Amanzi Ayatsha : exploring the integration of environmental sustainability in strategic planning in a public water utility in South Africa

Abstract

Challenges such as socio-political factors, debilitating infrastructure, population increase through urbanisation and climate change can strain the supply of natural resources - this study explores how environmental sustainability and strategic planning fit in South Africa’s water utilities sector. The focus stems principally from scant literature on strategic planning with a particular focus on environmental sustainability. Although fundamentally understood as a set of interventions for the longue durée (long duration), sustainability is approached as suggested within organisations. Organisations typically articulate their long-term vision through corporate strategies so the study considers how these two approaches fit within water utilities. The study was based on a qualitative exploration of environmental sustainability and strategic planning which extracted data from fifteen participants working within the water sector at either management or executive level. Constant comparative analysis was conducted to identify common themes among these respondents. Largely underpinned by Dynamic Capabilities as a theoretical anchor, the study finds that strategic planning is not always understood as deliberately designed to include environmental sustainability. Rather, in some instances the two just happen to converge while in a few instances there is no clear connection at all. The diverging views on the environmental sustainability-strategic planning interaction are in stark contrast to the consensus around challenges encountered in the sector as well as impressions on climate change. To gain a grasp of findings, the study deploys Dynamic Capabilities and triple bottom line as complementary lenses, through which the study observes that the utility studied operates within the context of a dynamic bottom line. This signifies a pursuit of core goals as well as an awareness of utility-specific strengths, even with the diversity of integration of environmental sustainability with strategic plans, the utility pursues commercial goals consistent with their particular strengths. This adds to the debate around Dynamic Capabilities particularly around what contributes to competitive advantage. However, instead of competitive advantage, the utilities are more concerned about meeting their primary goals while drawing from their core capabilities. This does not limit their ambition however, as they pursue benchmarks in global markets. The findings are useful for researchers as they shed light on a relationship which has so far been neglected or perhaps under explored particularly in South Africa. They are also useful for practitioners and policymakers as they reveal gaps between long-term visions despite a supposedly cohesive goal of sustainability.