How to Get Employees Involved in Green, Eco-Friendly Initiatives

Photo by Annie Spratt

Today’s corporate landscape includes lots of talk about CSR and environmental responsibility, but not all of those voices are creating any tangible benefits for the environment. But if you want your company to break the mold and create real environmental impact all that’s left to do is engage your workforce and make them as excited as you are about changing the world.

So how do you successfully sell your employees on your eco-friendly idea? This can be a significant challenge. Thankfully, it is more than possible. Here are a few helpful tools and strategies for implementing an eco-friendly initiative with your company that actually works for the long haul.

Motivation: Educating on the Importance of Eco-Friendly

Behavioral change has to start with a shift in motivation. The power of inertia and status quo is strong. Before anyone would consider changing their current ways of doing things, they need to believe in a reason that change is necessary or better than how they currently do things.

Communicating the reasoning necessary for behavior change depends on the type of initiative you’re designing. There are many categories within the realm of eco-friendly practices, and the case for each one can look different. 

For instance, if you’re planning an initiative that has something to do with ecological improvements to agricultural practice, the education surrounding that area and the benefits your initiative will ultimately create could look completely different from an initiative focused on waste reduction practices or environmentally friendly packaging. Designing your initiative to start with the “why” is a vital part of creating a campaign that ultimately proves successful.

Strategy: How to Design Eco-Friendly Initiatives for Your Employees

Once you’ve decided on a category or direction for your campaign, you’ll need to map out the initiative in enough detail that you can be confident in launching the initiative with a high probability of success. Think through the following components:

Education and Awareness

As mentioned above, successful campaigns require effectively communicating the importance of your initiative and the good it will cause. Laying this groundwork is a vital first step for any eco-friendly change within your company.

Timeline for Your Initiative

Is this an initiative that is meant to last indefinitely or is it only meant to last a specific length of time? Will it replace some current process with a more eco-friendly approach? Is it a recurring event, like an annual drive or specific month or week of the year? Starting an initiative without thinking through the timeline can lead to stagnation or lack of adoption over the long haul. Oftentimes, using a finite duration or an event-oriented format can be a good first phase to introduce employees to the topic of your initiative.

Logistics and Mechanics

Think through the mechanics of how your initiative will work. Will it involve physical items? You’ll need receptacles; transportation; purchasing processes if necessary; storage; disposal or reuse plans; and more. Will it involve donations? Think through how you’ll accept payment, distribute funds, vet partners or collection organizations, and more. These are just a couple examples of how the entire process needs to be planned out. 

To make sure you’re catching all the elements you need to think through before you launch your initiative, think about different lenses to evaluate each component. What is the employee’s experience from start to finish? What happens to all goods, physical or digital, that are involved in the process? What good ultimately happens? Are all the pieces in place to make sure what you plan to do actually gets done?

Budget

What funding will you need to make your initiative a reality? Will this take an upfront investment to make it possible? Will it change product or material sourcing, or alter costs in different areas of your business? Will it cost your employees anything? Will costs change as time goes on? Considering budget and resources carefully will help you avoid unforeseen pitfalls or unnecessary resource drainage that can hurt or dismantle your initiative.

Practice: How to Engage Your Employees in Your Initiative

Once you’ve planned your eco-friendly initiative and have thought through all its logistics and contingencies, you’re ready to launch. Launch - announcing, sharing, inviting, and involving - might be the most critical phase of your initiative. Getting it off the ground will require a few tools in order to successfully move your campaign from conceptual to implemented.

When introducing an opportunity or request to change, best organizational practice for making that change a reality includes two-way conversations. Have meetings with your employees - don’t just make announcements or send emails. Hear what they have to say. Ask for ideas, reflections, and initial feedback. Identify idea champions and encourage them to initiate their own conversations and promotion with fellow coworkers.

Remember that positive reinforcement techniques can create powerful impetus for change as well. Could you offer bonuses or incentives for engaging with the program? Could you gamify the initiative in a way that creates natural and social motivation for taking part? Even if monetary incentives aren’t an option, could you create social affirmation or incentives by rewarding or recognizing the best performers or the most engaged?

Taking the time to design quality initiatives for your organization and launch them effectively will make your campaigns far more likely to engage your employees much more effectively and be successful in the long run.

Sea Going Green is a sustainable tourism consultancy working with businesses to create sustainability strategies for the short, medium and long-term to help them reach their green aspirations.

Looking to engage your employees with a custom workshop on sustainability? Get in touch.