ABSTRACT
B&G's approach to governance and leadership are very common in organisations that struggle to become more sustainable. These patterns often spawn seven sustainability blunders that poison efforts to reduce and eliminate adverse environmental and socioeconomic impacts. The seven sustainability blunders are patriarchal thinking that generates a false sense of security, siloed approach to environmental and socioeconomic issues, no clear vision of sustainability, confusion over cause and effect, lack of information, insufficient mechanisms for learning, failure to institutionalise sustainability. Though the seven sustainability blunders are often difficult to overcome, they can be corrected. In high-performance sustainability-oriented organisations, effective leadership germinates throughout an organisation. The ultimate key to transforming the governance system of an organisation so that it embraces sustainability is leadership. Overcoming the seven sustainability blunders requires making explicit choices to fundamentally change the way an organisation is governed. Most government agencies follow B&G Power Tools' pattern of neglecting to align their structures and systems with sustainability.
