How to make Social Sustainability real

by Perla Lo Giudice

Time has flown and Week 3 of #Socialsustainabilitymonth is here yet. You can remember that Social Sustainability is “the human dimension” of sustainability. It measures the social impact of business in our lives, it makes us “more human” and brings us success (scientifically proved: look at our recent posts!)

Such a seductive achievement for society raises now a question for us: how can we make it real?

We can bring you some concrete examples of how, at WE&B, we try to practice and promote Social Sustainability…

…Externally, in our projects:

1. Encouraging community participation, through our services of Social and Stakeholder Engagement: some examples from our projects are Communities of Practice, Competency groups
2. Incorporating the ethical and gender dimensions related to our projects
3. Measuring the aspects of Nature’s Contribution to People
4. Exploring the social contexts in all projects to understand first the community.

…And internally, with our team:

1. ?Bringing attention to the well-being: a good balance of goal-oriented work, team building activities, flexible working hours, and teleworking is recommended to find balance with personal issues.
2. Maintaining company “traditions”, such as Mandela day or St Jordi day, in which we do constructive activities together (cleaning the environment or exchanging book suggestions).
3. Promoting continuous trainings

Some other ways to make Social Sustainability real come from the literature (Mohamed, Paleologos, et al., 2021)[1], which suggests: measuring the full accounting cost of the life cycle of products cradle-to-grave, including associated social costs; promoting improvements in social organization systems and community well-being over measurable economic benefits; using natural and recyclable materials in a way that increases impartiality and fairness; transferring funds, know-how, and technology to those who need them.

Do you know other ways to make Social Sustainability real?

Let us know in the comments!

[1] “Sustainable pollution assessment practices” (Mohamed, Paleologos, 2021)