Sustainability

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Origin of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a framework first introduced by Abraham Maslow in 1943. The framework remains popular in sociology, psychology, management, and sustainability. To me, it has been an important framework in how I approach individuals, teams, projects, programs, and even whole organizations.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs goes as follows:

Like most things in life, you have to start with the basics. I am going to walk through each hierarchy as I understand it. Applying the philosophy to personally and at the organizational level.

Physiological Needs

Everything has basic needs. Food, water, warmth, and rest are well understood at the personal level. We can extend this to an organization in the form of basic resources.

Personal

I view physiological needs quite literally as needs. I am privileged enough to live in the United States with the resources to have easy access to food, water, shelter, and rest nearly every day of my existence. Whatever my goals might be around sleep, optimal nutrition, hydration, and even warmth exist well beyond the basics. Have I had leans days? You bet.

With that said, it is extremely important to make sure you are consciously addressing your physiological needs. If you’ve got the time or resources to read this you are probably privileged enough to have access to everything you need. You are surrounded by people that don’t or won’t operate at this level and this is before we start to think about the billions of people that do not have the resources of the access to this level of stability.

For you to be successful, you need to consistently address these needs and help those around you to achieve a similar baseline. Meeting physiological needs are table stakes for good work!

Organizational

The same premise applies to a business or an organization. I think of it as revenues. If you cannot generate enough revenues to cover break-even expenses, this is where you need to focus. These are survival expenses, not luxury expenses. We’ve seen businesses big and small miss the basics here. If you can’t execute on the basics there is no possible way for you to succeed in more complicated aspects of sustainability. Simply stated, if you can’t generate revenues you have no business pursuing other aspects of sustainability. Further, this is where you can assess if you are providing the people within your organization enough resources for

Safety Needs

Personal

Maslow is suggesting that beyond having enough food, water, shelter, and rest that you will be able to bring more to the table if you are safe. I think this might extend into feeling safe, but that might be tricky territory, I am going to focus on physical safety. I think anyone who has had to adapt to an unsafe environment, even with safety precautions, can identify with the additional stress you experience. Your adrenaline is pumping, your senses are heightened, and you usually end the experience a little tired and possibly rattled. Think of changing a tire on the side of a road, or entering a construction site or industrial site for the first time, you can even think of a recreational moment when you’re a bit puckered.

Good news, you are responsible for your safety and for the safety around you. So you have a lot of influence in achieving this level of the hierarchy.

Organizational

I think of safety needs as they relate to a business or organization along two lines.

The first is organizational survival. That moment where the future of the organization for reasons beyond the resources of the moment. This could be market dynamics, regulations, leadership, management, etc. In short, something threatening the future of the business.

The second is human safety. I have worked at a lot of industrial sites. The differences between a site with a strong safety program and weak safety program are often immediately evident. Beyond the research that safe worksites are more productive and profitable, there is the human element noted above. Safety programs depend on what industry you’re in or working with. Safety can be as basic as clear walkways, appropriate lighting, and basic ergonomics.

Belongingness and Love Needs

Personal

We are a tribal species. We need connection and belongingness in our lives. These are relationships with your given family, your chosen family, your social circle, your peers, and your colleagues. We all live in communities and interact with a variety of communities. These are valuable relationships (positive and negative). Believe it or not, this is a skillset and you need to invest in these relationships continually. This is a space I invest heavily in (and will be working on my entire life).

Organizational

The same is true for an organization. Regardless of your structure, you have neighbors, peer businesses, communities you are a part of, and contentious relationships to manage. Think of your suppliers, your contractors, your customers, and all of the relationships you rely on. These are deeply important relationships to your organization’s success.

Esteem Needs

Personal

Maslow cites this as “prestige and feeling accomplished.” I think we can all identify with both the feeling and the outcomes of esteem. I feel accomplished when I get a good portion of my to-do list done, I feel even better if I know those items move the needle in my day-to-day. Some of the outcomes of accomplishment are recognition. This could be as basic as a moment of gratitude or as invested as industry awards.

