What the expert observes is that five out of ten CEOs have a personal commitment to sustainability, but face challenges in incorporating this agenda into their organization’s business strategy: little drive from top management, slow organizational change, bureaucracy, lack of investment, lack of commensurate incentives, and a shortage of the right skills and experiences.
According to the study, managers are concerned about material and food waste and climate change, while employees focus on issues that affect their daily lives such as economic inequality, corruption and abuse of power.
Another important point is that in the last two years, 43% of the leaders of the new generations are those who have shown greater interest in environmental problems versus older leaders, who are more focused on the business per se.
The Egade coincides with this. through research Rising Leaders on Social and Environmental Sustainability: A Global Survey of Business Studentsthe business school revealed that new business leaders expect sustainability to be intertwined in corporate strategy.
Nearly three quarters of the 2,035 participants felt that companies should have a leading role in dealing with these issues, on the same level as government authorities. Business students believe that leaders senior corporations should be solving environmental and social problems. Even five out of ten future leaders would accept a lower salary in order to work with an employer committed to sustainability.
In this context, adds Ruiz Maza, the main challenge is consistency. “The important thing is to ensure that they are aligned regardless of the generation, they have to dialogue, communicate and ensure that they are taking the initiatives that matter to the entire organization and not just to senior management.”
Expansion (E): The leaders who are in charge of the company are still mostly baby boomershow are they behaving on this issue?
Francisco Ruiz Maza (FRM): There is no alignment on what top management and the rest of the organization is doing. Top management continues to talk about climate change, pollution and the pandemic, while the new generations talk about economic inequalities, job shortages, gender equality, etc. But the younger ones are not only saying it, but they are assuming roles of the sustainable agenda that are above their current functions.
I: How are future leaders preparing to take on the task of sustainability?
FRM: The next leaders are looking at how to create more sustainable products in terms of packaging and social impact. They also pay attention to the supply chain being sustainable and that the suppliers have priorities in this agenda. They also form alliances with non-governmental or non-profit associations that support certain environmental and social causes, while measuring the impact of their actions, for example, if their products and services are really reducing their carbon footprint.
E: Mexico is a country of SMEs, how can they join the sustainability agenda, taking into account their operational and infrastructure capacity?
FRM: The sustainable agenda is not only for large corporations. If SMEs put it at the forefront of the business as a priority, then it begins to materialize. Large companies may address the issue in a more structured way, but it does not exempt SMEs from embracing the sustainable agenda as an important priority, whether you sell one million or 100,000 million pesos. It’s more of an identity issue around what it means to be a leader of a company with a purpose.
There is still a large percentage of senior management that makes sustainability a brand management issue, that is, they do it because it looks good, or because they believe that it is what they have to do in order not to lose competitiveness, but sustainability it is actually a value-added issue.
E: How can the new labor paradigm contribute to the sustainable agenda?
FRM: Something that the pandemic taught us is the need to be flexible and adapt. But the connection consumers make with brands and employees with their companies is more important than ever. Today people turn to see what the leaders are doing, what the brands are betting on and if there are no shared values they leave.
This forces companies to address the issue of sustainability and care because if they do not, the market will decide for them and their share price may fall.
E: What would be three leadership actions for a more sustainable future?
FRM: Strategy, commitment and action. Make sustainability a business strategy and not a separate initiative, but a central one. There must be a clear and defined plan, endorsed by the board of directors and senior management, to then share it with the entire organization, including the employees. stakeholders. And, finally, enable change, transform the way of working to achieve the proposed objectives, in terms of sustainability.