Making Sustainability Mainstream

There is an article on the Guardian website today on sustainable timber products and how despite a growing turn to timber certification schemes for retailers, especially FSC, most of their staff remain blissfully unaware of what these policies and schemes mean and what distinguishes them from other non-certified products.

It got me thinking about the process of institutionalizing sustainability - or how cultures and habits are changed throughout organizations. As dry as that may sound - institutionalization or internalization or embeddedness - this process is perhaps the most important move in any step towards sustainability. What it means is the 'how' and 'to what extent' the people involved in the day-to-day activities of the organisation understand and practice sustainability.

After all, having an exemplary environmental policy is of limited use if lecturers or student know little of it and refer to it in no way. In which case, it wouldn't be too many steps away to simply call it 'lip service'. Institutionalization involves sustainable practices becoming standard practices, an accepted part of the everyday activities, something that is considered from the beginning rather than tagged-on as an afterthought.

The core factors, I think, are awareness and agency. Awareness sees sustainable messages being communicated intelligently and frequently. Agency involves offering opportunities to put these messages into practice - from the simple stuff such as more recycling bins, or adjustable heating controls, to big picture issues such as making procurement considerations over the entire lifespan of the product, rather than the immediate price-tag. Think green and do green. Institutionalizing sustainability is not an overnight process, and at an university is complicated by its transitory population - a third of its core constituency changes every year. Sustainability has to become a core value to how the university operates, and that need involve efforts to both educate and facilitate. A sustainability commitment at the senior management level has to filter down through to staff, and to the image of the university presented to students.