Greening Enterprises: How to Assess and Develop Your Organization’s Drive Toward Sustainability

Introducing a new methodology to help organizations design and implement high-performing sustainability programs.

Going green is easier said than done.

As organizations are putting together their sustainability strategies, they’re coming up against some hard questions:

How should an organization establish its goals and objectives?
What sustainability best-practices should be followed?
How can an organization properly assess its sustainability gaps?
What returns will there be on investments?
Which approach should an organization take – and where should it start?

Booz Allen Hamilton has developed an innovative methodology to guide organizations through the often complex process of establishing and maintaining a highly successful sustainability program.

That methodology pairs a diagnostic, the Green Pulse Check, with the Sustainable Green Enterprise Framework, which defines and integrates the specific steps an organization can take. A full description can be found in the Booz Allen viewpoint “Greening Enterprises: How to Assess and Develop Your Organization’s Drive Toward Sustainability.”

With the Green Pulse Check, organizations can rapidly self-evaluate their current sustainability programs across five key capability areas and see how they compare with the programs of other organizations within their sectors, as well as with the federal government. Booz Allen offers access to the Green Pulse Check free of charge to promote the development and institution of sustainability best practices across the federal government portfolio.

Armed with that information, organizations can then use the Enterprise Framework to develop their sustainability programs through a four-step process:

Strategic Planning – Aligning the greening initiative with the organization’s mission and priorities and identifying potential opportunities to pursue
Options Analysis – Testing whether those opportunities are feasible, have a strong business case, and will be supported by stakeholders.
Implementation – Developing a Greening Business Action plan and putting it into motion.
Monitoring and Improvement – Assessing performance, identifying lessons learned, reporting to stakeholders, and building institutional capability.

Taken together, the diagnostic and enterprise framework provide the kind of holistic approach necessary for sustainability programs to be truly successful.

Booz Allen Principal Alan Falk and Senior Associates Stephen Buchanan and David Erne are the authors of “Greening Enterprises: How to Assess and Develop Your Organization’s Drive Toward Sustainability.”

study posted November 6, 2009