Sustainability in the Workplace: Where to Start?
By Julia Craighill, Ensight
We all know that sustainability is a must-have in today's environment. And the pandemic has raised awareness of the fragility of our existence on this planet. Now that a return to office is imminent in some form, how can you create a workplace to which employees want to return? How can you create an environment that is not only safe and comfortable, but that also reflects your company's values and staff's desires?
Many organizations want to increase their sustainability efforts, but the subject is vast and can be daunting. It's hard for facility managers and office administrators to get their arms around the breadth and depth of what can be done.
Methodically approaching workplace sustainability is the best way to ensure that you have examined a broad range of topics and honed-in on the ones that are a "best-fit" for your company. Here are five steps that will get you to that goal.
- Create a Green Team
A high-performing green team is an essential component of any successful sustainability initiative.
Sustainability is a team sport and cannot be run by just one person or even just one department. Most projects involve many sectors of a company and you will need representatives from those sectors to be part of the effort. They have the specific knowledge required to create and guide their aspect of a sustainability initiative, and they need to be invested in the outcome.
Make sure that the committee has backing from the highest levels of the organization. Get a credible person at the helm who has the ear of upper management and whose department has the most control over operations. The committee's intentions should be ambitious enough to be inspiring but still doable.
- List Every Feasible Possibility
Here are some categories and commonly considered items for office settings to help guide your thinking in each category.
You must tailor the possible actions to your company's situation. If you lease your space, it's likely that you won't have control of the Infrastructure portions of the Energy and Water and Landscape categories. But you should still consider them and discuss with your landlord what improvements can be made.
- Categories and Considerations
Energy
- Infrastructure Upgrades
o Energy efficiency upgrades to existing built-in elements or criteria for new fixtures, controls, HVAC, and equipment.
- Clean Energy
o Wind/Solar installation or procurement and carbon offsets
Water
- Infrastructure Upgrades
o Energy efficiency upgrades to existing built-in elements or criteria for new fixtures, controls, and equipment.
Waste
- Infrastructure Upgrades
o Bins and signage for landfill, recycling, and composting
- Policies for reducing waste
o Procurement
- Responsible Products
o What the product is made of, and how it will be disposed of
- Responsible Suppliers
o Ethical and environmental considerations in how they run their business and make their products
Transportation and Travel
- Infrastructure Upgrades
o Sustainable and accessible accommodations for various modes of transportation by commuters and visitors
- Policies or incentives for commuting, work from home, or business travel
Landscape
- Infrastructure Upgrades
o Plants and stormwater management to support a healthy environment
Health & Wellbeing
- Infrastructure Upgrades
o Environmental considerations such as air quality and increased connection to nature
o Wellness amenities
- Policies
- Social and wellness activities
- Feedback mechanisms for concerns
Social (Corporate) Responsibility
- Sustainability reporting
- Volunteering in the community
Construction
- Use the above categories to influence your new builds, renovations, and repairs
- Decide Where You Want to Go
This is the fun part. Once the Green Team has listed the possible actions that could be pursued, you need to choose which of them you would like to examine more closely. There are several screening techniques that you can use for each action. Consider these questions:
- How much positive impact will this change have?
- How much effort and disruption will be needed?
- What are the potential costs as well as savings associated with it?
- Does this align with your company's goals and values?
Another good idea is to survey the staff to understand their general sentiment toward sustainability. This is a good time to gauge how well they think the company is doing regarding sustainability, what they think of the workplace's health and wellness features, and what changes they would like to see implemented.
- Baseline Where You Are
Once you have narrowed down the list of possible actions, figure out how to quantify what you are currently doing. There are many ways to measure and track your progress. Here are some example metrics you can use.
- Data from energy and water bills, if you are separately metered from the rest of the building.
- Volume or weight of total waste plus how much and what you are diverting from the landfill.
- Percent of responsible products that you buy
- Percent of suppliers that meet your criteria
- Quantities of items used like paper, ink, toner, refreshments
- Miles accumulated (by mode) in business travel
- Miles accumulated (by mode) in commuting
With these metrics, you can track by quantity and create percentages to track year by year. Include the costs associated with each metric.
- Prioritize Actions into a Multi-Year Sustainability Action Plan
Now that you have your baseline starting point, you can create improvement goals. These are year-by-year improvement targets to aim for. You will probably surpass some of these targets and not reach others.
Start with the end in mind. Where do you want to be at the end of several years? There are a host of options. Do you want to be using half the paper that you are using now? Or do you want to reduce your carbon emissions by 25%? Each goal will drive different strategies.
These targets form the structure of your Sustainability Action Plan (SAP). The plan should have clear goals coupled with sustainability metrics so that everyone will understand what needs to be accomplished.
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The five steps above are a greatly simplified outline that does not go into the approval or budgeting process. Nor are the vital communication and change management tasks addressed that get buy-in from the stakeholders and increase implementation success. Indeed, there is no simple formula.
But don't be deterred. Follow the steps outlined above, and you are positioning your company to improve its performance constantly and authentically tell its sustainability story to customers and employees.
