Why expend the effort to form and maintain a green team within an organization?  Based on case studies and interviews with leaders in green business, green teams can provide cost savings through various mediums whether it be from recycling supplies or low cost efficiency initiatives. Carrie Freeman, a corporate sustainability strategist at Intel, provides insight into Intel’s green strategic perspective, “When it comes to looking at ways to reduce our footprint, we very much see a direct correlation between reducing our costs and engaging our employees.”  Impact can from just changing light bulbs, turning off the lights, or involving your employees in innovating greener solutions in their jobs, engaging your employees in the process and providing them a deeper and vested interest in the business.

Providing employees with the opportunity to focus on sustainable strategies within their daily work schedules can build moral and loyalty as they solve challenges together and can feel better about their work and contributions as a result.  It may seem like a distraction in these times of financial instability to focus on employees’ passion for sustainability, but according to a case study by BSR on Intel’s green teams  efforts toward employee engagement will strengthen a company’s employee base-which will be a crucial element in recovering from the recession. And maintaining employee loyalty and high productivity will help companies position themselves for success as the economy revives. A green team can also bring cross-functional groups of employees together and inspire and educate those not in involved to form a united cause within the office.  The Head of Environmental Initiatives at eBay, Libby Reder, attributes the strong retention rate of employees to the Green Team; in addition, according to recruiters, the Green Team also appeals to the best talent.

Supporting sustainability and taking action through a green team can also strengthen a brand and in turn, increase market share.  A green team represents a tangible model of output that demonstrates a company’s willingness to care that can spur business as involvement from sustainable employees can spread to business practices and services, in turn impacting customers.

“The engaged workforce will find more opportunities to get lean and identify more opportunities to innovate and create products and services that lower customers’ environmental impacts, says Andrew Winston, author of Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top.  “All of this work will improve the top and bottom lines,” he adds.

The National Environmental Education Foundation’s report, The Engaged Organization: Corporate Employee Environmental Education Survey and Case Study Findings, points out that by engaging employees, companies can spark innovative changes in everyday business processes that save money and reduce environmental and social impacts while also inspiring employees to make sustainable choices at home and in their communities.

How to Get a Green Team Started in Four Steps

Volunteers for a green team could be from any passionate employee on any team within the company or the volunteers could be from related teams should a company already have these in place (e.g., Corporate sustainability, environmental health and safety, or corporate social responsibility).  By forming a corporate green team with volunteers from various departments, a cross functional approach can be taken to sustainable and environmental initiatives.  Green team activities can then be linked to corporate sustainability objectives from a cross functional perspective with the involvement of volunteers from various departments.

1. Establish executive support to facilitate the process of decision making, perhaps by including a member of the executive staff on the green team.  This serves to provide management perspective on actionable plans and setting expectations for direction of the team and potential funding.  Ensure the executive team is behind the cause enough to take action on ideas as morale and steam behind the effort can be lost if the executive team allows no action.

2. While it is beneficial to have members from various departments (e.g., sales, operations, human resources, manufacturing, finance, etc.) to relay a cross functional impact and purpose, keep the team’s size limited to promote efficiency.  To counterbalance this limit in size, have each respective department form a green committee to relay ideas to their respective representative on the green team should interest in the green team exceed expectations (hopefully the case for all companies).

3. Create an environment of creativity and keep an open forum as this is a volunteer effort to promote cost savings in another way, through the perspective of increasing value of products and services simultaneously saving the Earth.

4. Determine where the company stands in goals given the resources at hand.  Should the company start at the basics such as recycling programs and employee awareness, or has this already been established, and can the company look further down the road and green its facilities or operations, even its product and services?  Look at activities inside and outside the company and form plans capturing the action, benefit, investment of resources or cost to company, risks, and method of monitoring.

1. Start with the visible and tangible. By first focusing on internal operations, which the employees’ experience on a daily basis, a company creates small changes that represent the bigger picture and open the door for more potential initiatives.

2. Get senior management involved, but don’t lose the grassroots energy.  Senior management involvement is critical for facilitation of decision making but balance this with the creative and open nature of finding green solutions as the employees are the individuals dealing with day to day operations.

3. Engage employees to capture ideas by creating web based tools, forums of open discussion whether it be luncheons or get-togethers, or sub-groups to organize creation efforts in coming up with new ideas.

4. Communicate and share best practices through blogs, social networking tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), discussion boards, or even the company Intranet.  Common interests are shared and explored through the facilitation of communication and employees will feel like they are a part of a greater effort simply by contributing an idea.

5. Engage employees with their bellies by promoting a low carbon diet campaign.  Everybody has to eat.  So why not employ a sustainable food service?  Companies such as Bon Appétit Management Company have already offered such a service to clients such as Target Corporation, Best Buy, Cisco, and a variety of universities.  This brings awareness to the carbon footprint of food choices, something many people are not aware of, and also can reduce disposable take-out containers, create an extensive method of discussion topic as all people enjoy eating, and have to do it!

6. Engage employees in their personal lives through various methods.  Whether it be offering incentives to bike or carpool, provide energy kits to reduce their carbon footprint at home, or offering informational sessions, engagement of employees can create an excitement that will trickle into their habits at work.  Wal-Mart provides an example of this through its Personal Sustainability Project (PSP).

7. Engage customers to be part of the solution incorporating them into the business practice of sustainable strategies.  For example, offering green products and services such as Yahoo! for Good engages their purchasing decisions.  A company can also invite customers to be part of the corporate green team creating an even deeper relationship with customers, just as eBay has done with its own green team, involving over 100,000 customers as members.

8. Using art or any other creative medium of communication such as short videos can raise awareness within the company.  Promoting the creative aspect of these green teams can only provide excitement and enthusiasm for employee’s to achieve sustainable initiatives.

9. Create a toolkit to support and guide green teams as Deloitte has done with its “Greening the Dot” program.

10. And finally, align green teams with corporate sustainability goals providing a synergy between the broader corporate objectives and green team activities.