Sustainability at Work

[TonyPSchaefer]

My company is a European company. Our European coworkers are years ahead of us in terms of environmental awareness, recycling, energy usage and the whole sustainability thing. For those of us who pay attention to those things and have been there to see it, there's absolutely no denying that. And though the company has several initiatives to develop RoHS products and facilitate energy conservation and sustainability on a grand international scale through our products, there are still hundreds of thousands of employees who just aren't practicing what we - as a company - are preaching. Most here in the U.S.

That's where the Sustainability Council comes in. I'm now part of the local Sustainability Council for our Home Office location. If we don't get it right here it's going to be really tough to push it out to the branch locations.

So here's where I turn to you all. I have some ideas for raising awareness, for holding fairs, for informational posters and all that. But I want to know what you all have done - or seen done - that has really worked. I plan to hit the internet for ideas but figured I'd try to tap as many avenues as possible.

[hill]

'she who must be obeyed' is on the local board of realtors. They provided info on 'green home' remodels, especially for investors who are flipping homes. They'll add all the latest goodies, and list all the features in the sales adds. It seems to bring more people into their open houses.

.

[octavia]

Originally Posted by TonyPSchaefer

My company is a European company. Our European coworkers are years ahead of us in terms of environmental awareness, recycling, energy usage and the whole sustainability thing. For those of us who pay attention to those things and have been there to see it, there's absolutely no denying that. And though the company has several initiatives to develop RoHS products and facilitate energy conservation and sustainability on a grand international scale through our products, there are still hundreds of thousands of employees who just aren't practicing what we - as a company - are preaching. Most here in the U.S.

That's where the Sustainability Council comes in. I'm now part of the local Sustainability Council for our Home Office location. If we don't get it right here it's going to be really tough to push it out to the branch locations.

So here's where I turn to you all. I have some ideas for raising awareness, for holding fairs, for informational posters and all that. But I want to know what you all have done - or seen done - that has really worked. I plan to hit the internet for ideas but figured I'd try to tap as many avenues as possible.

That's a BIG question. It would take a book to answer it but the short version is, you have to get people to develop ownership and buy-in around the changes or they just won't happen.

You can offer all the educational materials, incentives, and right reasons to people but unless they have a personal stake in the outcome you're toast. One of the strategies that I've seen used is helping people answer the wiifm ( whats-in-it-for-me) question. No one likes to admit it but we are basically self serving creatures.
Of course those of us who "get it" already know the answer to that question.

Don't hurry is the only other peice of advice I would feel comfortable just throwing out there. Effective strategies for large scale change like you are talking about take time.

It's exciting to hear about more energy being focused on a part of the solution!

[TonyPSchaefer]

Thanks for the thoughts. I completely agree with the buy-in part.

One of the ideas put forth is an electrical power shedding initiative in which we would reduce our power draw during peak hours on potentially heavy-draw days. This is done to reduce a communities overall consumption and therefore avoid blackouts / brownouts.

Though I can agree with the initiative to avoid overall power outages, I disagree with the approach. As I voiced in the meeting, we should not be forcing people to turn off their task lighting and shutting down our air handling units; we should be educating our employees - and the community as a whole - to reduce overall consumption to the point at which power shedding is not required.

In my opinion, it is better for people to recognize a better behavior than to have a new behavior thrust upon them. It has been my experience that when people are forced to change their behavior, they will comply only so long as they know they are being watched. Very similar to the "

Hawthorne Effect

Hawthorne_effect

."

[octavia]

Originally Posted by TonyPSchaefer

Thanks for the thoughts. I completely agree with the buy-in part.

One of the ideas put forth is an electrical power shedding initiative in which we would reduce our power draw during peak hours on potentially heavy-draw days. This is done to reduce a communities overall consumption and therefore avoid blackouts / brownouts.

Though I can agree with the initiative to avoid overall power outages, I disagree with the approach. As I voiced in the meeting, we should not be forcing people to turn off their task lighting and shutting down our air handling units; we should be educating our employees - and the community as a whole - to reduce overall consumption to the point at which power shedding is not required.

In my opinion, it is better for people to recognize a better behavior than to have a new behavior thrust upon them. It has been my experience that when people are forced to change their behavior, they will comply only so long as they know they are being watched. Very similar to the "Hawthorne Effect."

Exactly. And.... they will sabotage the attempts for changes even if they would other wise have supported them! Who killed the electric vehicle? hints that this is what happened to the EV-1.

Sometimes having a meeting and presenting your task as a problem and asking employees for help coming up with a solution can be helpful. People like to be asked what they think and when people feel ownership over the solution they will enforce it.

Could you go in with a reachable goal like x amount of power reduction over x amount of time and function as a facilitator to help them achieve that goal?

[blueumbrella]

Keeping things in perspective, I feel good about the small part I can play - then I read that China is putting 10,000 new cars on the road everyday and India is not far behind.