Objective: Set yourself up for success. Focus: Prepare your organisation, both leadership and wider employees, for the journey ahead and identifying the areas you will prioritise.
Many agencies are light on capacity and resources, so prioritising your efforts with the backing of leadership is vital for building the momentum for success.
Industry leaders identified a number of pre-requisites that are vital if sustainability is to be embedded into your business.
You could skip straight to the take action steps without putting these foundations in place first, but it’s likely that you will hit a plateau and end up wasting time and money, and never move much beyond the early stages of the Participant group. If you have an ambition to be a Pioneer, then it’s vital you have solid foundations in place.
Ultimately, you will not be preparing your organisation for a sustainable future without building some strong foundations.
Step 2: Build the foundations
2.1 Understand your context
Your ownership structure, the size of your organisation and the clients you work with will all influence the areas you focus on first.
2.2 Define the business case
The reality for most leadership teams and boards is that prioritising sustainability will come down to money - so a strong commercial business case is crucial.
2.3 Make it a priority
You need passionate people in your organisation to help drive momentum, but without prioritisation from the top passion can only take you so far.
2.4 Be informed
Information is power – the more you know about sustainability, the more influence you will have, both as individuals and as an agency.
2.5 Identify your hot spots and set targets
To enable you to focus your efforts and ensure you’re making changes in the right areas of your business, it’s vital that you identify the issues that are most important to your agency.
2.6 Optimise and engage your talent
Harness the passion of your colleagues and create meaningful opportunities for your people to co-own the agenda, contribute ideas and take action.
Ambition checkpoint
At this stage, before taking action, it would be a good idea to review your ambition level.