SW News 22

Calling all intrapreneurs

When developing sustainability strategies with our clients, there is often a moment when the company's senior leadership team realises: 'This is so much bigger than we thought. It will require change in every part of our business. It’s a total transformation.’

Yes it is. And to deliver this transformation, businesses need to embrace new ways of thinking and doing while accepting a level of uncertainty they have not experienced before. No one knows exactly how climate change is going to play out, which for Boards and senior management teams can be a scary prospect.

So how can companies, particularly large established ones that tend to take a long time to change, equip themselves to deal with this unprecedented situation? How can they harness the innovative, adaptable, agile spirit of a start-up within a big, complex organisation? Answer: find the intrapreneurs.

An intrapreneur is like an entrepreneur but working from inside an existing organisation. ‘They are your sideways thinkers, silo-busters, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer innovators,’ says Maggie de Pree, founder of the League of Intrapreneurs. Intrapreneurs, she adds, ask ‘What if?’ And’ How might we?’ questions like, “What if people stopped buying stuff and started sharing?” “How might we create supply chains that regenerate our ecosystems?” “How might we finance the climate transition?”

Many corporate sustainability practitioners have intrapreneurial traits: they are passionate (about their purpose), determined (in overcoming barriers as they try to make change happen), diplomatic (essential as they need to influence and persuade many different people), and results driven (because they are always having to prove the business case for sustainability). But sustainability practitioners can’t be the only ones asking the big questions and coming up with the radical solutions. We need an army of intrapreneurs! Sustainability people need allies across the business to join forces with them and shake things up.

From what we've seen through our work, companies are full of passionate, forward-thinking employees who are intrapreneurs in the making. The sooner companies empower and support these innovative thinkers by fostering a culture of intrapreneurship, the better. Because as we’re all starting to understand, climate change is everyone’s job, not just the responsibility of those with ‘sustainability’ in their title.

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