Industry and professional associations now have a new tool to promote sustainability and corporate social responsibility among their members, who in their turn can advocate it to the broader business society. The Sustainability/CSR Roadmap for Associations encompasses ten steps to help associations amplify focus and action on sustainability within their memberships. The Roadmap was developed by leading sustainability entrepreneur and coach, Coro Strandberg in collaboration with Five Winds International and funded by Industry Canada. It equips associations to educate and activate their members and thus can be a tipping-point tool to further sustainability.
Coro Strandberg explains:
The Roadmap provides guidance to associations that want to help their members develop best practices in sustainability, while meeting societal expectations and increasing business opportunities. This tool covers all stops along the way from developing the business case, to getting your house in order, to establishing goals and targets for an industry or sector.The tool will benefit small and large associations, with diverse memberships, both on a local and international level (i.e. industry associations with multi-national corporations in their memberships).
The Canadian Society for Association Executives (CSAE) provided substantial guidance throughout the development of the CSR/Sustainability Roadmap and will introduce the tool to its members through the new sustainability education & resources section of its website.
CSAE’s Bob Hamp, Director, Communications & Advocacy affirmed:
Each of our association members represents many organizations; so by equipping them with the Roadmap, we can help spread sustainability awareness and action throughout the marketplace.Many industry and professional associations, in their efforts to advance sustainably, are tackling with the difficult task of both learning from their members and leading the way. Regardless of where an organization is on the sustainability path, the Roadmap is an excellent discussion and planning tool for boards of directors and executives to help build sustainability programs for industries, sectors and individual businesses and organizations.
The Sustainability/CSR Roadmap for Associations and the companion article, CSAE Members Lead the Way: Integrating Sustainability into their Organizations, are available free of charge here.