In the context of labour, the accepted definition seems to be the widest area within which employees with fixed addresses would accept employment. For some commuters I know this would stretch local to 3/4 of the country so perhaps this should be refined -e.g. closest 80% to eliminate the exceptionally committed travellers.

For travel, the only local definition I found encompassed trips to work, school, shopping, entertainment and visiting friends & family. In my case family trips could involve Scotland, Ireland and France which I don’t consider to be local, so perhaps this definition is from an era when people didn’t fly so far from the nest.

In politics and local government the terms local, regional, national and global are often used. There are 410 local councils and over 11,000 town parish and community councils according to the LGA. These distinctions suggest that local relates to a district and brings to mind local papers which tend to follow district council boundaries.

Food, the source of my dubious claims, has some rather advanced thinking on local. Sustain (The Alliance For Better Food and Farming) offers the following definitions for local food:

• produced within 30 miles of the point of sale (PoS)
• produced within 50 miles of PoS
• in towns and small cities produced within 50 miles of PoS
• for large cities produced within 70 miles of POS
• produced in the county.

So in practice local is going to differ depending on its context.  For procurement, if you stuck to the food definition you are likely to be left wanting for many products, however the above concepts do indicate the ball park of “true” local.

In practice, with other issues to balance, local must stretch to encompass at least two and ideally more suppliers to provide a reasonable level of competition and hopefully value for you as a customer.

Once you leave these shores to source your product surely local has left the building, and assessing the merits of different methods of transport, energy miles and the like is surely above the call of duty.  I have heard Bill Dunster claim that a container on a tanker from China uses less energy in transit than a lorry loaded container from Belgium.

Finally, is local the be all and end all?  Absolutely not, for example there is little merit in having a workforce commuting and raw materials transported further than necessary from their point of origin, and even waste materials being shifted back.  The most sustainable option is local if it is available, but its worthwhile evaluating people’s claims.  For the record my butcher gets the all clear (25 mile sausages), but the fish monger was always struggling.

There is plenty being written (me included) on people and planet, but rather less on the current favourite bottom line - profit.  Clearly this is a key element of the economic aspect of sustainability and top of the priority list of many stakeholders. So, does profit inevitably suffer to satisfy the people and planet aspects? I have been hunting for hard data but alas have been found wanting (any links gratefully received!). However consider what the following list have in common (source):

1. Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (1999)
2. Calvert Social Index in the United States (2000)
3. ECPI Index Family for European and global portfolios
4. Humanix Index for global portfolios (2001)
5. FTSE4Good Index for global portfolios (2001)
6. Ethibel Sustainability Index Global (2002).
7. KLD Global Sustainability Index (2007).

The names give them away, but yes, these are some of the indexes used by hundreds of ‘Socially Responsible Investment Funds’.  I imagine you don’t have to look too far back to find when there were considerably less than ‘hundreds’ of such funds.

So what? Well assuming people still have exit strategies in mind and need to make their businesses attractive to potential investors, it looks increasingly important to be scoring well in your economic, social and environmental impacts.  More of a trinity rather than triple - excelling in any aspect cannot compensate for failing in another, but getting them all right can make the trinity (business value) greater than the sum of it’s elements.

Getting down to the nitty gritty, how can managing your business for sustainability actually improve profitability?  Firstly, bottom line efficiency:  Less raw materials, Alternative raw materials, Less energy, Less transport, Less waste and better waste management, Minimised eco taxes, Minimised insurance, Avoided fines.

Secondly, turnover growth:  Attract the best new talent, Develop products / services to appeal to growing eco consumer market, Market what’s already sustainable about your products / services, Develop customer relationships, Attract third party endorsement of your efforts, More innovation.

Both options are just good business! Sustainability simply provides a focus and structure for your efforts, and formally adds two dimensions, which informally have always existed, to strategic considerations.  It is a process rather than a result, so reporting, feedback and learning are therefore critical.

