Making The Business Case for Green Teams and a Look at Best Practices

By Michael D Tam on April 15, 2010 Comments Off on Making The Business Case for Green Teams and a Look at Best Practices Andrew Winston, best practices, Brand Recognition, Carrie Freeman, composting, corporate social responsibillity, corporate sustainability, cost savings, cross-functional groups, eBay, employee engagement, employee morale, energy use, engage employees, engaged workforce, environmental initiatives, Green Business, Green Impact, Green Recovery, Green Teams, Green Teams: Engaging Employees in Sustainability, GreenBiz.com, Intel, Libby Reder, market share, metrics, Michael Tam, National Environmental Education Foundation, productivity, recycling, sustainability, sustainability strategy, sustainable strategies, The Engaged Organization: Corporate Employee Environmental Education, Volunteers, water use

The idea sounds simple enough. Create a team of volunteers from existing employees. Have them focus on ways to green the business and culture. In turn, create cost savings, attract top talent due to an improvement in brand recognition, and increase market share from the newfound brand image, possibly even innovative product and services. The idea and the goal sound simple, while the execution and plan of attack seem a bit more complex. How can an individual or company go about implementing this team of sustainability focused volunteers? Resources and guides may be abundant and abound. The report, “Green Teams: Engaging Employees in Sustainability,” released by GreenBiz.com and Green Impact, provides a good starting point that captures the business case for these green teams, how to get started, four key areas behind best practices, and a breakdown of 10 best practices in developing green teams.