Esteem is something you can both give and receive. How do you appreciate the people in your life?

Organizational

Very much like an individual, organizations rely on “prestige and feeling accomplished.” Again, this can be as basic as consistently delivering on business basics:

Lunch served
Report finished
Contract completed
Quarterly goals accomplished

I tend to think of this as more of a mission/vision opportunity. Is your organization on the path? Are you setting out what you intend to accomplish with your customers? Are you delivering on a level that you are recognized? Again, everything from gratitude to industry recognition.

This is a big spectrum in the hierarchy and there is a lot to accomplish here:)

Self-actualization Needs

Personal

The term self-actualized is used a lot of different ways. Personally, I see this as the spectrum between contentment and enlightenment. I also view this as more of an environment than an outcome. That having the time, space, resources, and combination of habits in place to allow me to pursue self-actualization is the win. When I have done the work to create this space I am not always happy and I am certainly not “enlightened” but I have the time, resources, and conditions to explore what it might mean to me.

Organizational

I view self-actualization similarly for an organization. Does an organization have the time, space, resources, and combination of habits in place to allow me to pursue self-actualization? I’m not sure a whole organization can pursue this… or maybe I haven’t recognized it. More critically, organizations need to proactively preserve this space. This requires continual investment in processes, leadership, research and development, and growth (acknowledging that growth is a tricky word).

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Applied

I circle back to this framework frequently. It is especially valuable when you something isn’t working as well as you think it should be. Beyond the intellectual processes of efficiency and outcomes, it is important to remember how human every system you interact with is. Even if Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is imperfect, it can provide context for what might be missing.

How to Talk About Climate Change

by mwabbott Leave a Comment

“If information were the answer, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.” – Derek Sivers (#128 The Tim Ferriss Show)

Climate Change, Global Warming, and the Greenhouse Effect

Do you remember the first time you heard about the greenhouse effect? How about global warming or climate change? The greenhouse effect was first described in 1824, but it always existed. We had our first solid evidence of human-caused global warming in the 1950s. What was your “aha” moment? When was the first time that you internalized this information?

We have more information on climate change than we ever had and the mountain of evidence grows daily. Does all of this information change anything?

My Meandering Path Towards Sustainability

I was born in 1983. Just one month after my fourth birthday, the Brundtland Commission released Our Common Future. It offered up the first, clunky definition of sustainability: “meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

In 1995, Vice President Al Gore launched the GLOBE Program, which showed up in classes and curriculum that I don’t honestly recall. It took watching Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2016 documentary Before the Flood with a flashback to Romeo + Juliet aged Leo talking about global warming next to (an almost lithe) Al Gore to realize that in +16-years of formal education, four majoring in science and two specializing in sustainability, thousands of hours of multimedia consumption, I had probably been hit over the head hundreds of times on the topic of climate change. Some of the best marketers in the world had taken a crack at me. It took until 2006 for me to “get” climate change.

I feel like I was put on this earth to work on climate change, and it took me 23-years to “get” it! It wasn’t the evidence, or graphics, or colors, or fonts, or even images. It was my emotional connection to food. Emotion leads intellect, every time.

My major required that I attend five guest lectures. One of the lectures was a paleobotanist presenting the future of food. She used the fossil and geologic records to look at the effects of regional climate shifts on the plants and animals that lived there. More fundamentally, she looked at millions of years of history to identify the coming problems and opportunities of global climate change. It blew my mind and connected a bunch of dots. Climate change was coming after my food!

I couldn’t replicate my “aha” moment if I tried, more importantly, I don’t have to.

