In the fight against climate change, strategy isn’t enough. Firms need the culture to back it up
By Ellen Mitchell
Director of Sustainability and Applied Research
The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” coined by management consultant Peter Drucker, hits on an important yet overlooked aspect of why the AEC industry struggles to implement sustainable and high-performance design at scale. No matter how comprehensive and well thought out a company’s strategy is, Drucker argued, it will fail without the support of a corporate culture where people buy in. Culture is one of those business clichés that is hard to define, harder to measure, and almost guaranteed to provoke an eye roll. But the stakes are real. If you’ve ever had a job where you felt a sense of purpose, where you saw leadership living your shared values in their daily decisions and actions, you know the impact of culture.
It’s the real, palpable heart of a company that makes the hard days feel worth it and the big problems seem solvable. Having led sustainability for three large design firms in my career, I’ve learned a lot about what makes firms tick, and how culture impacts the quality of the work. Every firm has understood the value proposition of sustainability (or else they wouldn’t have hired me), and all of them had the ability to deliver high-performance design. But they’ve had dramatically different approaches to implementation, and consequently, different results Some firms defer sustainable design to an internal consultancy, while others diffuse responsibility for sustainability throughout the firm. In the former case, I’ve found project teams often feel absolved of responsibility. They keep performance at arm’s length from the core design concept. At firms where responsibility is distributed, I’ve seen well-meaning teams that weren’t given the tools and training, or the authority, to effectively execute. Both approaches can lead to slow, incremental progress—not what we need if we’re going to beat climate change. Over the years, I’ve observed that firms who are successful in implementing sustainability at scale share four key beliefs in common. These are not operational policies or executive platitudes; they’re truths that are baked into a firm’s culture and obvious from their behavior. In my experience, these principles apply regardless of a firm’s size, region or project mix, and are a necessary cultural foundation for any meaningful sustainability strategy.
1. Sustainability cannot be an add-on.
Infusing sustainability means that it cannot be one more thing to consider in addition to design, it has to be foundational to the design process.’ Good design is sustainable design’ must be a mantra carried by all levels of design leadership. In practice, that means consistently setting and tracking sustainability goals throughout the project, using performance analysis to inform the earliest design decisions, and talking about sustainability in terms that clients value, whether it be operational savings, healthier indoor environments, or differentiation in the marketplace.
2. Everyone has a role to play.
Because sustainability is broad-reaching and ever-evolving, many firms assign specific staff to lead the charge and stay abreast of the issues. For a larger firm, that might range from a part-time position to a robust sustainability team. However, for smaller firms, dedicated personnel may be a luxury they cannot afford. Regardless of the size of firm, it is critical that the implementation of sustainability be the responsibility of everyone, and not siloed to a few experts. This doesn’t happen by accident. It requires fluency and education across the board. While there are free resources available for learning, an investment of time and effort is required to build a culture of shared responsibility, paired with authentic messaging from leadership emphasizing its importance.
3. Sustainability is about more than the work.
Creating a culture of sustainability must extend beyond the projects themselves. Our beliefs are informed by our experiences and if we don’t experience sustainability in our firm’s day-to-day messaging and operations, then it starts to feel inauthentic. Words and actions are not in alignment. Examples of where sustainability could influence broader operations can be found everywhere, from the way we design our own office spaces, to the types of initiatives we invest in, to the criteria that determine individual awards and advancements. When employees see sustainability as an important aspect of the firm, they are emboldened to advance it in their work.
There is no right or wrong.
There is no magic bullet or one-size-fits-all solution to making sustainability foundational to a firm’s culture. But conversely, there is no wrong way to address it, aside from doing nothing. Very often, substantive progress is made by small and incremental moves that add up to meaningful progress over time. Efforts that work for one firm might not resonate with another, based on existing workflows, design processes and cultural attitudes. Often the best course of action is to simply try something. Anything. Observe what is working and make adjustments to what isn’t. A good place to start is AIA’s “Creating a Sustainability Action Plan that Works!.”
