Sustainability Seriestm

How-to Booklets that Show You the Way

Purpose of Series * Series at a Glance * Booklet Descriptions * How to Order

Once you understand the importance of pursuing sustainability, the next question is usually, "How? So what do I do?" Many organizations get stuck at this point. But now there's a resource to help you.

The Sustainability Series is a set of how-to booklets that take you through each step in the process. Buy the whole set or just the booklet you need now.

The series is structured around 4 main steps: 1) First you have to form a sustainability strategy, why you are implementing sustainability and your plan for doing so. 2) Next you pick an entry point to bring it into your organization. Since every organization is different, there are five separate implementation paths. Four of the approaches involve embedding sustainability into practices or initiatives you may already have in place: long-range, strategic planning; environmental management systems; supply chain/purchasing decisions; or team efforts. This way, sustainability can be framed as a logical extension of what you already do, not something new and in addition to their full plates. If none of these approaches fit your situation, then you can also implement sustainability as a separate initiative. 3) Later booklets show you how to do the groundwork (like identifying your environmental impacts, training employees, etc). 4) We also have booklets which show you how to approach specific projects (like zero waste, green purchasing, or greenhouse gases). There are also supporting materials in the "supply shed" including a delightfully illustrated employee guide.

"The material was directly applicable to the work we are doing to 'institutionalize' sustainability into the way the County does business. I found the information easily adaptable to our organization and was able to use it immediately. When I handed it out to my team, the response was immediate - they really seemed to 'get it.'"

­ Amy Joslin, Acting Assistant Director of Sustainability, Multnomah County

Each of the how-to booklets contains: Helpful background information you need to complete the task. A step-by-step facilitator's guide that shows you how to do the task, including a meeting agenda, visual aids and narrative. Quotes and advice; lessons learned by those in the field doing the work Resources and masters of activity materials

The Sustainability Series at a Glance

"Your booklets are awesome; I would pay 20 bucks for them without even thinking."

-- George Lundberg, Epson

Click here if you want to see a Master Index of materials contained in the booklets.

STEP 1: Form a sustainability strategy

First you need to clarify why your organization should pursue sustainability and then develop a plan. We have two booklets for this step.

Developing a Business Case for Sustainability

Developing an Implementation Plan: How to embed sustainability into your existing initiatives

STEP 2: Find the best entry point to bring sustainability into your organization

Many organizations have existing programs that they can tie sustainability to. In this Step, we provide booklets around two of the more common. If you have an existing EMS or are working on supply chain issues, these booklets will help you align sustainability with those efforts. There are other possible entry points, including integrating it into your strategic planning or quality/process improvement teams, but these booklets have yet to be written.

Making Sustainability Part of your Long-range Planning Process (not available yet)

Embedding Sustainability into your Environmental Management System

Using Teams to work on Sustainability (not available yet)

Greening Your Supply Chain

STEP 3: Navigate the analysis every organization must do

There are a host of analytical steps that are useful to undertake early in the implementation. These include training, conducting an impacts analysis, and forming a team structure and systems to manage your sustainability effort.

Training Employees on Sustainability (based on The Natural Step framework)

Identifying Your Environmental Impacts

Developing Sustainability Metrics and Targets

Forming and Facilitating Sustainability Teams

Selecting a High-Impact Sustainability Project

Developing Effective Systems to Manage Sustainability - Creating an EMS Lite

STEP 4: Pick project(s) to work on

The following booklets represent common projects organizations take on: reducing waste, green purchasing, energy and climate change, and supply chain improvements.

Reducing Energy Use and Greenhouse Gases: Doing your part for the climate

Approaching Zero Waste

Choosing Greener Products

Partnering with Vendors: Supplier Workshops for Mutual Gain

SUPPLIES: Tools to Help You Along the Way

Making Sense of Sustainability: An employee guide (an illustrated primer to educate employees on sustainability and help them identify possible projects. Great to use in orientations or employee training. Can also be the basis of discussions in staff meetings. This is not a how-to booklet but instead is intended to be read cover to cover.)

Booklet Descriptions

Here are descriptions of the booklets that are currently available:

• Developing a Business Case for Sustainability. If you're trying to figure what benefits your organization might gain from pursuing sustainability, this booklet will help you develop a compelling business case. You'll examine near-term financial benefits as well as longer-term competitive and other benefits. You'll also discover what to do if you don't yet have top management support for this effort.

• Developing an Implementation Plan: How to Embed Sustainability into Your Existing Initiatives. This booklet helps you figure out how to dovetail sustainability with whatever else you have going on so it doesn't look like yet another program-of-the-month (with all they eye-rolling that usually entails). It describes a process for selecting the most fruitful implementation strategy for your organization. Larry Chalfan of Zero Waste Alliance wrote the foreward, sharing his key learnings from OKI Semiconductor. Since you will need to select language and structure that will work best in your organization, the booklet includes a listing of sustainability frameworks along with their web sites.

• Embedding Sustainability into your Environmental Management System. If you have an existing EMS, this booklet shows you how to take it to the next level, a sustainability management system. It shows you how and where to embed sustainability principles and practices. Co-authored with Dorothy Atwood, a renowned EMS consultant. If you do not currently have an EMS, you'll probably find the booklet, Developing Effective Systems for Managing Sustainability, more helpful.

• Greening Your Supply Chain -- What you buy can have an important influence on your environmental impacts. So many organizations are writing environmental criteria into their contracts, surveying suppliers, setting up coalitions, even collaborating with non-governmental organizations. But how do you know what approach will be best for you? This booklet helps you think through your strategy. You'll pick a product, process or supplier relationship and then select the best strategy for influencing them.

