“If you wish to go quick, go alone. If you wish to go far, go collectively.” 

This proverb couldn’t be more true than for these working inside sustainability management. 

Sure, particular person firms, governments or nongovernmental organizations can have a cloth influence. However to attain real scalable transformation, organizations should work in tandem towards frequent objectives or to encourage others inside their sphere of affect. 

The appropriate partnership can amplify the influence of your environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments exponentially. It’s what’s often called the “multiplier impact.” Talking at our current Affect Leaders Lab, a month-to-month occasion at which main sustainability consultants present sensible suggestions, Sarah Beaubien, influence and sustainability lead at Mondelēz-owned Clif Bar, summed it up like this: 

“In case you drop a pebble within the water and thru considerate, intentional model or enterprise activation, it grows right into a ripple, and that ripple ultimately turns into a wave. That is the place transformational change occurs,” she stated. “We’re a small firm that punched above its weight due to these partnerships.” 

Listed here are 5 methods to make your subsequent partnership a hit.  

Assume outdoors the field

Don’t make the error of limiting potential companions to trade friends, and even rivals. Contemplate how NGOs or charitable companions, suppliers throughout your worth chain, your staff, and even the top client of your services or products can turn out to be mutually useful companions, too. Beaubien outlined how the snack model has participated in a plethora of various relationships, from activating firm staff by way of its Clif Corps program, an employee-led neighborhood service program that achieved 90 % participation in 2023, to leveraging its relationships with prime athletes. In 2022, for instance, the corporate partnered with tennis champion Venus Williams and nonprofit Outside Afro to supply entry to a spread of out of doors experiences. By considering extra creatively concerning the sorts of partnerships that could possibly be mutually useful, you open your self as much as a much more various, way more artistic set of companions. 

Use a framework to prioritize alternatives 

These main sustainability groups at giant organizations might discover themselves fielding a number of requests for partnerships. How do you choose the best one? Clue: The key isn’t to maintain saying sure till you’re at zero capability. As a substitute, filter every request by way of an goal framework that maps affords — and inner concepts, too — in line with a set of clear standards. To what extent wouldn’t it use a corporation’s present assets, for instance? Does it align with core enterprise technique? What funding does it require? What’s the long-term potential of the mission? At Clif, the crew even considers rigorously whether or not a specific program will assist in attracting and retaining expertise, in line with Beaubien, given how aggressive the present hiring panorama is. Analyze potential partnerships by way of this framework and use its clear metrics to achieve the C-suite buy-in. 

Be open to (true) collaboration 

The perfect partnerships are borne from a real need to collaborate. Which means having the ability to settle for outdoors concepts, delegate obligations and know when to take a step again. Crucially, when you’re the lead group on a mission or trigger, that doesn’t imply you could oversee every aspect of its execution. As a substitute, set out the technique after which purpose to encourage others to co-deliver, fairly than instruct. As Beaubien identified, that’s the great thing about the multiplier impact. “All of the work does not must be completed by our crew,” she stated. “We’re simply kind of the supply of the ‘mild,’ after which that ripples out. We then have firms and organizations approaching us saying, ‘We have got this nice alternative, we have this nice coalition, do you wish to be a part of it’?” 

Determine the place you possibly can add worth

If it’s not in your wheelhouse — not strategically linked to your core enterprise — then assume twice about getting concerned. If a partnership doesn’t clearly align along with your core services or products, or to your wider influence technique, then you can find yourself turning into a burden to your individual stakeholders, fairly than performing as a catalyst for optimistic change. As a substitute, make investments most closely in these points of a partnership that align along with your core enterprise aims and use present assets, fairly than asking for brand new funding. This amplifies your influence and likewise gives you with the best credibility, each internally and publicly. 

Outline what success seems to be like on the outset

Earlier than you begin delivering on a partnership, each side ought to have already agreed on the enterprise and neighborhood outcomes and impacts. As an illustration, how will they measure success and who within the partnership shall be liable for capturing the info?

This isn’t at all times simple. Whereas purely industrial tasks can typically be analyzed in line with quantitative key efficiency indicators similar to revenues, revenue or buyer acquisition, the identical can’t be stated for partnerships rooted in ESG objectives. That’s why it may be helpful to utilize exterior frameworks that measure success, such because the London Benchmarking Group Methodology. 

Once I led the London Benchmarking Group, a member group of 100-plus FTSE250 firms listed on the London Inventory Trade, centered on measuring, managing and reporting on their strategic neighborhood investments and partnerships, we helped firms to set targets on the outset. These targets had been organized into two components: the enterprise and the neighborhood. What had been the enterprise inputs (money, time or in-kind investments) and the enterprise outputs (variety of folks fed, and so forth.) vs. neighborhood inputs (volunteers or mission administration time) and outputs (variety of homeless supplied lodging)?

Measuring outcomes is a key a part of making certain partnerships are efficient, mutually useful and generate a strong return on funding for each stakeholders and shareholders alike.

The appropriate partnerships could be invaluable in amplifying influence inside sustainability. However to make sure they speed up progress, fairly than act as a hindrance, it’s essential that leaders think about rigorously which partnerships present the perfect match for his or her group and what’s required to attain quantifiable success.