ABSTRACT
Now that you have a plan in place, it's time to think about what structures will be needed to support the plan. In the ideal world, the management team would be ready and willing to integrate sustainability within their efforts; but this is not often the case starting out. Instead, organizations often need such ‘parallel’ management structures as steering committees to focus on a new initiative. In addition, since sustainability is about the whole system, organizations often need cross-functional task forces to work on sustainability issues that cross over typical organizational boundaries. Frequently, organizations create a new position (sustainability director or coordinator) and staff it with someone who can coordinate or direct the whole effort. Thinking through these structures also helps you to more effectively manage the stakeholders that need to be involved and ensure that there are easy ways for employees to become engaged. This chapter helps you to determine what kinds of structures will be most useful and what methods work best with each.