“It is not only investors. Customers, too, appear to prefer to buy products from companies that are seen to be ethical and responsible”  Creating a Sustainable Future: A Global Study of Current Trends and Possibilities, 2007-2017  

• Sustainability  is about the management of resources - natural, human and financial.  In managing them sustainably you need to meet the needs of today’s stakeholders without compromising you ability to satisfy future stakeholders (or even the same ones tomorrow, next month, next year etc …………).
• CSR is about behaving ethically and making a positive contribution to wider stakeholders, particularly the communities of your staff, suppliers  and customers as well as society at large.

Clearly there is considerable overlap between the two agendas, mainly in the human aspects.  Good CSR is built into the day to day operations of businesses, not just making charitable donations.  For a concise CSR statement  address the following:

• Our main social impacts are _____________
• Our current and target performance levels are _____________
• We are going to close performance gaps by doing the following  _____________
• The following issues are new to us, being considered and we would welcome your feedback _____________
• By virtue of what we are and what we do these aspects are key to our continued success _____________

The above should be used to describe your values and purpose as a business - not what you think stakeholders would like to hear.  CSR is not a PR exercise, but stakeholder pressure means most business will have to make an investment.  To maximise the return on this investment align your CSR activities to your core values, rather than taking convenient or hobby horse opportunities and bragging about them.

So what aspects are involved in CSR?  Health & Safety, corruption, political stance, anti-competitive behaviour (topical with OFT news!), regulatory compliance, supply chain human rights screening, discrimination incidents, employee turnover, employment contract flexibility (part time etc.), governance arrangements, diversity, training and education activities - to name a few!  If you are new to the game there is no need to jump into the whole mix but start with those that you already manage and simply state your position, where you want to be and how you measure your performance.

So what good examples are out there?  A superficial selection follows based on what the business has said with no investigation and little interpretation.  If the examples are genuinely good, they aren’t in it for the PR but because it makes business sense, so ‘misspeaking’ shouldn’t be an issue?!  No apologies for the bias towards education and training, its an area construction has hardly over invested in recently.

Wates Building Futures Programme:

Government-backed scheme targeting lone parents, long-term unemployed and ex-offenders. Wates works with Thomas Vale and GF Tomlinson, all part of The Birmingham Construction Partnership that is involved in regeneration projects on behalf of Birmingham City Council.  The programme claims a 60 per cent success rate in getting delegates into full time work after the two-week programme which focuses on skills and opportunities. These include construction skill sessions at South Birmingham College including brickwork and plastering, visits to building sites and skills to help cope with interviews and confidence.

The programme supports the company’s clearly stated values and is one way they are tackling the skills shortage issue everyone talks about but few act on.  They have gone on to sponsor research to identify how business can tap into and benefit from the community know how of RSL’s to mutual benefit.  This sharing of best practice gives an authentic flavour to their CSR activities.

Lafarge Cement Biodiversity Indicators

A good example as cement production has few virtues, so investment in working with wider stakeholders to minimise impacts and restore effectively fits my definition of good CSR - there is no disguising the initial damage which is necessary for their business, and few of us are not cement customers!

They have continued to develop following suggestions and advice provided by their national stakeholders - experts such as the Staffordshire and Derbyshire Wildlife Trusts, Sites of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSIs) have been developed and
improved in former operational areas, close to Cauldon and Hope Works; alongside extensive restoration work at Dunbar Works and at a former cement works in Weardale, County Durham.

In addition they have been working with organisations such as WWF and Equilibrium to develop simple, site specific indicators that can help them measure restoration and biodiversity performance.

Mitie Managed Services

Mitie spent more than 5,850 employee hours setting up and running eight Skills Centres in 2006/07.  They are currently helping well over 400 14-16 year olds to learn a range of construction skills, and to obtain nationally recognised vocational qualifications, that include the BTEC First Diploma in Construction, and form part of the National Curriculum.

The centres have all been launched in community-focused schools.  Selected schools are always near to the company’s regional centres to make it easier for employees to provide support which they have enjoyed doing since the first centre was opened in Portsmouth in 2001. Others have been built in schools in Manchester, Bristol and Sunderland and Airdrie in Lanarkshire.

Similar to the Wates initiative, this is benefiting young people and the communities Mitie operate in, as well as Mitie themselves and the wider Construction Industry.  Sponsoring local football teams etc. has its place, but to my mind this sort of initiative is more balanced and ultimately just better business.

• water supply and conveyance
• water treatment
• water distribution.

