How can you incorporate social and environmental responsibility into your SMART goals?

Social and environmental responsibility is not only an ethical responsibility but also has other business reasons for setting objectives in this regard. First, there are stakeholders who ask the company to do so and part of the company's function is to meet the needs of its stakeholders such as Shareholders, Customers and Employees. Being a responsible company pays off in terms of accessing responsible capital, being perceived by customers as a positive company, and generating in employees a sense of pride and belonging.

In working with systems we need to always keep a line of sight for the user. Systems need to support and compliment the people who use it. I’ve found that being inclusive with new ideas and socializing new capabilities encourages our users to weigh in and provide feedback. It has instilled trust and encouraged users to feel more and be more engaged.

I believe that sustainability in its true form that focuses on economics, social, and environmental factors should underpin or be a lens that you look through when setting goals, so that every goal has considered impacts on those areas. While some of the goals we set won't specifically be aimed at climate change or social improvement, if we have at least considered those areas prior to setting those, we are naturally building a better world.

By setting goals in Social and Environmental aspects it sends a message of awareness of issues which for some time have hovered over our world as critical and have become important aspects of today for success. Our world has changed and also our views of how we see what is important to us. The important aspect after setting these goals are that they be realistically accomplishable. It allows a firm to acknowledge key aspects it cares about in tune with a reality of today but also it forces it to set goals so they can be met with realistic compromise and commitment.

Establishing these sort of goals is crucial for organizations, as these objectives directly contribute to the well-being of people and the planet. The important element that is often forgotten in these sort of conversations is that these goals are set to *improve* the business, not take away. Mitigating waste and optimizing resources make sense financially as well as socially. Increasing diversity ensures you avoid the classic troubles of groupthink and echo chambers that have been the peril of several organizations. A company needs to be symbiotic with the community it exists. Those that forget that risk becoming parasitic, and being cleaned out of the market.

There a few ways to achieve this namely; Be Specific: Clearly define what you need to do & how to do it Be quantifyable : Include measurable and trackable benchmarks. Keep things Achievable: Make sure goal is achievable within available resources. Remain Relevant: Ensure your ESG goals are appropriate & connect to business objectives

I would add the following topics: - Engage relevant stakeholders in the process of defining, prioritizing, and tracking progress towards social and environmental goals. - Embrace sustainability and continuous improvement by setting ambitious goals, tracking progress over time, and adapting strategies based on emerging challenges and opportunities. - Leverage data and analytics to inform your social and environmental goals, track progress, and measure the effectiveness of your initiatives.

It is important to first get alignment with your mission and vision. One way is by using the 5 Whys technique and identify the root cause of a problem and THEN create SMART goals to address it. For example, a problem statement using the 5 Whys could be: * Why are we generating so much waste? Because we use disposable shipping boxes. * Why do we use disposable boxes? Because we don't have a reusable crates. * Why don't we have reusable crates? Because it's not in the budget. * Why is it not in the budget? Because it is the way we always did it. A problem statement can then be used to create a SMART goal, such as: Reduce waste 40% by December 1 using a reusable crate program.

Social Responsibility(SR) spending is often haphazard and fractional. It is in the interest of Corporates to identify strategic( medium to long term ) SR projects, set specific annual objectives, evaluate progress constantly and make amends to align objectives with original intentions. This will ensure ultimate achievement of results and prevent strategic drift.

Clear and measurable expectations are important. If your goals are not measurable, you have no expectations of your employees. Likewise, if you have a measurable expectations goal, and your employee meets that expectation, but you fail to celebrate that achievement with your employee together as a team, what’s the purpose? What’s the motivation? Ironically I had someone tell me that “clear is kind” but then never set measurable goals or upon review, changed the expectation after the fact. Goals were met, but motivation was stifled.

It is always advantageous to employ project management phasing and knowledge areas. A best practice is to have a project management framework that requires project status update metrics at key intervals of the project and affirms you have considered any post project KPIs and department level metrics for operationalization.

Set clearly understandable and measurable goals, and create a culture that builds in circling back to ensure they have been met - and if not - a plan to course correct ASAP.

