Sustainability - How do you help guide others?

[Former Member]

Good day,

While I applaud the efforts that more companies are taking to lead the way, Social Responsibility is not just a Corporate responsibility. As companies create these initiatives around sustainability and social responsibility, their success depends on getting buy-in and support from the staff. What WE do to make them happen.

I have a story I'd like to share.

Lunching at our office cafeteria allows me to interact with a number of people in the company from different areas, different buildings and different responsibilities. One day the conversation turned to a department manager that was asking all the people in the department to bring in their own coffee cups instead of using the paper ones provided in the break room. It was interesting hearing the reaction of different members of the department: fear of having their cup stolen, how would cups be cleaned - would that just create another problem, as well as other inconveniences mentioned.

It struck me that it's one thing to willingly take on the responsibility to change behavior, while suggesting (or imposing?) that behavior to others is likely to meet with hesitation and resistance. Listening to the adventure of the coffee cups, it seems that even something the manager believed would be simple and easy, obviously was not. Just because we have decided to drive less, print out fewer documents on paper, or use our own coffee cup doesn't mean everyone in our area, department, or company is as enthusiastic and dedicated to those goals.

It is great that companies are become more proactive with these kinds of measures. What can we do to help? Yes, leading by example is an important beginning, is there anything else we could do? I wonder what more I could do and hope to learn from your experiences -- maybe you have something to share.

Regards,

Bob

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Bob, Its nice that u have concern abt this topic. To be frank, a change cannot happen on a single day, it should come with practice. Change should start from an individual, and it will spead like a fire from an individual to a lot. Also, an individual mainly fear for his health, so if Sustainability is followed in each and every step he follows, He could save his planet, and parallely he could save his life.

Now it may seem an easy go strategy, but if it is not taken care with immediate effect it will seriously become a life-threatening issue and it would be too late to avoid.

[Bob_McGlynn]

Raghunandan,

I do agree with your points. I guess what I am asking is how to make this scale, what is the next step. My observation is that merely being a good driver doesn't solve traffic problems nor necessarily inspire others to be better drivers. It doesn't make things worse, but improvement come only on a very small scale.

I have also witnessed passengers offering criticism or corrective suggestions to the driver with less than the desired reaction. Again, my observations are that it does little to inspire them to improve as a driver.

Maybe my question is how to you start bringing the like-minded people together? How do you give enough visibility to show that this isn't just a couple of do-gooders or some feel-good marketing campaign, but a movement that people want to and need to get involved with?

How do you become a leader by example?

Regards,

Bob

[girishm]

Hello Bob,

My understanding is that once you start measuring and displaying data people try to be more environmentally conscious. This is what [Andrew Winston|http://www.andrewwinston.com/bio/] terms as "Prius Effect" in his book.

Examples I can think of are:

List the number of pages printed by each department on the bulletin board. Or we could have a small widget that would count the number of pages printed by an individual from a given computer. This data need not be reported anywhere, but the mere fact that the numbers can be seen will make people cut down on their consumption.

For the paper cups, even having a small note saying "Please use the cups consciously" and some statistic on how they could help the environment by reducing their usage would help.

For commuting - the company could have "Bike-to-work" days or "Take public transport to office" day.

Even reporting the average water consumed per employee or the average carbon footprint of each employee in the organization might help people become more proactive towards sustainability.

[Former Member]

Hi Girish,

Thanks for ur inputs.

I completely agree with u.

To add to wat u have noticed, Speaking in anOrganizational perspective:-

1) There are giant organizations who are promoting bicycles as a means of transport within their campus.

2) Companies which are focussed on Paper businesses are now following Sequestering concept where-in they are planting twice the number of trees than they cut.

3) Whenever u fly and book an e-ticket, depending on ur kms of travel, the website is designed in such a way that it will calculate and asks if u r inteested in saving the environment and then based on ur contribution they will plant trees.

4) Also organizations will plant a tree for every disposal of a mobile phone.

So, now the awareness in Sustainability has begun in a Top-down approach which will soon find a better result.