Managing sustainability effectively is now vital to all organisations It also has the potential to be very time-consuming and expensive. The following section provides an overview of the elements that contribute to an overall picture of sustainability:

1 Introduction
2 The complexity of sustainability

  •     Waste management
  •     Water consumption
  •     Transportation
  •     Embedded carbon

3 practical considerations

 

1 Introduction

There is a great deal of information available about sustainability and what makes for a sustainable organisation. However, there is considerably less guidance on the practical, everyday management of a sustainability strategy in a real working environment.

Yet it is becoming clear that the management of sustainability in general, and carbon in particular, is rapidly becoming as important to many organisations as their financial management – and will require the same attention to detail.

However, our research with a number of private and public sector organisations shows that the ability of many organisations to implement such a strategy is severely limited by the following:

  • Not understanding what data is essential to capture
  • No data auditing process in place
  • Supply chain information needs to be searched out manually
  • Data requires close human scrutiny to check for inaccuracies
  • Verification of data also needs to be performed manually
  • Reports need to be ‘hand-crafted’ through manipulation of various data sources, resulting in considerable time input

This publication has been produced as a simple, easy to use guide to address the following practicalities:

  • What information is needed to measure and manage sustainability?
  • How can I be sure I am collating the correct information to ensure I am working to legislative guidelines?
  • Where is this information located – and in what format?
  • How can this information be assimilated, verified, analysed and reported on?
  • How can this be achieved in real time, so that the information is current and meaningful?


At the heart of all of these considerations is a fundamental truth

YOU CAN’T MANAGE WHAT YOU CAN’T MEASURE