The Employee Green Team guide to success
Creating big impact, sustainable change in your organisation is imperative - and an employee green team is a great way to start! So, what are the must-haves to ensure your green team achieves success? Employee Green Teams have many and varied benefits. There are of course the obvious environmental benefits, but did you know there are also the important social impacts, and employee engagement too!
However, if you’ve tried kicking off your own employee green team, you’ll know that it can also present challenges. Give your team every chance at success with these helpful tips.
Employee Green Teams need more than just inspiration to succeed…
Read on to find out our top 7 tips to ensure you make an impact!
The employee green team guide to success!
Why start an Employee Green Team?
An Employee Green team is a group of passionate employees who are committed to driving sustainable change through their organisation. They can be brought together by leadership in a top-down approach but can be equally effective from a bottom-up perspective – which means that anyone can lead one!!
There are many benefits to an employee green team such as of course the environmental benefits, but did you know there are other benefits that will support your organisation to be more inclusive and engage their employees!
Did you know that:
many participants engaged in an employee green team report feeling more engaged and connected within their organisation
green teams can encourage a sense of open communication across levels and departments
when organisations prioritise sustainable practices, employees can see the alignment between values and actions.
They look like pretty great “bonus” benefits to us!
Read more about the employee green teams and why to start one in our previous post.
Now, let’s see what elements you’ll need to make your green team successful!
The 7 key elements for success!
We have identified 7 key elements that will ensure success in building your employee green team and creating a culture of sustainability in your organisation. So, here they are:
1. Executive sponsorship
Whether you’re in a small business or a global MNC, executive sponsorship is essential in ensuring success for your employee green team. Executive sponsorship and support can be helpful in providing advice to navigate hurdles or questions when working on your sustainability initiatives. Exec support is also essential if any kind of Cap-Ex or budget is required to implement your initiatives. More on that later.
2. A team
As the adage goes, the more the merrier, and this is never truer than when assembling your green team. Gathering your team of likeminded individuals will ensure your employee green team continues to gather momentum and has the impact you desire. A large team will also help to spread the workload evenly so that everyone has a role and no one person is bearing the brunt. We’re all so busy with our day jobs and lives, these are important points to consider.
It's also helpful to engage a range people from various departments across your business. Ideally your green team will include a representative from procurement, finance, marketing, and office management/operations. This will bring varied knowledge and a range of skillsets, both of which will help the team embed initiatives in your organisation.
“What is an Employee Green Team and what are the benefits?”
Read more in our previous post here.
3. Inspiration
If you’re bringing the right people together for your green team, they will hopefully bring inspiration in spades! Participants in green teams are often very environmentally, socially, and/or community-minded and they are likely highly motivated to participate in sustainability-focused projects.
To harness this inspiration, first bring your team together for a brainstorming session. Here you can whiteboard all the ideas for the impact projects, and possibly bring some project leaders to the fore. From here, you can prioritise which are the longer term, higher impact projects, and which are the ones that might be easier to start off with; the low-hanging fruit.
If you’re stuck for ideas, download our free toolkit including “14 ideas to kick-start your Employee Green team!”
But of course, inspiration alone is not likely to get much done, so make sure you have a plan.
4. A plan
While it might sound basic, an action plan is one of the most important tools you’ll need. An action plan, or project plan, will help your team determine the actions that need to be completed to deliver on each sustainability initiative.
A plan will also help you identify how to measure the success of your projects to have the impact you want. Set some SMART goals and review progress regularly to ensure you are on track. Meet regularly with your team (monthly is best) to check progress and help to remove any roadblocks.
For more details and a structured step-by-step guide to building your employee green team, check out the Toolkits we have available.
Download them here!
5. A budget
Whether you’re buying new recycling bins, or engaging a special guest speaker, at some stage you’re going to need some money to spend on your initiatives. Plan a detailed budget based on the needs of your program for the first 3 or 6 months. Set expectations with your executive sponsor early. (Of course, it’s easier to decrease your costs or reallocate the money, rather than increase the amount later.)
Your executive sponsor may already have a budget in mind, but doing your research ahead of time will help you align on these numbers together.
There are some great budget templates around, but you don’t need to go overboard. Often, it’s a matter of the simpler the better.
6. Your Why
Even with all the inspiration in the world, at times your team is likely to experience challenges. Perhaps an event didn’t have the turnout you were hoping for, or the feedback was not as positive as you’d like. But this is not a reason to give up! At times like this, you’ll need to call on your resilience and perseverance to ride the waves. Often after a setback or perceived failure remembering the reason you decided to start this program in the first place is a great way to reconnect.
As Simon Sinek says, “Start with Why”.
Why do you want to drive this change in your organisation? What is the big picture goal you want to achieve? It might be a desire to educate others on living sustainably, making sustainable operational changes in the office, or making an impact in your community.
Early on, work with your colleagues to discuss and agree The Why for your green team – what is it that has brought you all together, keen to volunteer your time to this project. Revisit your Why in your monthly meetings to keep yourself and your team motivated towards your big goals!
7. Fun!
Above all else, the intention of your green team is to spark inspiration and carry your sustainable message far and wide! Remember that your colleagues are volunteering time to be involved, and that you are all working towards the same goal. Celebrate your wins and share your successes!
Remember…
Anyone can start an employee green team! Regardless of your role or level, YOU can be the one to lead sustainable changes in your organisation!
So, if you’re someone who is passionate about sustainability, has the drive to make a difference, and the willingness to bring your colleagues together, you are sure to make a wonderful impact! Good luck!
Help is at hand!
If you’re looking for some simple tools to get you started, check out our downloadable Green Office Toolkits here. Our Complete Roadmap includes recommended email and PowerPoint templates to make things easy so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
See the Our Clients page to read some of our case studies and client testimonials to give you some inspiration and ideas!
If you’d like additional support to launch your program, reach out to find out how we can help. No doubt we’ve launched an Employee Green Team project for an organisation just like yours!