Deciding how to implement a sustainability initiative at SHN engineering, a small business enterprise

The Marketing Coordinator of an established engineering and geosciences consulting firm convinced the firm's Principals that evaluating the company's sustainability practices, and writing a report documenting recommendations for improving sustainability, would be valuable. The sustainability report evaluated the firm's performance in three categories: its financial and management practices, its environmental benefits and impacts, and its social commitments to employees, shareholders, professional partners, and its communities. Although the Marketing Coordinator spent over nine months evaluating data and writing the sustainability report, she now finds that writing was the easy part, and that implementing any of the recommendations will be much more difficult. Rational reasons for ranking the recommendations were described, and can be communicated to the Principals. However, the Marketing Coordinator knows that decisions are frequently made on a very quick, unconscious, "gut" level, also called intuition or "thin slicing." Decision makers are often unaware that they have made decisions, and are discussing the issues to substantiate or rationalize their decisions. The Marketing Coordinator will need to consider the unconscious cognitive biases of the Principals, and communicate clearly and concisely, to gain the Principals' approvals to proceed.