By the same token, how many construction sites and even businesses pay any, let alone proper attention to their water cycle? Would this be a different story if they had to pay for the energy used in the volume they consume?

In the absence of financial incentives, and assuming morality by-passes are in place for most business leaders (harsh but probably fair?), this is a difficult problem to tackle. The construction industry is probably better placed than most to understand and deal with this issue due to the increasing pressure to design and incorporate water efficiency in new buildings.

Still, the age old issue of abundant supply leading to waste and inefficiency, appears to hold true. My pet hate is to see an open hose left running on a building site, simply resolvable with a small investment in nozzles.

In the office the water you use has the additional energy burden of requiring waste water treatment once you have had your wicked way with it.

Measurement of water usage has to be the start point. Offices should have water meters and where appropriate sub meters fitted for significant sized (no. of people, not their girth) tenants, and surely it is not beyond us to install meters on sites?

So meters are in, what next? Reducing your consumption should not be rocket science when you consider the typical office usage breakdown:

• 43% - toilet flushing
• 27% - washing
• 20% - urinal flushing
• 9% - canteen
• 1% - cleaning.

There is a vast amount of guidance on how to reduce your usage, one of the simplest is Envirowise. The typical usage above shows that in offices the Ladies and the Gents are the target areas and the systems are out there - simple stuff like cistern bricks to reduce flush volumes, and slightly more impressive things like biological urinal cleaning systems.On site, toilets and welfare facilities are still likely to be a key target area, however the potential for uncontrolled water use and leakage is very high, particularly on small and medium sized projects.

Should you be interested in my thoughts, the path I would suggest is in the office and on site to:

• measure water usage
• reduce water usage
• brag about your reductions (encourage others to do the same and get the deserved benefit of stakeholder approval)
• benchmark your consumption per head etc. against comparable businesses
• keep on improving
• feel the benefit when water rates inevitably rise (depending on your part of the world)
• gain the benefit from this step on the sustainability and efficiency ladder - it enables and encourages further performance improvements by contributing to a positive / ‘tightly run ship’ environment.

Research has indicated that working away from the office has more pluses than negatives for people and the companies that employ them.  The researchers even found that managers who oversaw telecommuters reported that the telecommuters’ performance was not negatively affected by working from home.   BT claim that on average, home workers at BT are 20 per cent more productive and they save BT £6,000 a year each in office and other costs.

The pros (in no particular order):

1. Carbon footprint reduction - commuting accounts for a significant chunk of most construction sector ‘management’ carbon footprints
2. Office space cost savings
3. Productivity improvements when executed well
4. Employee satisfaction increases

The cons (in no particular order):

1. Fear factor - they’ll be getting up late and knocking off early etc.  Ultimately a lack of trust!
2. Management by output and facts - you need to be able to objectively assess performance.  As well as being tough, one size doesn’t fit all, so this could well increase senior management workload.  However, assuming productivity based on time keeping alone is not necessarily a sustainable approach in its own right. 
3. Not suited to all - can create ‘two tier’ workforce if not handled sensitively.  How do you handle the one (s) that want to work from home who you are confident will not pull their weight there?
4. You still need the office - in the research referenced above employees who worked away from their offices for three or more days a week reported worsening of their relationships with co-workers.

The generation thing

For the last fortnight I have kept falling over articles relating generations X, Y and baby-boomers.  I don’t like this pigeon holing of people based on age banding, however many of the trends indicated ring true for various characters I know well!

• Generation Y - born 1980-1995
• Generation X - born 1964-1980 (my pigeon hole)
• Baby boomer - born 1946-1963

Anyone born prior to 1946 and still working would appear to be free to invent their own pigeon hole title.  The fascination revolves around Generation Y who are deemed to have dubious virtues such as: selfishness, high maintenance requirements, lack of loyalty and short term thinking.  One survey suggested 28% expected a signing on bonus upon employment - surely not something you would consider for someone who lacks loyalty?!  For a loyal X Generation man like myself it seems to make a lot of sense ……………..

