Janette Friis also highlights how sustainability can play a big part in her clients’ customer experience.
Through her consultancy Oikein Creative, the Helsinki-based entrepreneur helps teams to find their role in future making and realise their potential to drive sustainability transformation through their work.
– I want to make people excited about sustainability, and my way of doing that is through entrepreneurship. I want sustainability to become everyone’s own matter, she says, continuing,
– Companies are eager to tell that sustainability is part of their strategy or even ‘part of their dna’, but in many cases reality is that the whole sustainability workload falls under the responsibility of a sustainability team, or in worst case, on the shoulders of a one person. Every department, function and team should know how they can contribute to the change making and sustainability efforts.
– Many brands share extensive reports and content about sustainability, but when you ask employees what they think of the state of the company’s sustainability work, they find it far-off and polished. It is sad situation when your own team doesn’t trust your sustainability efforts are real. It is hard to believe in the big change without seeing or participating concrete actions in your everyday work.
How should it be done instead?
– I encourage companies to focus in participatory sustainability work. Every team member has valuable knowledge, ideas and insight that can be used in creating an impact. Not to mention the deeper understanding of the topic that emerges when everyone can explore sustainability matters through the context of their own work.
– If a brand wants to truly become sustainable, or even regenerative, they need to make sure that every task can be part of the puzzle. Participation might sound just a trendy word, but in this case it is truly useful and valid way of doing things. Creating opportunities for everyone to be heard and to give their input for future making is not only celebrated by the employees, but also extremely valuable for the company.
You touched upon it but what’s the biggest room for improvement for companies here?
– They could make far greater use of their teams’ expertise, understanding of the industry, and customer insights to amplify their impact. Teams are also experts in their own work and are best positioned to identify their team’s needs to align with the company’s sustainability goals.
– And imagine how great service and communication could be provided to customers if everyone truly understands where we are on our sustainability journey.
Can this be even more important for companies to consider than the legislation topic?
– I wouldn’t pit these two things against each other. They’re more like two sides of the same coin. On the other side is the legislation and, for instance, new reporting standards. And on the flip side is the actual work and changes companies need to do. Ensuring that everyone knows how to be part of the sustainability work is one crucial cornerstone to success. So yes, I would say that focusing on the actual positive impacts and pushing sustainability transformation should be considered a top priority, even though we are facing these new time-consuming efforts through legislation.
Where is a good place to start here?
– The easiest way is to provide education open to all and invite people to discuss the topic. Workshops are a great way of doing this. These events should, of course, only be organised if the results and ideas will be utilised afterward, Friis shares. She continues:
– One discussion starter is to ideate what each team could do right away for the company’s shared sustainability goals. And what is needed for bigger ideas.
– I would also focus on in-house sustainability communications. Allow everyone to see what has been concretely done. It’s hard to be involved in something you don’t understand.
Being a big advocate of companies harnessing sustainability as a part their customer experience, Friis also urges them to not only implement participatory sustainability work but also ‘participating customers.’
– What are the sustainability issues our customers are facing? How we can serve our customers through sustainability? These kind of questions are very fruitful for product and service development. And of course participating customers, among other stakeholders, is very valuable when doing materiality analysis, that is needed for reporting.
What are your clients asking you the most about?
– I feel everyone is a bit overwhelmed by the new legislation. How to navigate through it? Even small businesses are in a situation where many of them come face to face with it, even though they are not legally in the scope of the directives.
– For these smaller ones, I say: ‘Start and aim high, step by step.’ I know it might feel like a lot of work, but it is worth it. Keep track of your journey so you are able to share your progress. Making sure that everyone is involved is something to consider. Utilise the skill set and different interests of your team.
– The same goes for the big ones. Like I said, we don’t want everything to be only on the sustainability team’s shoulders, especially now that reporting is going to take a lot of focus from them. Make sure that all teams are constantly working for a better future, to keep sustainability work going.
And what are you looking at the most yourself?
– Legislation is pushing the change for what is seen as the baseline of sustainability work. I am eager to see how sustainability-driven brands will elevate their work to stand out in this new standard. My favorite thing to say is that sustainability is a part of the future’s customer service, so I hope to see this come to life, Friis concludes.