Seven easy steps for small professional services firms to rock 'ESG & Sustainability'

ESG/Sustainability is all the rage, but can a small professional services firm rock the ESG/Sustainability scene? The answer is yes, and here are seven easy steps to help get you there (along with a *why* at the end of the article):

1) Appoint an ESG/Sustainability Officer. Find someone in the firm for whom ESG/Sustainability is a passion. Chances are, if ESG/Sustainability is someone's passion, you won't have to look far! :-) Appoint this person to be the Sustainability Officer. <As an aside, I'm the ESG/Sustainability Officer for the firm I'm with.>

2) Create an ESG/Sustainability Policy. It doesn't have to be a 10-page document -- I prefer you start small and keep it simple and relatable. Ensure that the Sustainability Policy includes Environmental, Social, and Governance elements. The fact that you're writing this Policy demonstrates the start of good Governance. Ensure that the Policy addresses the supply chain, which, for a professional services firm includes contractors and partnerships. Ensure that the Policy addresses the firm's own efforts to support Environmental, Social, and Governance issues.

3) Create an ESG/Sustainability Committee. The Committee can be comprised of 3 people, if that's all the small firm can spare. Small can be mighty! The Committee can tackle the items below.

4) Refresh existing policies. Find existing Code of Conduct/Ethics Policies, Anti-Harassment/Anti-Discrimination Policies, Governance Policies, Purchasing Policies, Travel Policies, Volunteering/Community Support Policies, Vendor Management Policies and refresh them for today's ESG world. When done, go back to the Sustainability Policy you wrote in step 2 above, and reference in the other policies you just freshened up. You see, with ESG/Sustainability all of the above concepts are interwoven into one ESG/Sustainability Program.

5) Communicate and train. Communicate the written ESG/Sustainability Program to all staff. Ask for feedback. Perhaps combine it with a webinar on ESG/Sustainability in general.

6) Dig in! Time to do what the firm aspires to! Some examples appear below, and keep in mind, these are action items:

-- Limit travel when a virtual meeting will suffice, subject to client service and expectations. This isn't to imply that in-person meetings or the in-person provision of services is off-limits. But continue to look for how a virtual meeting will work. Similarly, consider "remote first" in terms of office time. The frustration of going into an office only to sit there on virtual meetings is very real (not to mention the extra pollution the commuting creates.)

-- If the firm has an office, how can the environmental impact of that office be lessened? Can the firm ditch those K-cups?

-- How can the firm's Volunteering and Community Support be tweaked to support ESG/Sustainability? <hint, volunteer for and support community non-profits that are planting trees, cleaning up the environment, providing diversity programs, etc. They'll be grateful.>

-- What can firm management do when hiring staff and/or engaging contractors and partners to support diversity? Similarly, how can staff be proactively developed and career-pathed?

-- How can the firm support its employees in their personal quest to support ESG/Sustainability? This can include providing ESG/Sustainability newsletters, or perhaps obtain discounts at garden stands that sell pollinators and provide education/training on pollinator gardens <heck... just have them ask me!> or discounts at community vegetable gardens.

7) Publish what you do, and do what you publish. Keep it real, and take credit for what you're doing. And now, unfortunately, a few "don'ts":

-- Don't greenwash.

-- Don't be a "do as I say, and not as I do" type of firm.

-- Don't respond to RFPs with aspirational ESG/Sustainability jibber-jabber that looks good on paper, but you don't uphold.

-- Don't publish aspirational statements about diversity, but show up at prospect meetings consistently with a non-diverse group... or consistently provide webinars with non-diverse panelists. (Here's the rub... your prospective clients are diverse... professional services firms need to be diverse, too.) There are activist groups out there that compare what you say to what you do and will call you on it.

Seven easy steps -- easy/breezy. Small professional services firms (of which there are many) can rock at this ESG/Sustainability thing. It just takes a few passionate staff and a good framework.

Although the management at a small professional services firm might think their ESG/Sustainability efforts are miniscule, when those efforts are combined with the efforts from other small professional services firms, the impact is HUGE.

Let's do this.