Talking/Not Talking about Climate Change

As of this writing, climate change has been paying my bills for nearly a decade. I don’t engage in believer vs. denier conversations, and it’s not for lack of opportunity. I do hear people sheepishly ask if climate change is real, and I always say, “Yes. What were you thinking about?” My biggest hurdle is always other sustainability professionals. Nearly every campaign, no matter what project, program, or product we’re pushing, comes back to: “How do we talk about climate change?” Dollars to doughnuts, you’ve either heard or uttered this very statement.

There is a lot to unpack here. Here are a few digressions:

Waste of time… Sustainability and climate change professionals spend far too much time figuring out how to talk about climate change. Searching for that magical arrangement of words that will turn the masses and motivate lasting change. We’ve engaged think tanks, universities, foundations, famous ad agencies, filmmakers, pro-athletes, committees, etcetera, etcetera… Chasing this incantation is as close as you can come to investing in alchemy.
This is nothing new to science… It took the world a long time to hear Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1642-1727), and there are still people fighting the laws of gravity every day! People still challenge Darwin’s work on evolution (1809-1882) +130-years after it was first published.
Climate change is a scientific fact… It has been and will be a fact my entire life. My belief in it is irrelevant. With or without my vote, climate change is happening. Just like evolution. Just like gravity.
It’s all procrastination… It’s procrastination with some occasionally great byproducts, but procrastination all the same. We’re talking about, talking about the problem. We’re avoiding the real work.

But what it comes down to is Marketing 101. You need to communicate benefits ahead of features. Someone is lending you their precious attention. How does the program, project, or product benefit their life? Does it save them time, money, or energy? Does it help them make money or energy? Does it improve their health? Does it connect them with their neighbors? Does it improve or cement their self-image? Does it remove a daily frustration? Does it improve their quality of life? All of these are a better place to start!

Pretend we weren’t talking about climate change for a second. Can you imagine if Apple marketed its next product to you, starting with the engineering, computer science, and materials that went into its next iPhone? How about Google talking about their algorithms, origins of language, and data aggregation before letting you use their search function? As interesting as these stories might be, it isn’t why you’re buying an iPhone or using Google search. Origin stories reinforce pre-existing emotions. If there isn’t any emotion, any benefit, you’ve already lost.

If you need/want engagement, sell the benefits! Don’t punish your audience with a dissertation on climate change. Leonardo DiCaprio told them about it years ago:)

We have the best tools and information we’ve ever had, ever. Better still, we have each other. So let’s get to work!

Funding Sustainability Programs: Utilities 101

by mwabbott Leave a Comment

“Don’t measure anything unless the data helps you make a better decision or change your actions.” – Seth Godin

Funding Sustainability Programs: Utility 101

Good sustainability work is like any other work. It all starts and ends with meaningful wins. This is a bigger challenge than it seems.

The first thing you should do in any organization is to look through the utility bills (electricity, natural gas, water, sewer, waste, recycling, and maybe a few others). Just the status of these bills will tell you a lot.

Are the bills orderly?
Are they paid in full?
How often are they switching vendors?
Have they been analyzed? Any spreadsheets, charts, graphs? Have these numbers been tied to sales, growth, revenues, or profits?
Any correlation or causation with the health of the organization?
At a both a logical and an emotional level, where is this organization at?
What questions do these bills bring up for you?

I see utility bills like organizational hygiene. If you’re having trouble brushing your teeth, keeping up on laundry, or pulling yourself together, it’s a pretty good indication that you’re struggling…

Why?

Utilities are an operating expense, and everyone understands the basics. Utility bills also have dollar figures attached, which is important. People speak in dollars. They don’t speak in kilowatt-hours, dekatherms, CO2 equivalents, or even gallons. Speak in dollars whenever possible, and use the units as a byline. For example, “we saved $1,000 by reducing our electricity usage by 10,000 kWh (10%).”

