1. Sustainability 101 

So, what's it all about?

• Executive Briefing and Training - sustainability and climate change

Before embarking on any new business strategy development and implementation, there if course needs to be good reason to do so. At the same time, the key to any successful business strategy is ensuring that all stakeholders have a common understanding of the issues that the strategy is trying to address or improve. To address these 2 issues and make sure your team can answer the question: what's it all about? The first step is to run a series of workshops or executive briefings. These workshops will outline the sustainability megatrends we see occurring globally in order that the business gains an understanding of how these megatrends may impact on future business objectives. To do this briefing with maximum impact requires a basic understanding of the business plan and long to short term core business objectives. Once you have briefed us on your core business objectives we can tailor-make a sustainability and/or climate change briefing session or training program for your team. Such sessions can be run from 1 hour to 1 day depending on your requirements.

Benefits: clear understanding of key sustainability concepts

• Sustainability Risks and Opportunities Assessment

An essential step towards developing your unique business case for sustainability is the assessment of sustainability and/or climate change risks and opportunities for your business.

The key here is not simply to identify potential legal compliance and customer requirement issues you may have, but also to look for that unique business advantage in a changing business environment.

Benefits: clear understanding of what sustainability risks and opportunities should be addressed by your business

• Benchmarking sustainability performance

It may be important to you to get a clear picture of what your competitors are doing to improve their own sustainability performance and create competitive advantage from doing so. We can provide you with a comprehensive snapshot of how your competitors are addressing the risks and opportunities of sustainability and climate change. This is a very useful tool for you in developing your own business case for sustainability.

Benefits: know what the competition and market leaders are doing

• Developing your business case for sustainability

Sometimes, it may be challenging to clearly articulate why your business should embark on the development and implementation of a sustainability strategy. Professionals at MJC Sustainability have faced that exact challenge many times over and know just how to formulate and present the business case for sustainability within your unique organisation or project team. Making a clear and unshakable business case for sustainability will ensure that your stakeholders are open to the change process that comes with implementing a new business strategy.

When your team has a clear picture of what business sustainability is all about, we will work with you to develop your unique business case for sustainability. This can be done at both the corporate and the project-specific level. We will never provide you with a cookie-cutter sustainability solution, but rather focus on what will deliver maximum value in your business.

Benefits: clear statement of what sustainability means for your business

• Baseline sustainability assessment

You may already have some form of sustainability or climate change strategy or program in place within your business. This could be in an organised way or as a series of disconnected initiatives across your organisation. Our baseline sustainability assessment will provide you with a clear picture of your sustainability performance against internationally recognised sustainability performance criteria. The baseline sustainability assessment will also provide recommendations on where your sustainability initiatives are delivering maximum business advantage and where you have the most opportunity for improvement.

Benefits: snapshot and gap analysis of current performance so you know where to focus next

2. Blue Sky Solid Ground 

At MJC Sustainability we encourage you to set great, big, audacious sustainability goals for your business - but we never lose sight of your core business objectives and capacity to implement sustainability strategy.

• Sustainability vision (corporate or project)

We can facilitate a sustainability visioning workshop with your key business stakeholders or project team. Our professionals are excellent facilitators who make use of innovative and engaging ways to get your team involved and excited about the sustainability potential of your business. Your sustainability vision will be the guiding beacon against which you measure all progress and towards which you will be constantly steering your business or project team.

We will be your guide to ensure the outcome is a statement that the Board and management team can approve.

Benefits: clear statement of what you are going to achieve that your team understands and believes in

• Stakeholder engagement

Sometimes, what you think is important for your business from a sustainability or climate change perspective, may not resonate with your key stakeholders, like your staff, customers/clients and shareholders. When developing a sustainability vision and strategy for your organisation or project it is vital to clearly understand what it is that your stakeholders expect of you, as they will ultimately measure your success.

Stakeholder engagement is an activity that should be continued to build deeper understanding of what your stakeholders really want, develop valuable relationships with them and ensure you communicate your achievements regularly.

Benefit: ensure your objectives align with what your stakeholders really want and your core business strategy

3. Blueprint

Like any major strategy implementation project, whether it be a restructure, new product development or entering a new market, good results are best achieved with good plans. The sustainability blueprint follows internationally recognised management systems standards to set objectives and targets, and create action plans and programs to ensure your sustainability goals are achieved in a reasonable time and at an acceptable cost.

The blueprint is essentially your sustainability project plan, assigning roles and responsibilities, milestones to be achieved, training and resource requirements. It will be your compass and should be easily accessible and understood by the whole team.

Benefits:

• comprehensive project plan for sustainability that integrates with your    overall business/project plan

• clear accountability for achieving objectives

• a means to monitor performance - what gets measured gets done!

• ensure consistency across your business

• link sustainability performance to individual performance and financial performance

4. Solution Centre

During the development and implementation of your sustainability strategy or climate change response plan, there may be specific tools or deliverables required by your business. These could be required as a means to achieve legal compliance and/or specific sustainability and climate change goals you have set.

At MJC Sustainability, we have the experience to deliver the following solutions for you:

• Carbon footprint

• Life cycle assessment

• Climate change response

   o climate change mitigation and adaptation programs

   o legal compliance (National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act, Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme)

• EHS management systems

   o ISO14001

   o OHSAS18001

• Resource efficiency and waste management plans to avoid costs and drive operational efficiencies

• One-on-one ongoing support to your team while you do the implementation

• Built environment solutions

   o A range of innovative building solutions including, but not limited to waterless and recycled water toilets, radiant underfloor cooling systems

5. Communicate

Identify opportunities to use internal communications to galvanise your team in achieving the sustainability targets. Work out the right time to launch an external sustainability report and how to ensure this report delivers maximum business value. Develop a mechanism to identify, communicate and reward the good news stories that may already be happening in your business.

Benefits:

• creates a buzz around sustainability initiatives in your business

• develops understanding of what sustainability means to your business

• sets your sustainability reputation amongst your competitors

• can help to win you new customers and future work

6. Optimise Business Advantage

While the internal benefits of implementing your sustainability strategy and achieving your sustainability targets will be felt on your bottom line - cost savings from reduced waste, increased water and energy savings - how do you turn this into business advantage in the marketplace?

We can work with you to ensure your sustainability initiatives are all driving at the following outcomes:

• reducing operating costs such as water, waste, raw materials, transport and improving your profit margins

• attracting the best talent and retaining them for the long-term

• exceeding stakeholder expectations

• communicating your company's competitive advantage

• improving your market position