Sustainable Staff is our range of staff engagement workshops and advisory services that accelerate the rollout, delivery and adoption of sustainability solutions for organisations. Businesses that engage with their staff on sustainability are working towards an organisational culture that is more innovative, resilient and prepared for the future.

Your staff are your biggest asset for realising a sustainable and energy efficient workplace – energy use experts identify that around 50% of energy savings in the home and workplace can be linked to behaviour rather than equipment.

How do we do it?

We have a practical approach to stimulate positive, innovative systems-thinking to encourage the integration of sustainability into core-business practices. Our workshops use creative problem solving techniques to explore opportunities and assist to integrate sustainability into all facets of the organisation by mobilising human capital.

Sustainable Staff integrates research and collaborative work from the Total Environment Centre and Green Capital’s campaigns, business engagement and debate series.

What are the benefits of staff engagement?

• Helping staff to see their role in your sustainability commitments
• Stimulate innovative and practical thinking
• Take hold of the quick wins & low hanging fruit with measurable results
• Create shared values and a sustainable business culture
• Cross functional communications, co-operation and collaboration

What do we offer?

Next to advisory and research services we offer staff engagement workshops. Workshops are designed for groups of 10-30 people, and the length can be tailored to anything from a short 1 hour engagement to a 4 hour facilitated brainstorm. The table below gives an overview of the workshops we offer.

For more information on our services please call Irmine van der Geest or Sarah van Erp on (02) 9261 3566 or email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Projects

Macquarie University: staff engagement on energy, water and waste/paper
We are facilitating short staff engagement workshops on energy, water and waste/paper reduction with the business units at Macquarie University. The workshops engage with staff to brainstorm new initiatives with a focus on generating new ideas & staff ownership of these initiatives.

VHA, Sydney Water and TAFE Riverina: staff engagement on energy efficiency
In partnership with Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water NSW (DECCW) we have developed and facilitated engaging and informative workshops on energy efficiency and sustainability with Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA), Sydney Water and TAFE Riverina. The 3-hour workshops have inspired and motivated staff – selected as change agents for the different organisations - to take energy efficiency into consideration in both the workplace and at home.

St James Ethics Centre: tools for SME’s to become more sustainable
The project “Roadmap of a Sustainable Building” is developed to highlight challenges and opportunities for different parties, both within and outside a building supply chain, working on a building with sustainability characteristics. The project was commissioned by St James Ethics Centre and funded through Federal Government. Outcomes of the project are used to progress further on the journey towards more sustainable buildings in Australia. The building, at 376-382 New South Head Road in Double Bay Sydney, has been chosen as a case study subject. Learnings from the process of planning, designing, approving, constructing and using this building were investigated to develop advice, tools and guidelines to encourage sustainability practices for environmental and social gain for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) generally and for the building industry overall.
For more information on this project, go to http://thehub.ethics.org.au/sme/sector_product_roadmaps

Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre: client - supplier - staff sustainability engagement forum
We worked on a supply chain sustainability engagement project with Australia’s largest venue for conferences, exhibitions and special events. We provided sustainability expertise and designed a forum to engage a range of industry and Green Capital speakers to provide insights into the challenges and opportunities for the events sector. More than 100 Sydney Convention Exhibition Centre clients, suppliers and staff attended to be engaged on key points to consider making events more sustainable, encouraging reduction in events related carbon and ecological footprints.
Further details and the presentations can be found at: http://www.scec.com.au/media_centre/sustainabilityforum/

Roche Australia: moving from ideas to action
We worked with Roche Australia to further catalyse staff awareness and responsibility in key areas of concern by providing presentations and workshops for the Sustainability Working Group. The presentations dealt with:

• the business case for sustainability – risks & opportunities; and
• sustainability and organisational change – how to create a cultural shift towards sustainability

The workshop helped the group evaluate and cluster initiatives, brainstorm personal challenges, methods to overcome them and how to progress further.

NSW Registration Board for Architects: learning from an environmental footprint reduction journey
Reducing your environmental footprint – was a project which involved workshop and guideline development for the NSW Registration Board for Architects. We have provided sustainability expertise to develop the project, workshop design and to provide feedback on guidelines for the pilot phase. The Boards’ end product consists of guidelines to assist small firms of service professionals to reduce their environmental footprints. The pilot phase has identified and removed barriers to low carbon activity and encouraged more sustainable behaviour. We also developed a template that supports Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to register and report their environmental footprint. For the end result see: http://www.reducingcarbonemissions.org/

Philips and Diageo: catalysing change for sustainability in the business
We ran successful training programs with two multinational corporations, Diageo Australia and Philips Electronics. The programs delivered a tailored one day session as well as preliminary activities and follow up sessions. Using issue-specific case studies, the selected groups of senior managers looked critically at current business practices, risks and opportunities in order to develop sustainability initiatives with a strong business case. For both companies the training has encouraged a holistic approach to sustainability, critical and systems thinking and development of increased accountability for sustainability programs. Since the training delivery there has been a significant amount of activity in both companies: from energy and water efficiency programs, improved sustainable supply chain management, running sustainability training with sales and induction staff, to adding sustainability criteria into decision making processes.

Local Councils: a presentation to encourage SME business sustainability
We were asked to present and assist in the design of a sustainability workshop aimed at SMEs (small to medium enterprises) and micro-businesses in the Kogarah, Rockdale and Hurstville areas. Green Capital presented the basic steps to and benefits of sustainability, how to engage staff on the journey, as well as the risks of business as usual. We joined representatives from the councils, award winning small businesses and Sydney Water to speak with approximately 70 small business owners and answer their questions.

Frameworks to support sustainable behaviours
Green Capital’s SST program presented to a group of Westpac staff participating in ACF’s GreenHome Program. The presentation to staff demonstrated how to catalyse and accelerate change within the business. Specifically looking at how supportive systems and frameworks are required for business to deliver long term sustainability outcomes and behaviours for the business.

Resources & Papers

Four ‘snapshot’ documents were produced in March 2008 as follow-up of Green Capital’s Sustainability Inc forum series held in August 2007, with the funding from the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage & the Arts.

Sustainabilty & Organisational Change Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]
Sustainable Supply Chain Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]
Green Marketing Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]
Waste & EPR Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]