How Employee Engagement Can Drive a Sustainable Business

As the UK reports its hottest year on record, it’s never been more important to discuss and make plans to reduce carbon emissions.

At GEP Environmental, we work with organisations taking sustainability measures - installing new heating systems, altering building fabric, and in some cases, adjusting supply chains. However, these plans leave out a critical part of the emissions reduction equation - behavioural change. According
to recent research from the International Energy Agency, behavioural change plays a considerable role in emissions reduction in more than 65% of organisations.

Employee Engagement and its Effect on Decarbonisation in Sustainable Business

The good news? Behavioural change doesn’t involve installing a new heating system or redesigning a building, making it nondisruptive and highly cost efficient - though that doesn’t mean an effective plan won’t require significant thought. An effective employee engagement campaign involves careful planning and consideration of the ‘human’ aspect of sustainability. When developing an employee engagement plan you can start with considering four main areas:

• Energy
• Waste
• Travel
• Biodiversity

In this blog, we’re going to focus on energy and waste.

Reducing Energy Use and Employee Engagement: The ‘Switch Off’ Campaign

Energy reduction is an important part of emissions reduction. To reduce energy, my team conducted a ‘Switch Off’ campaign. Twice per year, employee volunteers joined us between 6:00 – 8:00 AM (incentivised by a free breakfast) to walk around the building and check that all unnecessary IT equipment was turned off at the wall. Why was this beneficial?

• Keeping items on and plugged in is an inefficient use of energy: When items are plugged in (and especially when plugs are on at the wall) they are using energy, and in many cases, they’re using that energy for no good reason. Simply turning off unused electronics can have an incredible affect on an organisation’s energy usage.
• It allowed the team to investigate usage (or lack thereof): At the first walk-around, we were surprised at how much unused equipment was present in the office. The ‘Switch Off’ campaign allowed us to monitor equipment usage, as well as see if any offices were operating with banned items such as coffee machines, desktop printers, and personal kettles, all of which used more energy per use than their larger scale counterparts. Additionally, banned items such as personal heaters were reported to H&S as they presented a fire risk.
• We rewarded offices and employees who succeeded at the ‘Switch Off’: Offices that were 100% ‘switched off’ received a star on the door, and each individual employee was given a sweetie on their desk to thank them for being so environmentally conscious. Conscious that some employees may not have been able to switch their technology off completely, we allowed for exceptions. If an employee noted that the technology could not have been switched off, a team could still receive a star.
• Post-event communication: we held this event twice per year and communicated results in our monthly staff newsletter. This allowed us, and our employees, to track results and created a healthy sense of competition.

Reducing Waste and Employee Engagement: The ‘Waste Audit’

Waste is a considerable issue for the modern office, and for the UK at large. According to recent government statistics, the UK disposed 12,634 tonnes of waste via landfill in 2020 – of which 6,103 tonnes were biodegradable municipal waste.

To educate colleagues about the amount of waste produced in the office, we employed a similar method to the ‘Switch-Off’ days – we conducted an annual ‘Waste Audit’, getting volunteers to rummage through recycling and waste bins to see what they could find in exchange for vouchers redeemable at the cafeteria. This resulted in three key findings:

• Private bins cause issues: No employee should have their own bin unless working in an open-plan office to encourage mindfulness regarding waste and ease for other staff in emptying the relevant bins.
• Make recycling bins easy to find: Workers are busy, and very few will search out a recycling bin on their own. Placing recycling bins next to waste bins increases the likelihood that staff will use them, which brings us to our next point:
• Accountability is key: When our employees assessed the waste, they weighed the rubbish, and took note of any trash that could have been recycled. We published the stats on each bin to really drive things home.
• Further education: As with all these activities, it’s critically important to ensure that employees understand the point of the activity. For example, after the ‘waste audit,’ we conducted several informational sessions, explaining our findings and how things could be improved.

Employee Engagement and Emissions Reduction

The purpose of all this activity is to reduce emissions and create a sustainable business. However, it’s necessary to help your employees feel empowered as they embark upon this journey. To do this, we recommend the following:

• Not all statistics need to be emissions-based to be effective: Emissions are a great way to measure environmental impact, but many employees can find them daunting. Don’t be afraid to use alternative measurements (i.e., number of lights switched off in an office and the waste to recycling ratio) when creating sustainability plans.
• Ask for feedback: It’s very easy to seem condescending and utterly removed from your employees’ and colleagues’ lives when conducting this type of activity. Feedback allows your employees to feel influential over the situation, significantly increasing their likelihood of behavioural change. It also has a positive impact in other ways. For example, when we asked for feedback regarding the waste audit, we found that many employees thought the ‘paper’, ‘recycling’ and ‘general waste’ signs on the bin were confusing. We adjusted the signage and found that employees were using the bins more efficiently.

Driving behavioural change is such an important part of your organisation’s decarbonisation journey. If your organisation is committed to becoming a sustainable business but is unsure of where to start, our team of experienced Environmental Consultants would be delighted to help. Get in touch today.