CIPD - The environment and people management

Corporate and HR strategy

Revised June 2009

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

describes the concepts of sustainable development and environmental reporting
outlines some environmental policies and discusses benefits to organisations of introducing them
suggests how organisations could develop policies and include the workforce
describes the CIPD initiative on people management and the environment.

The dangers of global warming are becoming more apparent. For the UK, hotter summers and wetter, windier winters look a certainty. People are increasingly aware of this and are taking steps to limit their energy consumption and to cut down on waste at home.

Workplaces are major users of energy and creators of waste too. UK workplaces generate over 66 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, yet on average businesses waste 30% of the energy they buy.

Individuals who are concerned about environmental issues are also employees, but there is some evidence to suggest that people’s green behaviour at home is not being replicated at work. Their concerns and desires for improvement can be tapped into by employers who are looking to create greener workplaces.

This factsheet therefore looks at the part that the personnel profession can play in introducing environmental policies. It should be read in conjunction with our factsheet on corporate social responsibility.

Go to our factsheet on Corporate social responsibility

Sustainable development and its implications for people management

The concept of sustainable development has recently grown, reflecting the need for economic activity to take account of and where possible to contribute positively to the environment. Sustainable development implies much greater focus on resource conservation and on products and services that promote recycling and the containment of waste, including harmful waste.

Organisations are required by law to have regard for the effect of all their processes, products and services on the health and safety of their employees and on the environment. There are clear implications for people managers here, for example in terms of training and of building environmental considerations and responsibilities into job descriptions and team objectives - see our factsheet on occupational health.

Go to our factsheet on Occupational health

Environmental reporting

Environmental reports are now widely used, particularly by larger organisations, to communicate information to a variety of stakeholders, including shareholders, customers, employees, local communities, regulators and government. They can be stand-alone reports or embedded in a company report or website.

Key features of an environmental report are:

an environmental policy statement
setting of targets and measurement of progress against those targets
assessment of key environmental impacts (an environmental impact is any change, good or bad, to the environment, arising wholly or partly from and organisation’s activities, products or services).

Why introduce environmental policies?

As many organisations are being forced into adopting more difficult ways of achieving cost savings in the current recession, the introduction of green policies into the workplace offers organisations a beneficial and easy way of cutting expenditure. For instance, turning off computers at night and at weekends saves £27 per year per PC. And fitting a £15 timer on a soft drinks machine to turn it off at night and weekends saves £160 annually¹.

However, it is in business travel where organisations can make a bigger difference to their bottom line and to the environment. According to the Winter edition of Labour Market Outlook, the majority of UK organisations have responded to the recession by adopting greener policies and travel policies. Almost two thirds of organisations say that they have reduced international travel, while similar proportion say they have reduced their use of private transport. It would appear that this void has been filled by the two thirds of organisations who say they have increased their use of video-conferencing.

Visit our Labour Market Outlook reports

There are dozens of other similar examples. Multiplied, they can save most organisations thousands a year. The Carbon Trust says that on average offices waste £6000 a year by leaving equipment on over weekends and bank holidays, and that reducing energy consumption by 20% can add the same amount to profits as a five per cent increase in sales².

Reducing waste saves money too. Sustainable Development, a government-funded organisation, says that adopting best practice waste minimisation techniques could save business some £2-3 billion every year, equivalent to 7% profit, or 4-5% of turnover across a range of industries³.

Being perceived as an environmentally-friendly organisation can also have commercial benefits. Many people like to buy ethical or environmentally friendly products. For example, one of the reasons for the success of Anita Roddick’s company Bodyshop was its ethical image.

Last but not least, there are good people management reasons for introducing environmental policies. Being a green employer may improve the ‘employer brand’ and therefore:

attract potential employees, because people want to work for organisations with environmentally friendly policies
help to increase motivation and engagement through a shared set of values
reduce labour turnover because the organisation is one in which people want to work
improve the health of the workforce (for example, by encouraging cycling to work).

What sort of environmental policies?

Environmental policies need not be confined to the sorts of energy saving measures described above. They can also include the following (with some questions to stimulate thought):

Transport policies. When travelling on business, are employees encouraged to think about the relative merits of cars, planes and trains? For example, why fly to Brussels or Paris from London when the train is as fast and more than ten times less polluting? More prosaically, if the organisation has vans or lorries, is anything done to discourage drivers from leaving engines running while parked? Recent changes in taxation have been designed to discourage the use of company cars, and there as been a resultant decline in the number of organisations offering them in remuneration packages. See our factsheet on company car policies.
- Go to our Company car policies factsheet
Travel to work. Does the organisation encourage cycling by having bike sheds and showers for cyclists? Does it encourage car sharing for travelling to work or on business? Generally, are there or should there be incentives for lower energy ways of travelling to work? Local authorities are introducing workplace parking levies and other measures, such as congestion charging, to curb car commuting and with the advent of road pricing, now might be a good time to dust off the transport plan. There are a number of tax incentives and exemptions that could be introduced into the green transport plan and these include loaning cycles and safety equipment to employees, providing free or subsidised work buses (a tax free benefit), public transport loans/subsidies, workplace parking for cycles and motorcycles (again tax free benefit) and subsidised car parking for those who car-share.
Flexible working. If staff are not needed all the time at the workplace, why not encourage them to work from home, saving travel time and the associated pollution while adding to the quality of their lives? There are further opportunities here, but of course many jobs are not suitable for teleworking (see our factsheet on working from home and on the move).
- Go to our factsheet on Homeworking and teleworking
- Go to our Flexible working factsheet
Recycling. Have you thought about what can be recycled? Using both sides of paper in printers and having bins for used paper are obvious ideas. There are many more possibilities, which will vary from one organisation to another, depending on the sector.