Most importantly, this is where you can start to identify your financial opportunities. There are two types of sustainability programs:

Passion Funded (insecure)
Sustainably Funded (secure)

I know there is a lot of emotion attached to the word “sustainable.” In this case, do you know where your next dollar comes from? If you don’t, your program is funded by passion. Don’t get me wrong; passion funding can be amazing. You can get a lot done with the money, clout, and political juice of a passion program, and you should capitalize on this. If your program has any hope of surviving, you need sustainable funding.

Utility bills are one of the best places to secure and expand your sustainability program funding.

This is a critical point, so I’m going to double-down. Many organizations see utilities simply as the cost of doing business. “We’ve got to keep the lights on” isn’t just a trite saying; it is an entire mindset. It’s just like you’re finances at home. You have a general sense of how much each bill is. Some bills tend to be the same (garbage), some bills increase or decrease seasonally (water, natural gas, and electricity), and you probably budget based on your general sense. You’d be surprised how many organizations operate exactly like this. They budget $100,000 for utilities, throw on % growth or inflation and readjust annually. If you can reduce these costs, you’ve found yourself a sustainable budget. It is much, much easier securing existing funding than asking for new funding.

How?

At a minimum, you should assess or review an organization’s total costs and total usage. It’s helpful to break out costs to include tax, demand/service charges, and any other fees you might be paying. I have helped organizations save hundreds of thousands of dollars in billing errors alone with this first step.

I use Excel ($). Numbers (free) is okay, and Google Sheets (free) is getting better and better. It is really easy to start shopping for fancy tools and I’d recommend holding off. You’ll know exactly when you’re maxing out the capabilities of one of these programs and you’ll make a better business case for an upgrade at this point. Struggling? Start with YouTube and Google searches, there is a ton of great (free!) material out there.

Not working for an organization? Try it with your utility bills; sustainability always starts at home.

Now what?

Apply the 80/20 Rule, otherwise known as the Pareto Principle. The 80/20 Rule states that 80% of outcomes are created by 20% of causes. For example, 80% of my costs are electricity; electricity is one of five (20%) utilities I pay. Look at your data. What are your biggest costs? What are the highest impact things you can do to address those costs? Does your utility offer incentives/rebates for any of these issues?

Applying the 80/20 Rule doesn’t give you the solution automatically, but it gets you looking in the right places. I worked with an organization where <1% of their total expenses are waste/recycling services, and the first thing they want to fix is office recycling. When we dug into their numbers, 56% of their energy spend is electricity, and the next segment is fleet fuel (22%). Translating this into dollars, we’re talking about $1,300,000 in electricity, $528,000 in fuel, and <$24,000 in waste/recycling. If your goal is to pay for yourself in savings, and it should be, you start with the biggest slice of the pie. The 80/20 Rule keeps you focused.

There are some ways to add more texture to your data, and we’ll get into those in future posts.

Sustainable Program Funding

Okay. So you’ve got your data, you’ve identified a problem, and you’re about to implement a solution. We will focus less on solutions here and more on how you secure sustainable funding for your sustainability program.

Let’s assume this solution is straightforward… let’s say the solution is a $10,000 piece of equipment, you’ve contacted your utility, and they’re providing a $5,000 rebate. The solution will save your organization $30,000 per year ($2,500/month). You’ve got a project with a 2-month return on investment (ROI), awesome! Your client/boss should be pleased with you! This is when and where you make your ask. You should have a concrete proposal that includes giving some money back to the organization and some money for future sustainability projects.

You need at least two things to be successful: #1 a way to measure this project’s success and #2 a list of future projects/programs you will use this funding for along with their value to the organization.

#1 should be addressed through either your utility bills or metering (which should be included in the project cost). Organizations are approached daily with “cost-saving opportunities,” and I’d bet most of these “savings” are either never verified or realized. This is where you prove your value and build trust.

#2 is where the real magic happens. It would be best to have a crystal clear plan for how these funds will be deployed and how the organization benefits in dollars and other intangibles. This is money your employer was already planning on spending; leverage it!

This is your sustainable funding, this is how you fund a program, and this is how you grow a program.