Do Sustainability Consultants Need to Blog?

We like to update the SSC website twice a week with blog posts, and these are some of the reasons why. Enjoy this post from the SSC archives:

Short Answer: YES! 

Read on for the long answer…

Last week we established the fact that every sustainability consultant needs to have a website. Let's take that thinking a step further and talk about adding a blog to that website. Here are three reasons why sustainability consultants should have a blog.

1. Blogging keeps your content fresh.

We did a survey last year that collected information on more than 75 sustainability consultancies in the United States. All of these companies had websites (and so we're sure that there are dozens more that haven't gotten around to creating a website yet). As we delved deeper, trying to identify the "real players" in the industry, we discovered that many of the websites were static. It was hard to tell if these were actively practicing sustainability consultants—or if they had thrown in the towel (as many did in 2010 and 2011) and just had another year or two on the domain before the website expired. Blogging is one of the easiest and fastest ways to continuously add information to your website—making it clear to prospective clients, partners, and colleagues that you are still in the game.

2. Blogging gives you a chance establish thought leadership.

It's pretty easy to throw up a sustainability consulting website—and a quick Google search will reveal that many of the sustainability consulting websites are using the same language and offering the same services (sustainability gap assessment, anyone?). It can be really hard to tell the differences between boutique consultancies—especially those that are relatively new and haven't put a lot of effort into developing their website. Blogging is a great way to quickly build out the breadth and depth of your sustainability services. It allows you to demonstrate that you are more than the bland service descriptions you provide. You have ideas! You have suggestions! You have great case studies! You have resources to share! All of this information can easily and effectively be disseminated via a blog—and it will keep people coming back for more.

3. Blogging allows you to express personality.

Other areas of your website may be pretty standard and straightforward, but a blog allows you to talk directly to your readers in a natural voice. You can be controversial, you can be funny, and you can be inspirational — just be authentic. Prospective clients and partners reading your blog can get a sense of what it will be like to work with you — and that can be incredibly helpful in advancing your business development goals.

Wondering what are some of the skills all sustainability consultants should have? Read more here.

10 Steps to Building a Better Business Case

This article was written as an expansion of our white paper “Choosing Sustainability Management Software for your Business” published in July 2011. Enjoy:

As part of your decision making process, you need to make a business case – in financial terms (and maybe some softer measures) – in order to make sure you that you are on the right track.  The outline below should help guide your thought process in fleshing out what the benefits might be for your firm.

1. What’s your overall strategy?  

Is it a cost savings approach?  Do you want to just provide better reporting to stakeholders?  Or are you generating revenue from a green product line and therefore need to track how green it is?

2. What can you actually measure?  

Are you saving labor/time?  Do you have fewer errors and better data quality?  Is it a reduction in risk of losses due to litigation?  Or are you able to increase sales revenue by having better data on your environmental impact?

3. What are the baseline values for those metrics?  

It might take a 100 hours per month of staff time to produce your current report.  Maybe you average $50K in legal fees yearly.  Or you are currently selling $100K per month in your new product line.

4. What supporting research do you have?  

This could be clear internal documentation of your baseline metrics as well as competitive research on your competitors, your region, your industry, etc.  This research will tell you how your data in number 2 and 3 above stacks up against a larger pool of data.

5. What incremental percentage change do you expect to drive in your metrics?  

You should be able to estimate this based on your answer to number 4.  Are you going to be 5% better yearly?  10% lower yearly?  50% higher monthly?  Just make sure you document your assumptions on how big a percentage change you are going to drive, which direction that change is in and what time period that change will cover – i.e. monthly metric, yearly metric etc. Does the change all happen in the first year or does it happen steadily for the entire period of your business case? 

6. What volume change in your metrics results from the incremental percentage change?  

Does a 5% decrease in labor hours equate to 5 hours a month or 500 hours a month?  You need to be able to convert from percentage to number.

7. Translate your percentage/number value into a monetary amount.

Now you have to put on your quantitative hat as you churn through the numbers.  This is where you weed out the quantitative benefits from the qualitative benefits.  Both are desirable, but you want to be able to show the monetary value that you are going to save or earn as a result of your purchase.