It is critical to have a baseline agreed with regard to measurement and progress. This is important and should be shared so it is transparent. All measure positive or negative is important as learning curves and adjustments are required in the path to the targets. Having openness with the challenge and being open with what works and what does not is key. Benchmarks as important so to learn from each other but more than measuring against others the sharing of information is more valuable.

In order to monitor and evaluate social and environmental goals, you must first set SMART objectives that fit within a workplan. The workplan gets defined by a timeline and accompanying KPIs. Setting measurable KPIs for each objective and aligning them with the overall strategic goals allows for reporting and regular monitoring so that progress or lack thereof can be quickly identified and necessary adjustments can be made to the workplan, objectives, and sometimes to the overall goal that has been set.

Estabele?a indicadores de desempenho. Coleta regular de dados relevantes. Acompanhamento periódico do progresso. Analise os dados para avalia??o. Comunique os resultados de forma transparente. Use feedback para melhoria contínua.

Look up what the environmental goals are for your state, in my case, the State of Michigan. Get curious about what it would look like if you tried to implement something similar, or more ambitious even.

In order to continuously improve in the areas of social and environmental factors, I believe it is important to engage with experts and organizations in these areas. Thinking about small or mid-sized firms who may not have experts in these areas, a guiding hand can help move initiatives along more quickly. Also, thinking with my change management hat on, these initiatives should always be accompanied with programs that help employees understand the “why” around them. Don’t forget to do your solid work to get your buy-in!

Improving social and environmental goals requires ongoing adaptation for relevance. Enhance them through stakeholder engagement, regular review, data-driven approaches, partnerships, innovation, continuous learning, transparency, integration, community engagement, and accountability. These strategies amplify impact and foster sustainable outcomes.

S&E goals should begin as an internal effort. What I am saying here is that if an organization has a strong belief on a S&E issue/position, they don't have to advertise it. Make some internal changes and make a difference organizationally. See how it is received and how it benefits the whole organization. If institutions don’t assess affects and implications effectively the result may be worse than the problem.

The improvements are developed on a step by step basis. As the firm advances and begins reaching its goals learning from the success and failures allows momentum to grow and by that allowing the path to be in constant check and balance for improvements. This combined with sharing experiences allows for an escalated improvement path.

Placing your work unit's social and environmental goals (including baselines, indicators and targets) within the overall efforts of the organization or company is important as it can increase staff buy-in and compliance. In my experience, getting staff engaged in meeting goals--to reduce carbon emissions from air travel, for example--can be challenging. But establishing comparators can get your team's creative and competitive juices flowing. Creating incentives--such as monitoring and promoting lower-carbon travel options, and comparing your team's air travel carbon footprint against other teams'--can enhance not only compliance with targets, but often over-compliance. Recognition of these achievements in turns sets an example for others

Inculcate and innovate. First step would be to generate awareness of the long term benefits. Secondly, make small changes that would not immediately affect the organizational objectives. Parallely plan for paradigm shift. Create challenges to generate innovative thinking.

We established a corporate Sustainability Goal starting in 2024. As luck and timing would have it we were asked by a valued customer to complete a comprehensive self assessment via a global partner, Eco Vadis. We are awaiting our "Scorecard" and opportunities for improvement to guide our learning and actions going forward. The plan is to be a better partner for our customers and to continue to make a positive impact on the world. It all starts with a goal.

Let’s pretend I own a lawn care company. I make money by mowing and blowing. I know my business well, how to set up efficient schedules, how long it takes to complete each job, and so on. Here comes a niche business in caring for a native plant lawn. How do I make any money at that? Or let’s pretend I own an orange grove. The threat to my business is a parasite causing citrus greening. In order to meet production goals, I need to improve the soils in the grove. It’s time consuming and some of the soil needs will cost us money. But, if I do nothing, my grove will not exist by the time I’m old enough to retire. True change is never made by humans unless their back is against the wall. The change has to be a personal or business need.

It also demonstrates a commitment to sustainable and ethical practices. Examples of incorporating social and environmental responsibilities into SMART goals can be - Reduce energy consumption, introducing paid volunteer days and community engagement programs, promote environmentally responsible sourcing, increase in diversity representation esp in leadership positions through targeted recruitment and training programs. Organizations can actively contribute to creating positive impacts while aligning their business objectives with sustainable practices and societal welfare.