Embedding sustainability within the corporate culture

It is interesting that Employee Benefits magazine recently ran an article on ‘Going Green’, whilst HR Magazine did an in-depth look at how to put the HR into CSR as part of its ‘Make A Difference’ campaign. This focus on corporate responsibility in the media reflects my experience talking to companies, government agencies and charities, all who now want to find ways to embed sustainability more deeply within their corporate culture.

We recently did some market research with HR managers and professionals as we wanted to gauge how important sustainability is in the workplace. As an environmentalist who has spent most of my career involved in green issues, I am very encouraged by the findings. 78% of respondents say it is very important or important to encourage employees to find ways of improving their organisation’s impact on the environment, and when asked about encouraging their staff to find ways to improve their own personal impact on the environment, both at work and outside of work, 71% likewise say this is very important or important.

However, when asked if they had used products or services in the area of green and ethical rewards, benefits, motivation or communication, only 24% said yes – and of this 24%, by far the highest activity cited was cycle to work followed by green car leasing.

These survey findings very much reflect what I am finding in my discussions with the corporate sector. Business managers are looking to inspire people to change their business processes from within and actually develop the next generation of sustainable solutions; they want to influence personal behaviour; they see it as vitally important to align their sustainability strategy and related initiatives across the business functions. There is a real desire from business managers to take practical steps to make their workplace genuinely sustainable, not just because they believe it’s a good thing to do but more importantly because they know it will make them more efficient and competitive; and many are doing excellent work, particularly on resource management (eg energy and waste), but I sense a frustration that managers want to do more but do not feel they have the right tools at their disposal. This is particularly true when it comes to engaging staff – all too often a lot of enthusiasm is generated around a particular moment or initiative (eg recycling at work), but then that enthusiasm falls away all too easily as staff move on to other priorities. As a Head of CSR recently said to me, “I’ve done all the low hanging fruit like energy and waste, but I just can’t seem to maintain the momentum across the company.”

I am delighted to announce that Green Rewards is currently developing a new suite of interventions that will enable employers to keep their people enthused and motivated when it comes to sustainability. All too often ‘green’, ‘sustainability’, ‘corporate responsibility’, ‘CSR’, etc can seem like worthy terms which are best left to specialists like the Head of CSR to take forward. Our aim is to make these issues relevant and accessible to all staff, and to provide a set of fun, credible and engaging activities that will maintain momentum on an ongoing basis and help to embed sustainability into the corporate culture. With my campaigning hat on, I am excited by the prospect of working with the corporate sector to meet its business objectives whilst also delivering positive change for society and our precious planet.

About the author

Graham Simmonds is the managing director and co-founder of Green Rewards, a company that works with corporates and councils to encourage greener behaviour by rewarding customers, staff, households and communities.