8. Decide how you are going to measure it.

You know what you are measuring, how much it is going to change and what your end result is expected to be.  Now you need to determine how you are actually going to measure your progress from start to finish.  If you can’t put a firm description around how you are going to specifically measure the change – i.e. maybe your product revenue will increase for reasons besides its greenness – then you’ve found a soft benefit.  It’s still worth tracking, but you may need to share some of your business case benefit with another department or project.  If you’ve got a very specific way to track your benefit realization, then you’ve found a hard benefit.  The hard benefits, are the kinds that your accountants will like – try to get as many of these on your list as you can.

9. Write it up. 

You’ll need to present your business case benefits to somebody – whether it is your bank when asking for a loan to purchase the software, or to your executives to convince them to support your purchase decision.  Tell them why your purchase is going to be a big success for the company, how much it will contribute to their triple bottom line, and how you are going to come back in a year or three and show them how well things went. 

10. Measure it.

After you implement the software, you have to go back and do the things you said you were going to do in number 9.  Many companies don’t actually close the loop today with projects – they just move on to the next thing and go on their way.  If you want successful business results, it all comes down to measuring it, if you want to manage it.

Now that you’ve read this article, tell us what you think!  And be sure to check out the full white paper.

3 Skill Sets Every Sustainability Consultant Should Have

Enjoy this blog post from a few years back, where Jennifer Woofter talks about the important skills all sustainability consultants should have:

Each month I offer a webinar called Sustainability Consulting 101.  It’s an introduction to the sustainability consulting business and covers the types of consultancies, how to get your foot in the door, the value of a sustainability certificate/degree, and some of the resources that I use to stay on top of emerging sustainability issues.  It’s definitely the most popular webinar that we offer, in part because we break down what it takes to become a good sustainability consultant.

Note that I said a “good” sustainability consultant.  There are a LOT of sustainability consultants out there—yet very few of us rise to the level of “good” in my opinion.  Why?  Because being a good sustainability consultant requires three different skills sets and very, VERY few people have all of them.  Let’s look at each of them in turn:

SUSTAINABILITY SKILLS

This is the obvious one.  You need to understand what sustainability is (and is not), the issues under the larger umbrella of sustainability, and the business case for those specific issues (energy management, water footprinting, carbon reduction, supply chain management, etc.).  You need to be able to explain cap-and-trade, and life cycle analysis, and the Global Reporting Initiative.  You should know the difference between SA8000 and the UN Global Compact and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and when each should be applied to a particular situation.  Basically, you have to be versed in the philosophy, practices, and tools of sustainability.

CONSULTING SKILLS

This is an often overlooked one, especially among the younger folks I talk to who are coming out of college with a “passion for sustainability”* and think that being excited and knowledgeable about climate change is enough to qualify them for the job.  To be a good sustainability consultant you need to explain where you can add value to a client’s processes.  You need to walk the fine line between independence and collaboration.  You must navigate office politics as an outsider.  You must guide a project without any real authority (after all, you are not “one of them”).  You must manage contract negotiations, expense reports, invoices, status reports, budgeting, coordination of teams…the list goes on.  This is a completely different skill set, and I wish more of the people in our industry had good project management skills, business development skills, and overall communication skills.  I think our clients would appreciate it.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT SKILLS

Honest truth here: how many sustainability consultants out there can really deliver results?  I mean actually see a project through and have measurable “before” and “after” data to compare—to actually be able to quantify the outcomes of your consulting engagement.  Virtually none of us—and that’s because as consultants we are too often in the role of “prepare a report and walk away”.  We have often not been trained in the art and science of change management.  How do you motivate employees to change their behavior?  How do you get management to sign off on a big-budget item?  How do you institutionalize sustainability roles and responsibilities?  As sustainability consultants we often come up with GREAT recommendations, and then don’t actually see them through.  What’s more, we don’t do a good job of setting up systems to measure the before/after scenario.  There are a whole number of reasons for that (I see another blog entry coming up!), but the fact is that very few of our clients could answer a question like “how was productivity affected by working with Jane?” or “how much was sustainability performance impacts by the new training program recommended by your consultant”?  Instead we walk away with wishy-washy testimonials and hope that's enough to get the next client.

If you’re a company looking to hire a sustainability consultant, be sure you look for all three of these skill sets in the sustainability consultant(s) that you work with.  And if you’re a sustainability consultant, give yourself an honest assessment—how do I stack up in each of these areas? 

So now, dear readers, let me pose the question to you—is there another skill set that should be on this list that isn’t?

* One of my most hated phrases ever!

Looking to catch up on some of the best blog posts from the last month? Check out our Best of the Blog - March edition here!

"Photo by Brad Javernick of Home Oomph"