The Organization:
Green Economy Canada (GEC) is a national non-profit accelerating Canada’s transition to a vibrant and inclusive net-zero future. They launch and grow Green Economy Hubs that bring together, support, and celebrate businesses of all sectors and sizes in setting and achieving sustainability targets.
The Assignment:
GEC was looking for greater strategic clarity to move the organization forward. Lynn was engaged to guide the team to develop an intended impact statement, graphic Theory of Change and action plan.
Overall Outcomes:
Like so many of Lynn’s consulting engagements, with her guidance, the team gained a deeper understanding of the issue they aimed to address and the barriers to success. They committed to delivering a specific, measurable, stretch-goal social impact and developed the stakeholder-validated plan necessary to direct and communicate their work. Overall, they gained impact-focused strategic clarity and alignment to make a meaningful difference.
Outcome #1:
To get to this point, many strategic discussions were had around their desired impact. Was it about the end environmental result of a reduction in GHGs (greenhouse gases), or the engagement of businesses in being more sustainable and reducing their GHGs? Was the engagement the process or the goal? In the end, GEC realized their real power was in creating a movement, which would lead to reduced GHGs and other environmental improvements. They saw engaging diverse businesses, of all sizes and sectors, as necessary in creating that movement. This movement would then snowball– as businesses were successful in their sustainability improvements (which typically reduced operating costs), it encouraged those businesses to further improve their sustainability, while encouraging other businesses to join in. GEC’s plan, through a stakeholder-validated Theory of Change, focused then on the engagement activities.
Outcome #2
Stakeholder engagement in this work identified that the labels used to describe the roles of various players weren’t intuitive from the participants’ perspective and created a roadblock to participation. As is often the case with this strategic work, it resulted in new branding and communication efforts, with a focus on Hubs and Members.
Outcome #3
While it was originally focused on achieving a Tipping Point of a specific percentage of businesses involved, it was simplified as GEC progressed in their work, to focus on the number of Hubs and Members as an easily understood representation for the engagement needed to have the level of impact they sought.