The Sustainability Journey

Sustainability is a journey. With every good journey, there are trials and errors, forks in the road and a whole lot of off-track exploration that needs to be done. It is the same for sustainability in practice.?

When an organisation first sets out on this journey, they make a commitment and might also have ambitions in mind – net zero, industry accreditation, leadership for a positive future. These are important thinking exercises – scenario planning and imagining our individual, organisational and community goals, then aligning these with business values. Bringing clarity and life to these futures, helps to focus on potential pathways to achieve these outcomes.??

The deeper work begins – the first footsteps on the journey – as we make these outcomes a reality. We move ambitions to plans, start to measure and evaluate, understand the new parameters in which we need to work. The beginning of the journey can feel busy, there is a lot to take in and new information coming together. We find our feet, understand the pace, build knowledge and expertise.?

Early in the journey, we can begin to implement actions for decarbonisation – changing energy suppliers, ensuring buildings are well insulated, recycling and minimising plastic. The larger list of quick wins itself needs time to complete, yet we are still looking ahead towards the horizon and the longer goals.??

This is where the journey can start to get knottier; we’ve done the easy bit and left our comfort zones, now we’re on to pastures new. Applying the lens of climate change to organisational processes, their wider value chains, projects and services, throws up challenges. There can be conflicts and trade-offs, evaluating the best pathway forward is not always easy. Yet, these obstacles are also those that can drive innovation and imagination. It is precisely these shared challenges that will lead us to the futures we can imagine.??

Like all good design, having a clear set of boundaries and parameters helps guide the outcomes. The journey we are all taking now has clear environmental limits, it requires a near total decarbonisation of our societies. There are clear benefits in bringing our individual, organisational and community impacts into line with what our planet can support. In doing so, we can embrace the range of futures envisioned by everyone, with our different worldviews and great diversity.??

Contented supports organisations at any stage in their journey, whatever their size or capacity. We work with clients to help them unlock their potential, rise to challenges and take positive sustainability efforts. We use a variety of techniques and methods to expand organisational knowledge and awareness. Our work brings sustainability to life with our clients, supporting them in achieving tangible and measured results, embedding positive future outcomes, and inspiring change leadership.??