Engage

The first and possibly the most important step in getting started on your organization’s sustainability journey is to engage and empower your employees. The collective ‘actions’ that are required to implement sustainability in your organization won’t be acted on unless your employees have been communicated to and empowered to act on the Pledge!

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Engage employees who are already interested – ask them what they think can be done.
• Educate employees regularly on sustainability issues through workshops.
• Empower employees to contribute ideas and identify opportunities.
• Set goals and make a plan.
• Share your goals and plan with all employees, suppliers and customers.
• Celebrate and communicate your successes throughout your value chain.
• Use your communication channels to talk about your initiative, post posters in lunch rooms.
• Create a performance based rewards program for employees and suppliers.
• Embed sustainability into governance structures.
• Link executive bonus structure to sustainability goals.
• Executive, board and management share organization’s sustainability vision, mission and targets.
• Board and executive regularly review sustainability goals and targets.
• Managers across the organization have accountability to sustainability goals.

Every organization is different, let us know what worked for you!