Organizational Design and Sustainability

While more and more directors and executives are acknowledging the importance of sustainability to their strategies for financial success, companies have continued to struggle with embedding sustainability into their core business practices and overall organizational design. In order for the sustainability strategy to be effective and successful, it must align with the structure, competencies and culture of the company. This chapter surveys research that has been done on embedding sustainability into organizational design and structure including guidance on basic steps that should be taken including incorporating sustainability into mission and vision statements, creating an executive position with responsibility for sustainability, providing sustainability training to employees, collecting and reporting data on sustainability performance and incorporating sustainability into financial and non-financial rewards programs. Also addressed is the placement of resources dedicated to sustainability within the organizational structure and accepted practices for staffing the sustainability function. The chapter also investigates ideas for how companies can strengthen and leverage their sustainability resources by partnering with other organizations.