Introduction
Organizations have a lot needs and goals that need to be achieved for it to maintain a competitive position and stay relevant to its goals and mission. Despite putting in place many good strategies, organizations sometimes face the challenge of staying relevant to their goals. In doing so, many organizations often turn to sustainability as a strategy of achieving their set goals and policies.
Sustainability is the act of coming up with strategies that intend to meet the goals of the strategy and aim at making the organization flexible to the ever changing business world. This essay is going to explore how sustainability is going to be carried out through the position of Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) offered to an individual.
Organizational Sustainability
Sustainability in organizations is a practice that is usually carried out by senior management officials and it undertaken by various departments in the organization. However, due to the recent changes and challenges as such financial problems and global climate changes in business sustainability is important in maintaining organizational policy (Phillis).
Organizational policy involves reviewing the strategies of the organization to be in tune with current business practices that will make the organization to overcome business challenges. In setting up of the position of Chief Sustainability Officer, the organization should set up this position to be equivalent to the head of a department. This is important in that as the head of sustainability I have to be in constant touch with the heads of departments and the CEO (Chief Executive Officer).
In doing so I am able to analyse the decisions undertaken by management and make a decision based on strategies that affect sustainability in the organization. The position of the CSO should be fitted in between the departmental heads and all other employees for this position to play a critical role in informing of the organizational strategy (Froschheiser).
As the head of sustainability in the organization it is important to undertake the duties of advising the CEO and the board of directors of the organization on the making decisions and strategies that will make the organization sustainable.
As the Head of sustainability, the CSO is responsible for ensuring that the organization’s strategies are communicated to all staff and to make sure that these strategies are well understood. Sustainability is complimentary to organizational strategy and therefore the CSO has the responsibility of ensuring that the organizational strategy is in tune with goals and missions of the organization.
Within the organization, the CSO has a duty of gathering the ideas and thoughts of all employees on important strategies necessary for making the organization have a competitive edge and transcend into the future easily (Froschheiser). Implementing sustainable ideas requires an organization to have visionary and strong leaders who can aid in implementing these ideas within the organization.
Importance of Sustainability
Sustainability is very important within the organization in that it helps in aligning the organizational goals with the organizational values and beliefs. The position of the CSO is very critical since this position acts as a link between the management and the other staff in ensuring that communication is important in making the organization sustainable. Leadership is important in building a sustainable environment for business activities to flourish within an organization.
Sustainability encompasses a lot activities leadership, production efficiency and improving compliance to environmental and international laws. Sustainability includes making use of new technology in the undertaking of business activities and incorporating safe business practices (Phillis). A sustainable organization is one in which use sustainable production methods through proper use of land, air and water in achieving its clients’ needs.
An organization should have provisions for sustainability in its business goals and strategies. Therefore by having organizational leader such as the CSO who could audit the organizational strategies and come up with better strategies is very important. Sustainability ensures an organization can easily anticipate challenges and come up with better solutions to their problems and therefore stay ahead of the competition.
Sustainability ensures that there is diversification in the organizational strategy and activities of the organization are guided on engagement and relationship building (Froschheiser). Sustainability encompasses the art of learning and therefore sustainable organizations have the capacity to manage its strategies through prudent use of data collected through research and review.
Conclusion
The skill of organizing an organization to achieve sustainability either through its strategies and planning is very challenging. Many organizations do not realise the importance of sustainability and therefore they tend to operate without proper, clear and well focussed strategies.
For sustainability to be successful in the organization there needs to be a strong leadership and a flexible organizational structure that works together in a team to ensure organizational goals are met. The importance that sustainability has on the running of an organization requires for the position of a Chief Sustainability Officer to oversee all strategies are geared towards sustainability.
Works Cited
Phillis, Yannis. Sustainability of Organizations. The Business Thinker, 2010. Web.
Froschheiser, Lee. Business Sustainability: The Strategies to Achieve, the Leadership that Makes It Happen. n.d. Web.