Don’t Be A Tosser

If you cast your mind back to the 90s in Australia, along with “And the winner is.. Sydney!”, Kylie, Silverchair, Doc Martens, and everyone’s favourite pig, Babe, I’m sure Ian Kiernan, AO is pretty close to the top of your slide projector.

Picking up rubbish on a beach might seem a world away from corporate sustainability, carbon accounting, and mandatory climate disclosures, however Clean Up Australia’s original mission to tackle litter offers an effective framework for Australian businesses embarking on their own sustainability transformations.

How'd They Do It?

1. Community engagement

2. Action orientation

3. Scalability

4. Collaboration

5. Celebration

Although Clean Up Australia is a household name now, its genesis came from the disgust Ian felt seeing how much rubbish was in our waterways. Since the first Clean Up Australia Day in 1990, 21.5 million Australians have now gotten their hands dirty, in the process recording 38.5 million volunteer hours across the country and becoming the largest community-based environmental event of the year.

It’s not a stretch to say that this combined commitment to both the collection of rubbish as well as the recording of data has played an enormous role in shifting public sentiment towards the importance of playing an active role in protecting the incredible country we have, and by extension public policy passed to enshrine this behaviour (Federally: National Waste Policy, Product Stewardship Act 2011; State-based: Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Act 2001 in NSW).

Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration

In fact, the Don’t Be A Tosser campaign by the NSW Government has been running since 2014, and from its inception through to 2020 NSW has contributed to a waste reduction of 43%, compared to the national average of 19%, illustrating the importance of multi-stakeholder efforts to create at-scale behavioural change.

Clean Up Australia’s focus has expanded from solving at the end of the waste funnel to providing education programs and Waste Challenges to reduce plastic usage, growing the Circular Economy, promoting Container Deposit Schemes, and the recycling of batteries.

The Roadmap

Here's how Clean Up Australia provides an unexpected roadmap as companies mature their Sustainability business strategies:

1. Community Engagement: The reason Clean Up Australia has grown into such a recognisable brand is due to the sense of shared responsibility it consistently promotes. Businesses can adopt this principle by involving all levels of staff in org-wide and department-specific voluntary sustainability efforts, such as lunch n’ learns, e-waste initiatives, and environmental volunteer days. Such engagement builds a sense of ownership, increases understanding of each stakeholder's risks and opportunities, creates new connections throughout the business, and encourages employees to take ownership of sustainability within the company.

2. Action-Oriented Approach: Clean Up Australia places emphasis on getting things done. Businesses can follow suit by defining clear, measurable commercially strategic targets, which can involve switching to renewable energy, adopting energy-efficient practices, or sourcing materials responsibly within the circular economy. By breaking down broad goals into achievable and trackable projects, businesses ensure revenue growth through cost efficiencies while avoiding accusations of greenwashing.

3. Scalability and Adaptability: The ability to be accessible and effective for groups of every size means volunteers can easily see what they need to do to make a difference on Clean Up Australia Day. Likewise, by creating sustainability programmes that scale with their operations, businesses can mirror this approach by utilising data intelligence platforms and processes to identify cost savings and growth opportunities, carbon accounting insights, and regulatory compliance. This flexibility ensures all businesses can accelerate their operational transformations into the net zero economy.

4. Collaboration is Key: Over the past three decades, Clean Up Australia has built strong partnerships with community groups, businesses, and organisations around the country. As Bill Gates has said many times, decarbonisation is a multi-stakeholder problem requiring a multi-stakeholder coalition to create the solution, and businesses must collaborate with their customers, employees, local community, industry peers, industry associations, environmental NGOs, and government bodies to ensure the right solutions are deployed at the right time.

5. Celebrating Success: The most enduring images from Clean Up Australia Day showcase the clear sense of achievement volunteers feel by being involved, sharing the positive impact of its network across multiple platforms to show that everyone can have by being involved. Businesses can do the same, by recognising and celebrating their sustainability achievements at all levels of the business, whether it be winning a tender, reducing operational waste, or the success of a social impact program. This could involve internal communications, awards programmes, social media posts and campaigns, or even public announcements, providing the positive reinforcement that motivates employees and demonstrates commitment to engage with and work on key environmental issues.

Visible vs Hidden:

Litter is very easy to see when it’s on the side of the road, at the beach, or in the river. It especially stands out in Australia in 2024 specifically because of the work done by millions of people through their actions to change public opinion on what we accept as ‘normal’.

But what’s not as easy to see immediately? Emissions, energy sources, energy efficiencies, poor governance structures, loss of shareholder and stakeholder trust, increased operational costs due to resource scarcity, increased staff turnover, and loss of tendering opportunities.

Clean Up Australia's success stems from its simplicity and effectiveness, and by adopting its core principles – community engagement, action orientation, scalability, collaboration, and celebration – Australian businesses are committing to their own corporate sustainability journeys, playing their part in the decarbonisation of Australia’s economy.