Who in your organisation is responsible for accelerating the transition towards a circular business?
During the last few years, we can see a significant increase in Chief Sustainability Officers ( or at least searches on the term on Google trends below). This got me thinking. Sustainability plays a more critical role in our society, but who should be responsible for the actions towards the circular economy in organisations? Is it a centralised role or a collective responsibility?
What can we learn from organisational structure from the times of emerging digital transformations?
During the last digital transformations of the previous decades, we’ve seen an evolution in the ways how companies structured their departmental responsibilities for the digitalisation and digital experience.
Since digital experience started with technology, the responsibility for the digitalisation portfolio often started at the IT department. The roles of optimising the website, improving digital channels or using digital technology quickly shifted from IT manager roles to web admin and later came specialised roles such as Online marketers, e-commerce webshop managers, online analysts and conversion specialists. The collective goal for these roles was to improve the conversion from visitors to customers, subscribers or happy clients.
Interestingly enough, I see around me that the role of web admin, conversion manager, or online marketeer is slowly disappearing again. We recognize more and more that it’s all connected, and that the digital experience is a responsibility of the collective. An improved digital experience is not the responsibility of one person anymore but of all people in the value chain, from the proposition to channel management to Go-to-market, marketing and customer service.
What role can other departments play in the circular transition?
Like any digital transformation. A transition toward a circular economy should be the responsibility of multiple departments.
“Circularity is more than a department, it is a collective responsibility.”
Let’s take Human Resource Management. For example, if companies integrate sustainability as an integral part of the organisation’s (HR) strategy, it will create synergies between all three pillars of the triple bottom line (Bush, 2020; Vanderstraeten & Kramar, 2021).
So how does this reflect in day-to-day operations?
I asked my good friend Kevin Elferink, who specialised in sustainable HRM, how this would work in practice.
Firstly, he states that “when sustainability is an integral part of the organisation, this should be reflected by the job outcome goals descriptions”. He points out that HR should incorporate not only financial goals in the job descriptions but also environmental and social goals.
Every department plays a unique function in the circular economy, and thus, responsibility should be shared across all departments.
Consequently, he mentioned that when these changes are made to the job descriptions, recruitment must make an effort only to hire people who fit in the new descriptions.
Besides, the same concept can and should be applied to the succession planning of managers, he wrote in his latest article. For example, someone can only get a job at that level if they have experience and ideas on managing and working with the triple bottom line.
Thirdly, he mentioned that e-learning on sustainability in the field of operations for all new employees as part of the onboarding, workshops for specific departments with information specific to their work, or training on how to manage an organisation within a world where sustainability becomes ever more critical for higher management.
Lastly, he describes how bonuses within can be an essential driver to deliver on one of the three bottom lines.
These all are examples of HR topics, but I love how every part, and every department, plays a unique role in this transition. We need circular business models, sustainable purchasing, green supply chains, sustainable data and insights and a channel network that support new functions such as recycling and material returns.
In conclusion
A Chief Sustainability Officer can play an important role in leading, pushing, centralising and coordinating all initiatives towards a more circular organisation. However, circularity is more than a department. It is the collective responsibility of all departments. Like the digital transformations from previous decades, every department should play its unique function to accelerate the circular economy.
