You're facing resistance from employees on sustainability. How can you get them on board?

Sustainability can mean different things and have different levels of importance to different employees – this can vary across business units, seniority and location. You need to meet employees where they are…don’t talk at them..listen first. What do they know about sustainability? What does it mean for them personally? How do they think your company could make an impact? Through this approach you’ll find out if you are missing something – if your strategy relates to climate and they are worried about D&I or pay equality you will have a problem getting them engaged. It’ll also ensure that the way you communicate the sustainability strategy resonates in their context and is pitched at their level of sustainability understanding.

The corporate sustainability team's role is to also evangelize its workforce towards positive action. June 5th, World Environment Day, is one such day when sustainability teams look at environmental action through an internal lens and conduct interesting campaigns involving the workforce. Examples of this could be, plastic collection walk, plantation drives, individual carbon footprint calculation and baseline setting to improve daily life, saving paper etc. Similarly thinking about sustainability can help organizations identify business opportunities. Train employees on sustainability areas and collect ideas across the organization on how to be more sustainable through campaigns. Eg. choosing alternate packaging for products.

As a professional (which I assume you are), you should have a clear Vision of who you are or who you want to become. If you are committed to sustainability, it needs to be core to your being. Talk it, wear it, walk it - lead it. Be an inspiration to those around you with real world sustainability ideas, don't just try to save the turtles from straws.

You are not alone on an island, unless you actually work remotely on a tropical island somewhere....but otherwise you are surrounded by a community that you need to interact with. Sustainability is not a one-person project, so invite others or if you are the boss -Direct- others to be a part of the conversation. If you build a sustainability focused community, then that will build momentum and gravity. Use that positive energy to keep moving forward.