So how does this relate to home working?  Well to manage this generation effectively if the assumptions are true, companies must accommodate increasingly short periods of employment, provide greater work flexibility and increase their social, ethical and benefit armoury to gain loyalty from the stars among the latest crop.  There is a lot of barking about increasing attractiveness to potential employees, the associated bite will become increasing important to fuel sustainable business success.

Generation X is perceived to be focused on work-life balance and someone dared to suggest that we face a crisis of confidence faced with the upstart Y Generation and associated work place changes.  Outrageous.

What next

If you haven’t already, I would suggest developing a cunning plan to deal with this issue.  Whatever the reasons, there is a diverse workforce potentially unavailable to you if you rigidly demand people are tied to their desks.  To do it properly you need to get to grips with a simple low / no admin way to measure productivity and value provided by employees in the office and anywhere else you may allow them to work.  Only then can you make educated decisions about the right balance for individuals to maximise personal and corporate productivity.

What does this have to do with sustainability you may be thinking?  Well, how sustainable is a business where less than half the employees if asked in the pub, would recommend the products / services to a friend or acquaintance?  This attitude must show through to customers.  57% doesn’t seem too clever either.

Interestingly, overall the larger organisations results were worse.  My gut feel on this would be that genuine (two way!) communication is harder and therefore frequently poorer in larger organisations.  How much more successful would these organisations be, if they managed to engage just 60% of their staff to ’sell’ their services by virtue of being proud of what they company does in the context of their market place?

Positive attitudes are harder to foster than the viral negativity spread by bad apples.  There is another days work in exploring the impact of negative individuals on team performance - war and peace in the psychology literature and even Sir Clive Woodward extolled the virtues of having people in a team who default to positive attitudes and behaviours when under pressure, in England’s World Cup winning team (as an Ireland supporter that is a painful reference).

Interbrand go on to conclude that to build pride in the organisation you need to:

• support individuals in making a difference and
• create a culture of delivering high standards for the customer.

If forced to choose, Interbrand would shoot for the culture of high standards for the customer first, based on the performance of those companies.  That people will be happy to endorse their company to anyone when they are confident that their products and services are among the best or the best in the market should come as no surprise.

I would suggest that a strong measure of your performance standards is the simple survey of employees to determine if:

• they are proud to work for their company
• they would happily recommend your products / services to a friend.

Analyse the results, involve and engage employees in designing and taking actions to  make them comfortable to advocate your company.  You will then have engaged a key stakeholder and have an action plan that, well executed, should improve performance and increase the long term sustainability of your organisation.

Making the right noises may give you short term benefits.  In the medium to long term such an approach may come back to haunt you!  People who have blagged there way through other issues normally come a cropper when competitors with a CV containing genuine evidence based actions enable customers to see through their claims.   Moving to a genuinely positive attitude towards improving the sustainability of your business means you will have to confess a recent change of attitude, perhaps leaving you at a competitive disadvantage for a while, but getting you out of a vicious circle.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of environmental and ethical issues and research shows that they are fast becoming one of the top purchasing decision makers.  In construction we often feel removed from ‘consumers’ but in practice the people we deal with are all consumers.  Public sector procurement increasingly gives the end user a voice and vote in procurement processes and decisions.

A study called “The Six Sins of Greenwashing” (Terrachoice) identified the six sins of greenwashing as:

1. Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off  - e.g. we segregate all our waste on site (but don’t know how much we generate / are not going to tell you we generate more than ever)
2. Sin of No Proof - e.g. we are carbon neutral (in terms of our head office activities only)
3. Sin of Vagueness - e.g. we recycle 90% of our waste (that’s what our waste management company tells us they do with what we throw in the skips, we haven’t checked)
4. Sin of Irrelevance - e.g. all our sites adopt strict waste management plans (the one’s we are legally obliged to adopt along with everyone else)
5. Sin of Fibbing - e.g. certified ISO 14001 compliant (our holding company actually, not our business unit)
6. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils - e.g. we use environmentally friendly insecticides and herbicides (indiscriminately slashing the bio-diversity of the site, but with no toxic consequences)

The moral of the story - do it right, but if your approach is not genuinely ethical don’t spend marketing fortunes setting yourself up for a damaged reputation.   To test your existing approach for signs of green wash, the linked Defra Guidance applied to your marketing and interview teams is a good start.