Companies are attempting to motivate employees to do the “right,” or sustainable, thing when at work by increasing environmental and sustainability education and awareness and it is paying off with increased profits. Complementing education with incentives to engage a diverse workforce with varying levels of engagement and social consciousness motivates employees to take action.
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.
There are a tremendous number of business benefits of environmental and sustainability education for employees, including: improved operational efficiency, strengthened customer and community relations, innovation, supply chain management, and increased employee recruitment and retention.
Educating employees about energy efficiency,conservation, recycling, waste reduction and other similar measures benefit not only the companies that institute them, but also the organization’s employees, but also the communities in which they operate.
