The environmental manager as organisational change agent

The long term profitability and sustainability of organisations is inextricably linked to the health of our natural environment (Redekop, 2010) yet their actions continue to both directly and indirectly impact upon the environment and the services it provides. Organisations need to ensure that they have access to the skills, competencies and knowledge needed to operate within the constraints that the environment imposes and to change their business practices to respond to challenges that are inevitable in the future. However, skills and attributes to initiate and support organisational environmental change remain ill defined (Quinn and Dalton, 2006; Van Velsor, 2009; Willard et. al., 2010; Christie et. al., 2013). This study addresses this research gap by evaluating the factors that influence the success of environmental manages as change agents within their organisations. Using semi-structured interviews with environmental managers in the Northeast of England, the study explores the mechanisms used by practitioners to bring about change, the barriers and enablers they experience and the skills, attributes, behaviours and values they believe to be important for success. In so doing, the study provides a practitioner perspective on organisational environmental change. Findings highlight the context specific nature of environmental change but point to a strong degree of commonality in the characteristics likely for success as an environmental manager. The importance of personal environmental concern, strong communication and people skills, a pragmatic approach to organisational change and strong organisational knowledge alongside environmental knowledge, are identified as important. The findings of the study have implications for the ways in which the environmental managers of the future are educated and supported through their professional development. Additionally, the study highlights the need for further effort by professional bodies to raise the profile of the environmental manager role and to promote the robust validation of competencies within the profession.