CorporateResponsibility.Net

Consumers directly control 60% of the UK’s carbon emissions. I got to hear this on a seminar last week put together by Energy Saving Trust and RSA. A very good event, by the way, represented companies included giants such as Barclays, Sainsbury’s and BT. It was an inspiring way of starting the day and the compact format of the event (two hours) ensured that you could start working on the ideas gained as soon as you had landed back in your office.

Individual consumers who have such a great power to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions are also employees and that’s what the event was about. How do you engage with your employees? How do you initiate and enable behaviour change? The message was two-fold: behaviour change towards improved sustainability is about enlightened self-interest. It became clear that companies try to reach their employees through “what’s in it for me” approach. The style of communication (non-corporate language, let’s have a bit of fun), multiple channels (events, competitions, online resources, exhibitions) and frequency of communication are all embedded in the sustainability strategies.
But sustainability is not only about enlightened self-interest and potential prizes. It is also about meaningfulness of one’s own existence. Organisations need to convince their employees that they want to stay with a company because of its values and how it is living up those values. And, it is not only recent graduates that are raising questions about their employer’s sustainability credentials; also older generations are waking up to the same call. It matters who you work for.
If this is the case, it means that organisations are becoming more like political actors. In a good way, that is. What I mean is that sustainability agendas create dynamics through which organisations want to engage with their employees. This means they need to listen to their employees. Thus, organisations create opportunities for two-way communication and employees become more empowered. It sounds very much like civic engagement to me. Companies become like micro-size civil societies where participation becomes the norm. In Habermasian terms organisations could become 21st century coffee houses: places where people get together around a common concern to talk about ‘matters of importance’, thus expressing their views and through collective power becoming involved in their companies’ decision making processes.

Too idealistic? Not necessarily, as the examples from BT reveal. Their starting point for the sustainability agenda was to go and talk to employees and ask how they would like to be engaged. Now BT has staff Carbon Clubs, each of which focusing on a specific area of interest. BT has also created more general social networking tools à la Facebook. Both of these initiatives enabling two-way communication, increasing voluntary participation and, as a result, strengthening the feeling of belonging and creating trust. You could expand on the subject by writing extensively about trust and how it forms an important basis for a successful society.
All this is actually very straightforward psychology: people feel their work is valued and that they are respected. The power of thank you shouldn’t be underestimated.

Although highly inspired by the event I still have two questions in my mind: working in the Higher Education sector myself, where do universities position themselves in this debate? How do we engage with our students and staff and can we say that we are at the frontline when it comes to changing behaviours? I hope the answer is yes, but to me it seems that at the moment companies are light years ahead of us.
Last, if changing behaviours is a long project – approximately 6-7 years according to one panellist – why does that work start only at the work place? To what extent should we be teaching sustainability at primary schools?

Anne Raudaskoski
Anne works as a CSR Research & Development Officer at the University of Westminster. She’s a member of The Sustainability Writers Network (TSWN).
anne.raudaskoski@gmail.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/anneraudaskoski

Consumers in both developed and emerging economies want to see governments – and by extension, businesses – end the deadlock of climate change negotiations and sign up to carbon emission reduction targets, according to a global survey of 12,000 people.

Carried out by a coalition of NGOs brought together by HSBC, the survey polled 1,000 people in 12 of the world’s most polluting nations – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, UK and the US – all of which will be key players at the forthcoming UN climate change talks in Poznan, Poland.

More than three quarters of respondents said they want their government to agree to cut carbon emissions, either to the same level as all other countries or to a level below that of other countries so that developing nations can continue to grow their emissions. Read more

Source: Business Green

It doesn’t take a genius to determine that hybrid car sales are on the rise, but a new report confirms the trend and predicts that sales in North American will double in the next three years, as automakers increase hybrid offerings from 20 to roughly 40 different models.

R.L. Polk & Company, a leading auto industry market research firm, forecasts that more than one in 20 new vehicles sold in the United States and Canada will have a hybrid gas-electric powertrain by 2012. That’s up from approximately one in 34 new vehicles sold in 2008. Read more

Source: Sustainable Business

A major new survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) suggests the vast majority of US business leaders now accept there is a clear correlation between CSR performance and financial performance.

Drawing a clear link between strong environmental and CSR performance and increased sales and profitability has long been a vexed topic for many CSR professionals who have struggled to put a financial value on related benefits such as improved brand power and staff morale.

However, according to a survey of more than 550 senior US executives carried out by the (EIU), 74 per cent now accept the argument that responsible corporate citizenship, including strong environmental policies, can help increase profits at their firm. Read more

Source: Business Green

Five leading U.S. corporations launched an initiative this week calling for strong U.S. climate and energy legislation in early 2009.

The founding members of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) are Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems and The Timberland Company.

These companies are joined by Ceres–a coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest groups. Read more

Source: Sustainable Business

Green IT systems have moved past the stage of marketing hype and are a genuine business imperative for many firms, according to a major new European survey which found that almost half of large UK IT departments now have a green IT strategy in place.

The survey of more than 450 Western European firms, each boasting more than 1,000 staff and at least one datacentre, was carried out by analyst firm IDC and found that IT departments in the UK and Germany had the most progressive attitude to addressing environmental issues with 46 per cent and 51 per cent respectively already claiming to have a green IT strategy in place.

The survey also revealed few signs that the trend is slowing down, with a further quarter of the 74 UK firms polled claiming they plan to implement a green IT strategy in the next two years. Read more

Source: Business Green

“The financial crisis has reinforced our view that sustainable development will be the primary driver of economic and industrial change over the next 25 years,” according to a Wall Street Journal article by former US vice president Al Gore and David Blood, managing partner of Generation Investment Management.

Gore and Blood call for a change in the current model of market capitalism which has been too focused on the short term - ”quarterly earnings, instant opinion polls, rampant consumerism and living beyond our means”.

“At this moment, we are faced with the convergence of three interrelated crises: economic recession, energy insecurity and the overarching climate crisis. Solving any one of these challenges requires addressing all three.” Read more

Source: WSJ

The drive to sustainability is having a broad effect on consumers, with three in four defining themselves as “green,” according to a new survey by Yahoo!.

The survey found that the green market has grown far beyond its roots as a niche, with 77 percent of consumers identifying themselves as “green.” Over half (57 percent) said they made a green purchase decision in the past six months.

Yahoo! commissioned the survey, which polled 1,500 people ages 18-54 in person in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Ore. Respondents were recruited online.

Read more

Source: Brand Week

The results of the second annual Edelman goodpurpose study tell us that that across the globe people’s sense of commitment to helping others—and to brands and companies that share that commitment—remains strong. The study shows that 83% of consumers are willing to change their own consumption habits to help make tomorrow’s world a better place. Read more

Source: Edelman

British retailer Marks & Spencer says it has already hit the mark on 20 of the 100 environmental goals of the ambitious green plan the company launched just 22 months ago with a target date for completion of 2012.

The firm detailed its progress on the eco-friendly agency it calls Plan A (“because there is no Plan B,” the company says) last week to coincide with a report of its sales for a six-month period ending September 27.

In terms of environmental performance, the company pointed to particular progress in energy saving, waste reduction and increased efficiency in general. Read more

Source: Green Biz