Introducing and developing environmental polices

Personnel professionals are ideally placed to coordinate or lead on the introduction of greener policies for the workplace because of their experience in communication and driving cultural change, and because many of the initiatives to be developed may well come from ideas provided by employees, stimulated by a framework established by the personnel department.

Making a start

Here are some ideas for kicking off an environmental initiative:

Check whether your organisation has an environmental champion or committee. If not, work with senior managers and line managers to establish an appropriate mechanism or mechanisms.
If your organisation has an environmental report, use that as a starting point. In any case, it may be useful to develop a policy statement (perhaps in association with employees to develop their commitment).
Involve employees at various levels in whatever machinery is established. Not only are they at the sharp end and will therefore be able to come up with ideas from their immediate experience, it will increase commitment and involvement throughout the workforce.
Appoint an environmental representative from each department as a local ‘champion’ (volunteers are best, because they are likely to be more committed).
If the workforce is unionised, involve the union(s). The TUC is committed to helping tackle climate change and has produced a report proposing ten simple steps that employees can take at work to cut energy use and protect the environment⁴. The Sustainable Workplace website, supported by the TUC, contains several case studies in which unions and employers have worked together on improving the environment. The TUC’s learning and skills project, unionlearn, is currently training a new breed of environmental union representatives to help staff green their workplaces⁵.
Staff suggestion schemes, if they exist, can be a further means of raising interest and developing ideas.
Use stickers on machinery to raise awareness of energy efficiency and to encourage staff to adopt simple energy efficient actions across the workplace. Stickers are available from the Carbon Trust or organisation-specific stickers could be produced.
The Carbon Trust also produces starter packs, fact sheets and checklists for assessing and controlling energy use.

Later

Once the initiative is under way, momentum and enthusiasm will need to be maintained (initiatives of any sort tend to start in a wave of enthusiasm, and then gently die away unless stimulated). Good communications are vital, and a variety of well-known techniques can be employed. They might include the following:

Using newsletters, noticeboards, corporate intranets and other communication techniques to spread interest and ideas.
Including environmental awareness in selection procedures.
Adding environmental issues to induction training.
Incorporating environmental perspectives in appraisal and performance management systems, and even reward.
Visiting other employers locally or nationally (perhaps with employee representatives) to see what they do and how you can learn from them, and offering exchange visits.
Running training sessions on issues that have been identified, and particularly in the early stages of any campaign with the aim of raising general awareness.
Developing or amending job descriptions to take environmental responsibilities into account.
Using quality standards such as ISO 14001, a family of standards covering environmental management and compliance, and EMAS, the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, a voluntary initiative designed to improve companies’ environmental performance (for information about other quality standards and approaches, see our factsheet on that subject)
- Go to our factsheet on Quality standards and approaches
Raising green issues at your CIPD branch to encourage others to act likewise and to learn from those already taking action.

CIPD’s initiative on people management and the environment

Taking green measures into the workplace makes business sense as well as environmental sense, and the personnel profession is ideally placed to take the initiative. During 2007 and 2008, CIPD, in conjunction with People Management, ran an environmental survey to emphasise the importance of such issues and to help provide policy makers with key data and recommendations on how the green agenda could be improved at work.

The campaign was underpinned by research among HR professionals. Our August 2007 edition of Labour Market Outlook showed that a clear majority of employers are encouraging recycling and energy reduction, but far fewer organisations are green in their approach to transport. The report concludes that there is potential for HR professionals to do more to reduce the environmental impact of business travel, by promoting greener transport alternatives, and work practices, such as home-working. Such approaches lower travelling costs and stress levels for employees and improves productivity for the employer.

Go to Labour Market Outlook August 2007 edition

Useful contacts

References

FELGATE, G. (2006) Emission statements. People Management. Vol 12, No 11, 1 June. pp40-41.
Office based companies: maximising energy savings in an office environment. (2006) CTV007 sector overview. London: Carbon Trust. Available at: http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/publications/
DERA SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT UNIT. Sustainable-development.gov.uk. Available at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government
TRADE UNION SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE. (2005) Greening the workplace. London: TUC. Available at http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-9996-f0.cfm?theme=sustainableworkplace
TRADES UNION CONGRESS. Union learn with the TUC. Available at: http://www.unionlearn.org.uk/

The environment and people management