Sustainability Resolutions: Measure it.

In the opener (LINK) to this blog series, I introduced the five most common New Year's Resolutions we make (but often don’t keep) and their sustainability equivalent. In each of the following entries, we'll look at obstacles, overcoming, and outcomes of each. Read HERE about Resolution 1 (exercise more / take further steps in sustainability), and HERE about Resolution 2 (eat healthier / quality over quantity).

Number three on the list is to lose weight, which we'll translate to:

Set and report progress on measurable goals.

Obstacles  

Avoiding the facts.

I am a foodie. I love food. I am an excellent restaurant picker. And a pretty darn good cook. And I love all sorts of foods. And I want to try it all! And nothing is off limits if it's raised / harvested / produced sustainably. 

So what are the facts that I'm ignoring? CALORIES! When we don't have data that reveals a problem, it's easy to ignore it or pretend there isn't a problem. When I’m enjoying a meal I’m certainly not reflecting on the long term implications of my choices.

What does this look like in sustainability? Well, if you have read any headlines in the last few years with the word "climate" in them, then you may have felt depressed, sad, overwhelmed, confused. Who wants that!??

So most people ignore the reality or even become outright "deniers." But the truth is still there, whether we're willing to face it or not. We live in an age where people can just call something they don’t like “fake news” and comfortably bury their heads in the sand. But just as someone will eventually pay the price for being overweight and having poor health, the truth and reality of our climate crisis will catch up with us.

Decisions are based on selective memory and emotions. 

In food waste training with event staff at hotels and convention centers, I remind staff that it’s easy to remember the times we ran out of food, not the numerous times it was excessive. We remember the 5 times a customer freaked out, not the 9555 times they did not. 

We get discouraged when we don’t see quick results because our emotions demand instant gratification. Social and environmental impact takes a long time to play out and requires consistent and persistent effort. Our zeal can wane when there’s not something to feed our emotions, whether it’s indignation and anger at learning about an injustice, or the joy and pride from leading a beach cleanup.

Our brains are pre-programmed, by nature or habit, to make certain assumptions. For example, we equate volume with value. Why do we do this? Perhaps there is a false sense of comfort when we see heaping piles of food, or a closet filled with clothes. Or perhaps it’s because we have a perception that just enough of something is too close to scarcity and that scares us.

Looking at the wrong data.

When it comes to our personal, societal, and planetary health, there are so many data points it can be overwhelming! And if you’re not familiar with the technicalities you could find yourself looking at data that doesn’t help you on a practical level.

Data is is often not actionable. For example, in the world of food waste everything is usually expressed in pounds. And sometimes that’s all you’ll get. So for example, a hotel might have a report that they donated or composted 760 pounds last month.

What does 760 pounds of food donated or composted tell you? Nothing really. Or nothing actionable at least. It’s shocking how often I see this and only this. IF this. Sometimes there’s no data at all. But still, what decision can I make based on a report that I donated or composted 760 pounds? Of food? Or beverage? (Because beverages are a lot heavier than food.) Of what type of food? Prepared foods or shelf stables about to expire? If the former, I know I need to look at the popularity of menu items or potential errors in the standard menu specs or recipes. But if the latter, there’s a procurement or inventory management problem.

A piece of data often missing or confusing, and in some cases very difficult to obtain, is the baseline. How will you know how much you have improved, or not, without knowing the starting point? And even when there is a baseline it’s typically very big picture, such as total GHGs across an entire organization. That’s very important data but it has to then be translated into something meaningful for each department and decision maker.

Overcoming

Face the facts.

When I go through the process of tracking calories, it is a real eye-opener! And definitely plays a role in dropping some weight. Likewise my growing awareness of social and environmental issues has changed how and what I consume.

Develop a discipline of research to raise your level of awareness. You can perform an audit on a few regular purchases and learn more about those particular supply chains. For many supply chains you can find non-profit and research organizations dedicated to publishing articles, reports, ratings, and other helpful resources that reveal behind the scenes realities of social and environmental impacts. Other organizations focus more on a wide reaching topic, such as water conservation, but sometimes generate publications with a spotlight on particular products or supply chains.

A great place to start is food. First, it’s probably the one category of purchases that is most closely tied with your physical and mental well-being. I can say with absolute certainty that when I eat more sustainable food, I can actually feel the results in terms of better energy and digestion.

Second, there is a plethora of information and studies out there proving the benefits. One of my favorite go-to sources is the Environmental Working Group. They not only have lists LINK and warnings in food but in other categories such as cleaning products and skincare.

When you do come to grips with the magnitude of the problems that may be associated with the products you procure, don't take it all on at once. Recognize facts as truth but don't burden yourself with fixing it all right away. As much as I’m committed to sustainable procurement, there are some things that I still haven’t been able to change for a variety of reasons - product availability, prices, old habits die hard, comfort or convenience, etc. Not to mention that sometimes I find that something I thought I was doing to be better on the environment turns out to not be the best based on new findings or insufficient evidence.

Don’t let this overwhelm you. It’s easy to feel a heavy burden once you learn the truth. Take it in stride and be realistic. Prioritize the issues that are most important to you or your organization or key stakeholders. Organizations perform materiality analysis to help determine which social and environmental issues represent the most risk or opportunity. This helps you tackle first things first.

Use data to make decisions.

Sustainability has a lot of baggage and people can get wrapped up in perceptions and politics so data-driven decisions keep things professional and practical. Let’s look at an example.

