have achieved objectives of our Sustainability Policy.
1. Consider organizing a team of employee volunteers to manage and perhaps even write your sustainability plan.
This will help you to engage employees in the process and make it easier to communicate those goals and guidelines to the entire organization. For more complicated plans, it’s likely that you will need a team of people to implement your plan’s guidelines. Using volunteers rather than assigning a team will make it easier to identify the people in your organization who are passionate about this topic.
2, Communicating your plan to your employees is key.
Having a solid mission statement will help them to understand the rationale behind specific measures and their role in implementing those measures. Keep employees updated on progress towards goals and revisions to the plan. It may also help to solicit feedback, particularly for goals that the organization has trouble meeting.
If you think everything is well thought you could considering communicating your plan and progress towards goals to outside stakeholders. This could be one piece of a larger marketing strategy.
It’s likely that your plan will not be perfect in its first iteration. This is not a problem in and of itself; it is a problem if you persist with a plan that clearly isn’t working or you won't stick to your promises. This suggests to employees and other stakeholders that your commitment to sustainability is not serious. Or in other words your compay comitt to ''greenwashing'' [1]. Nowadays there is a tremendous expansion of green claims in todays market place and you do not want negative publicity through miscommunication.
Identify areas that need improvement. Some goals may simply not be realizable and will need to be bracketed for the time being. Other goals may need revised timelines or more modest targets. In some areas you may be doing better than expected, and can set more aggressive goals. Seek out feedback on how to meet goals that are lagging.
The important thing is: write everything in your report also when it is not possivite yet.
3. EVALUATE YOUR GOALS
To improve your goals and targets you need to evaluate them.
Click here for your CR evaluation indicator form
Each indicator can be scaled by high, medium or low.
These indicators are important in order to identify areas where the organization should (further) improve the environmental/social impacts.
Tip: Take a look at the websites of big luxury conglomorates. Kering posted this data online so other manufacturers could learn from their lessons. “When you are speaking about sustainability, if you keep it all for you, you won’t change the paradigm,” says Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering’s chief sustainability officer.''
[1] Example of greenwashing: “When companies sell products woven from man-made fibers, such as rayon, it is important that they accurately label and advertise those products – both with respect to the fibers they use and to the qualities those fibers possess.”According to the Commission’s complaints, the companies falsely claim that their rayon clothing and other textile products are “100% bamboo fiber.” They market them under such names as “ecoKashmere,” “Pure Bamboo,” “Bamboo Comfort,” and “BambooBaby.” Rayon is a man-made fiber created from the cellulose found in plants and trees and processed with a harsh chemical that releases hazardous air pollutants. Any plant or tree could be used as the cellulose source – including bamboo – but the fiber that is created is rayon (Katz, 2009).