Did you know that 98 percent of sustainability programs fail? This shocking statistic comes from a survey by Bain & Company of 300 companies including big names like Coca Cola and Novozymes. Whilst the survey cites a range of barriers that sustainability professionals believe impacted the low success rate of these sustainability programs it comes down to a failure to correctly identify the real customer the sustainability program was solving a problem for.
Sustainability programs have more in common with startup companies than established organisations. Startups are in the business of discovering new business models, operate in an environment of extreme uncertainty and are often trying to implement innovative and sometimes disruptive ideas that challenge the status quo. Sounds like the daily life of a dedicated sustainability professional, doesn’t it?
There are many lessons we can learn from the startup world including understanding the importance of who is really the customer for your environmental or social innovation project. The number one reason startups fail is that there was no market need for their product and their value proposition simply wasn’t compelling enough to get a customer to buy into their vision – they failed because they were building a solution looking for a problem.
Sustainability programs often set out to solve a problem for the company – reduce carbon emissions, save water, enhance brand reputation. But the problem is, the company isn’t your customer, it’s the people that work inside it. Reducing carbon emissions or saving water isn’t a problem for the accountant in the finance department, their problem is that they want to be valued by their colleagues, or they want their kids to proud of them, or they want to help more with the local NFP that helps underprivileged kids get an education.
The company isn’t your customer, it’s the people that work inside it.
The company isn’t your customer, it’s the people that work inside it.The study by Bain & Company cited lack of investment or resources, competing priorities, culture change challenges, and organisational obstacles as key barriers to their sustainability programs. But at the heart of each of these barriers are people who make decisions that impact the success or otherwise of your initiative. Is “culture change” really the barrier or is it the fact that the sustainability solution didn’t provide sufficient value to your customers to compel them to implement the initiatives?