At a food waste training, I worked with a team who had observed that there was waste in the lunch menus and that part of the problem is too many options for each day of the week. So I asked the question: which of the hot and which of the cold entrées are you going to take off the menu?

It would be easy for staff to make that choice based on personal preferences or limited observations. To demonstrate, I asked each person in the room to tell me which hot and which cold entrée they would personally remove from the menu? Among 12 people in the room there was no consensus on which were the best options.

Why not let data make the choice? One way to do this would be to review the previous three months of order history to see which lunch options were most popular. To provide even better insight, do a series of waste audits of each menu and compare which menu is most efficient in terms of end-to-end waste (procurement, inventory / storage / spoilage, trim and prep, service waste, and plate waste). Factor food costs into the equation as well. The most popular menu may not be the one with the least waste or best margin.

Make data actionable.

Rightly so, there is so much focus on data in the field of sustainability. Unfortunately much of that data is aggregated, big picture, corporate level data that individual staff and department leaders cannot necessarily act on. Data needs to be applicable and relevant to those who are expected to change their attitudes and behaviors in order to move the data in the right direction.

There a number of considerations for generating actionable data. Each of these is worthy of a full blog on its own so stay tuned, but for now I’ll introduce some best practices.

• Get the baseline and use benchmarks. Data in and of itself is not good or bad. It’s only when we compare it to something that it indicates a performance level. A baseline is the starting point, like stepping on the scales at the beginning of a diet. It is necessary to know whether the changes we make are moving us in the right direction.

A benchmark is a way to compare to a recommended ideal, competitors, or an industry norm, much like the government recommended weight ranges for women (which I hate but that’s way off topic 😉). Many organizations still lack baseline data in categories of social and environmental performance so when they finally assess the baseline, they may still not be sure whether it’s good news or bad. Benchmarks are helpful in making such determinations.

Larger businesses, especially publicly traded ones expected to publish ESG (environmental, social, governance) reports, have years of data so not only have baselines and provide a benchmark but also establish a trend line so you can determine a reasonable rate of change. I suggest that at a minimum you read the CSR/sustainability reports for competitors within your industry or of brands you admire. You can glean a lot from their stories but really pay attention to the numbers. 

• Use the right tools. This goes for how data is captured and used. There must be a balance of flexibility and consistency. In some regards, having everyone use the same metrics, formats, and platforms makes it much easier for the corporate sustainability team or other departments such as Finance and HR to generate reports. On the other hand, if someone in Finance or Legal dictates how operational teams should track waste reduction or sustainable procurement, you may end up with either no useful data or people providing data to check a box but not really having a real sense for how they can use the data to drive change.

In food waste, the most common metric used is weight. This is a straightforward way to measure it and it’s the easiest way to track across a wide variety of categories of ingredients and causes of waste. Unfortunately, it may not particularly useful to a chef trying to reduce waste from the menu. It may not tell you by how much you should reduce the side portion of fries or how many bread rolls per person is the right amount.

• That’s where audits and observations come in. When you do a deep dive analysis of just a segment of data or activity, you can see much more nuance that doesn't typically appear in most aggregated data reporting. This helps you get to the “why” and better enables specific solutions and improvements.

Audits also come in handy when you don’t have a baseline or when it’s particularly difficult to compare apples to apples. I do a lot of work in the events industry (hotels and convention centers) where it can be challenging to use data that reflects such a range of event types and sizes. You can go from one day with a 800 person gala with an upscale custom menu plated dinner, to the next day feeding a 12,000 person tradeshow with concessions and retail outlets, to the next day with a 100 person conference eating day-of-the-week buffets. How do you compare food waste performance across such vastly different data points?

Audits enable you to focus in and perform selected evaluations. It’s also then easier to start where you already suspect there are problems, then quickly identify and test out some solutions. Solve one problem at a time so the sustainability journey does not seem so daunting.

In our Sustainable Procurement course LINK the focal activity is an audit. Tracking detailed social or environmental data on purchases is still new territory for most organizations. This is partially due to the fact that many are not even sure what to track or where to find the data. An audit allows you to discover what social and environmental issues are prevalent in different supply chains and what data you should seek to collect and analyze.

• Make it worth it. Data is tedious and time-consuming. If you’re going to make people go through the bother of finding it and putting it in system then make sure they understand how it serves the mission of the business and makes the world, or at least their community, a better place. Acknowledge and recognize the effort it takes to provide and use data.

Actionable data leads to action. And achievement. Be sure to tie results and outcomes to data so there’s incentive to gather and report on the right data. Celebrate progress and don’t let setbacks derail you.

Outcomes

For each of the sustainability resolutions I could write volumes on the benefits and reasons you should make the effort. In the interest of time, I'll share just three that I hope will motivate you to take action.

• Reality: No one wins in denial. Living in reality is tough too but at least you will be prepared to address the problems as they also become more in the consciousness of you top stakeholders. The sooner you face facts the sooner you can design solutions.

• Results: When you have measurable goals you’ll have real benefits and reduction, which you can share and celebrate with others. You can defend decisions with a business case that compels others to support sustainability initiatives.

• Reward: Setting and achieving goals makes progress noticeable. Be sure to involve as many departments as you can in sustainability initiatives. When staff can map their tasks with the social and environmental benefits they not only contribute to the organization’s mission, they can take pride in the outcomes and share in the joyful reward.

 Read (LINK) about the next resolution: Improve finances /  Reduce environmental footprint (spending) and invest in sustainability.