• Training Employees on Sustainability (based on The Natural Step framework) -- This booklet shows you how to tailor training for your staff as well as explains what's important to do before or after the training. The booklet is filled with learning activities and demonstrations you can use in your own training. Don't reinvent the wheel with your own training. Start here.

• Identifying Your Environmental Impacts -- This booklet provides a step-by-step process for identifying your environmental impacts. It includes a quick-and-dirty method and a more rigorous one. The Resources section has a long listing of web sites to help you select greener products. It includes a foreward from Chris James at FatEarth.com, an organization that sources green products for clients.

• Developing Sustainability Metrics and Targets -- Once you have identified your environmental impacts, you then should set specific measures. This booklet shows you how to do that. Wayne Rifer of Rifer Environmental has written the foreward, summarizing all he has learned about eco-metrics from his Portland State University class on Industrial Ecology and Environmental Metrics. The Resources section points you toward places to find example metrics for many industries as well as other reading.

• Forming and Facilitating Sustainability Teams -- Sustainability usually requires working with people from across the organization, or sometimes even people outside the organization. These teams may include steering committees to oversee the whole effort or individual task forces/project teams to investigate promising options. In any case, it is critical to form and facilitate these teams carefully. A room-full of people represents a sizeable investment so you don't want to waste time sorting out confusion or backtracking down dead ends! This booklet provides the principles and practices that will help your teams succeed. It includes a toolbox of our favorite facilitator techniques.

• Selecting a High-Impact Sustainability Project --Are you ready to get going with sustainability but don't know what to start with? This booklet provides a process for selecting among a number of options you might be considering to begin or further your sustainability efforts. It will help you identify the criteria and considerations that will assure your efforts and resources are used to best value.

• Developing Effective Systems to Manage Sustainability: Creating an EMS Lite -- Without effective management systems, there's a good chance you'll launch some great pilot efforts which will then die. You may not need a full-blown ISO-certified Environmental Management System, but you certainly need practical ways to identify sustainability prioirites, track progress and slowly integrate sustainability into the fabric of your day-to-day management tasks. This booklet shows you how to evolve toward more effective management systems over time. Co-authored with Dorothy Atwood, a well-known EMS/ISO consultant.

"Many organizations are looking toward an EMS to help improve environmental performance; while others want to embed sustainability into their business philosophy. This easy to follow training booklet shows how both an EMS and the principles of The Natural Step can work together by creating Sustainability Management Systems capable of transforming organizations through incremental continual improvement steps while using a management framework of continuous improvement. For anyone with an EMS framework this is a road map for taking that critical next step; for those considering an EMS this is a valuable training tool that correctly identifies where an EMS can lead you."

­Kevin Considine, Tri-Met

• Reducing Energy Use and Greenhouse Gases: Doing Your Part for the Climate -- If you're in shock over your latest energy bill or want to help prevent global warming, order Reducing Energy Use and Greenhouse Gases: Doing Your Part for the Climate. This how-to booklet shows you how to approach this task in an organization.

• Approaching Zero Waste. Many companies have achieved zero waste (or at least a 90% reduction). They have redesigned their product so manufacturing waste can be captured and put back into the product. They've found markets for their waste streams ("residual products"). they've developed resusable containers to eliminate packaging waste. Some companies are taking back their products at the end of their useful life to make new products. If you want to save money, develop product innovations, and get rid of your dumpster, get this booklet. It was co-authored with Larry Chalfan, executive director of the Zero Waste Alliance.

• Choosing Greener Products -- While not every organization may be in the business churning natural resources into products, every organization consumes those products in the operation of its business. Look no farther than your purchasing department to understand your link to consumption and waste production. Purchasing patterns not only have significant environmental implications, but they also impact an organization's financial bottom line, its relationships with its vendors and its exposure to public opinion. Purchasing is the one common practice that all organizations share that has a significant impact on sustainability. Choosing Greener Products will walk you through the process of cleaning up your purchasing habitswhile finding savings and efficiency gains along the way. Written by Marsha Willard, CEO of AXIS Performance Advisors, Inc. and Chris James researcher and consultant for non-profit organizations, governmental agencies and Fortune 500 companies on green products and services and founder and former president of FatEarth, Inc.

• Partnering with Vendors: Supplier Workshops for Mutual Gain -- According to research published by Business for Social Responsiblity, inefficiencies across your supply chanin can waste up to 25% of a company's operating costs. So if you want to engage some of your first tier suppliers in a discussion about how you might improve your quality, cost, and environmental performance, read this booklet to learn how to conduct these supplier workshops.

• Making Sense of Sustainability: An Employee Guide -- This is an easy-to-read overview for employees, filled with delightful illustrations by Charles Carroll. Unlike the other booklets, it's not a how-to booklet but instead a wonderful tool for educating employees about sustainability. It covers the "Three E's" as well as The Natural Step framework. It's filled with exercises that employees can use to identify opportunities to become more sustainable at work as well as at home.

To Order

Most of these booklets are available as electronic files for only $8 each. Making Sense of Sustainability, the employee primer is intended to be given to each employee and is only available in hardcopy for $15. (If you are ordering large quantities of the Making Sense booklet, contact us for pricing.)

Quantity discounts for buying the whole series or parts of the series are available. See the order form for more information.

Note: In the past we made all booklets available in print but to be more sustainable, we have removed that option from the order form. If you strongly need hardcopies, please contact us so we can get a bid on reprinting. Also, be aware that our upcoming book, The Step by Step Guide to Sustainability Planning (Earthscan, fall 2008), will provide a major update to many of the booklets in Steps 1-3.

To order and pay by check, download the order form and indicate the booklets you want and mail the order form with your check to the address on the order form.