3 Organizational Approaches to Biodiversity - Which Type of Organization is Yours?

Biodiversity, at work, needs to be part of your leadership and sustainability agenda.

Aligning your commercial success as an organisation with a bio-diverse sustainable future will take foresight, courage, ambition, wisdom and perseverance. And organizations fall into one of three broad approaches when it comes to their efforts.

- Visioneer

- Jones’s

- Tortoise

Which one does your organization fall under?

Visioneers Who Drive Purpose Driven Organisations (PDO)

These organisations are the enlightened buddhas of the world - leading the way.

They know what their purpose is, it’s defined, it’s communicated, it’s understood and it’s executed on.

Their purpose defines their organisation’s reason to exist as an optimal strategic contribution to the long-term wellbeing of all people and planet. It does this in a way that assures profitability, as well the health of social, environmental and economic systems, stakeholders and capitals, including natural capital.

Their purpose acts as a strategic filter to direct all company actions towards ambitious impacts or the benefit of wide range of stakeholders, well beyond only considering shareholder value. To be clear, profitability is vital, but shareholders are seen as one of a number of core stakeholders.

Their purpose informs all value-creation goals and operational parameters. It’s thought through; and it’s baked in at all levels of the organisation. These parameters, these KPIs, these OKRs make sure the organization acts within social norms and expectations and scientific consensus, in a way that ensures the health of it’s stakeholders, and the wider society and environment in which the company operates.

And, unsurprisingly, as the enlightened Buddha’s of the sustainability and biodiversity world, their natural, social and human capitals are stewarded, measured and accounted for.

These organisations see themselves as the leaders of the pack, with a strong external and 🔭 ’futuring’ lens. Far from shallow purpose and brand positioning statements. These organizations are on the front foot, they’re the ‘don’t assign a label to me’ types, they’re the ‘we do things differently’ and ‘we innovating for the future’ types.

Then there are the…

The Jones’s Who Practice Enlightened Shared Value (ESV)

They’re the ‘we get it’ and ‘we’re moving with pace.’ They’re making huge strides to accelerate change at their organizations, and they’re coming up fast. They’re doing good.

They know their company’s ability to optimise profits in anything but the short term is threatened, unless they shift their business strategy and models to operate within the healthy thresholds of the multiple resources that they are dependent on. Their enlightened in the sense that their looking out to the external environment, and they know that sustainability and biodiversity is not just a PR exercise. Yet, they still see sustainability / biodiversity as a convenient way of getting crucial information about their company, and are ultimately motivated by maximising financial performance and surviving in the long term.

These organizations are driven to create long-term financial value for their shareholders. And, just like the Visioneers they also steward, measure and account for their natural, social and human capitals. Yet, unlike their Visioneers counterparts, the Jones’s are more concerned with impact materiality - the impact on their financial future, the environment and society because they haven’t innovated their business model, services or products enough to become more sustainable.

This means that sustainability and biodiversity efforts will vary significantly across their organisation; from limited and partial activities in silo’d business units through to explicit aims to align to all of the SDGs - Yes, all 17 of them! - and Post 2020 GBF. How does that make sense for any business?!

Yet, not all is lost, the intent for action is great, and harnessed and focussed through a refined sustainability and biodiversity strategy that is integrated across the entire organisation can help these organizations greatly improve.

We’re all on a journey, after all.

Lastly, there are the Tortoises

The Tortoises Who Practice Business As Usual (BAU) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The Tortoises have a the greatest opportunity for advancement and change. They have the advantage of learning the lessons from those that have tried before them.

But they have a lot of work to do. They’re currently focused internally on themselves and short-term shareholder financial value maximisation. They’re focussed on taking action to counter any threats to their organisation’s short term profit and are trying to keep up with changing legislative environments and expectations.

They’re also trying to manage the optics, i.e. showing that change is happening in order to keep important stakeholders aligned, through PR and marketing. But in effect they’re playing a cat-and-mouse game, and are on the back-foot.

This means that any sustainability and biodiversity activities that are implemented are applied ad-hoc or sporadically, and are of low maturity across the organization. They’re engaging in a reactive way to compliance and see it as a box-ticking exercise - it disconnected from strategic decision-making, or maybe there isn’t a strategy in place yet. The challenge is that any big changes in regulation could leave these organizations exposed with a significant impact on their ability to do business.

These organizations need a starter-strategy and roadmap to help them move along the journey. With the right leaders championing changing and resources to execute, it’s possible for these organizations to make strides.