Over the last few decades, environmental sustainability has become an increasingly important topic for organizations in every sector. During this time, Green Teams have proved to be an effective mechanism for helping organizations adopt greener operating practices, making them more environmentally and economically sustainable.
Often, organizational sustainability efforts have been conceived and launched by one or a few employees passionate about making their organization’s business practices more environmentally responsible. The earliest Green Teams grew out of such employee efforts. Increasingly, organizations have begun to encourage the formation of Green Teams.
Green Teams are a grassroots collective of cross-functional employees who volunteer to develop and implement sustainability practices and to educate and inspire other employees on corporate environmental sustainability issues and practices.
For many organizations, hiring dedicated sustainability staff is not a viable option. Green Teams allow such organizations to develop and adopt greener operating practices through their existing staff. Another advantage of Green Teams is the breadth of perspective their members bring to discussions about developing more sustainable operating practices.
Because many functional areas and staff levels are represented in Green Teams, a broad spectrum of experience informs the development of these practices. Potential challenges can be anticipated and averted.
The National Environmental Education Foundation agrees that engaging employees at every level of the company is essential to the success of sustainability efforts. Case studies have clearly shown that employees must not only understand, but also embrace, green business practices in order for them to succeed. Green Teams have emerged as a highly effective tool to optimize employee engagement in organizational sustainability efforts.
Since Green Teams design many of the sustainability practices, their buy-in and support develop organically during the process. The stakeholders who will be impacted by new, sustainable practices have input into the process which results in employees at every level of the organization becoming champions of the change.
Want to learn more? TPO can help you establish and/or lead your Green Team. Our experience spans helping a small on-line marketing organization develop and lead a Green Team of 5 individuals focused on overall operational and supply chain sustainability to helping a large biotech company establish and lead a 50-person team dedicated to reducing on-campus bottled water consumption, saving the organization over $200,000.00 annually!
TPO is an award-winning firm established in 1991 made up of a group of highly experienced, nationally certified HR experts and trainers. TPO is licensed by the State of California (PI-25638) to provide investigative services. For more information, please contact us at 800-277-8448 or visit our web site www.tpohr.com.
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2011 TPO Human Resource Management. No part of this article may be reproduced, excerpted or redistributed in any form without express written permission from TPO Human Resource Management.
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