Environmentally friendly initiatives can have positive effect on employee engagement, costs and customer attraction
Last year, several hundred employees of the Delta Chelsea Hotel in Toronto took tours at Turtle Island Recycling. The visits helped get employees more engaged in green initiatives by providing a big picture of what happens to the waste from the hotel and the impact on the environment.
“Those tours made a huge difference because our (recycling) results drastically improved after those visits,” says Tracy Ford, public relations manager at the Delta Chelsea. “It’s made such a difference in what our goals are with the hotel.”
In 2008, 76 per cent of all waste from the hotel was recycled and, as of February this year, that figure had risen to 81 per cent, says Ford. Much of that success is attributed to a green team made up of representatives from various departments, such as stewarding, catering and housekeeping, that sets up a strategic plan and updates the hotel’s environmental policy.
To spread the word, employee orientation includes a presentation on the hotel’s green initiatives and policies, an internal newsletter dedicates a page to the environment, elevator posters and message boards on employee floors tout the cause and a health and wellness day profiling the green team challenges employees to take a quiz for prizes.
The Delta Chelsea has also set the goal to be carbon-neutral by the end of this year. To help, the hotel recently launched a LivClean Eco-Stay Program where guests can voluntarily pay $1 per stay to support emission-reduction projects. This will enable environmental initiatives within the hotel, facilitate assessment and reporting of its environmental impact and assist in the development and expansion of the Green Key Program, an “eco-mmodation” rating — the hotel has been awarded a four green-key rating out of five.
All these efforts were recognized with an energy and environmental award from the Hotel Association of Canada in February.
“We’re really thrilled about that because, up until that point, we didn’t feel we could start boasting some of our efforts but our efforts are now being recognized by a very credible organization,” says Ford.
Going forward, the hotel is working on establishing an environmentally friendly purchasing policy by assessing all suppliers and setting benchmarks for future purchases. It also hopes to incorporate a green channel on guest room TVs. And to get a better understanding of the impact green initiatives have on employee engagement, the hotel intends to include questions on the green program in its annual employee survey.
“If you’re looking at ways to drive that engagement higher or even if you’re a company trying to get on that (top employer) list, this is a really effective issue because it resonates with so many people,” says Vancouver-based Glen Soule, HR solutions architect at Ceridian.
The HR consulting firm recently calculated its 265 virtual workers avoid 2.5 million kilometers of travel and 728 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
“Here’s an HR policy that just so happens to have this tremendous, positive effect environmentally, which is also quantifiable. And our highest engagement scores are with virtual workers,” says Soule.
A recent survey by Buck Consultants of 93 companies in the United States shows about one-half (54 per cent) are incorporating environmental management into business operations, and more than 60 per cent have made environmental responsibility part of the corporate mission statement.
“It looks like some of the initiatives companies are taking are not only just to be green but to be green with a purpose,” says St. Louis-based Don Sanford, managing director of the communications practice at Buck Consultants. “And that translates into things that help reduce cost and drive profitability and maintain or sustain resources.”
For now, the most popular HR programs related to the environment or sustainability are using the Internet or teleconferencing to cut down on travel (78 per cent), putting company information online (77 per cent), promoting the reduction of paper usage (76 per cent), wellness programs (68 per cent), teleworking opportunities (57 per cent), ride/share programs (52 per cent) and green communications (40 per cent).
BMO sees green savings
The notions of being environmentally responsible and reducing costs are not mutually exclusive, says Jim Johnston, director of environmental sustainability at BMO Financial in Toronto. The bank has several green programs and activities, such as discounted monthly transit passes, used by about 4,000 employees, a fleet of fuel-efficient business vehicles and eco-friendly promotional products distributed through branches.
BMO has also built five branches registered for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification — making them 55 per cent more energy efficient — and two of its locations in Chicago are geo-thermally powered. The company may not build every branch that way but learns from the experience and “ups its game” with other buildings, says Johnston. And all newly opened branches are powered from renewable sources of electricity such as Bullfrog Power.
In 2008, BMO became the first financial institution in Canada to achieve certification for the internationally recognized standard ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems, for an office tower in downtown Toronto. The process identifies acts in the building, such as printing a paper document, and the impact they have on the environment, says Johnston, and about 35 volunteer employees participate in the project.
“We’re having significant success with the notion of environmental ambassadors; we’re starting to spread the tentacles,” he says. “You would have thought it would have been more younger folks, but not necessarily.”
BMO also signed on with One Million Acts of Green, an online initiative by Cisco and the CBC that encourages Canadians to log their green acts while a “green” calculator determines the impact on the environment.
Employers can use the online network as an overlay to company programs, says Willa Black, vice-president of corporate marketing at Cisco in Toronto. Employees at Fairmont Hotels, for example, spontaneously created groups on the site so the hotel decided to join in, promoting the sustainable seafood served in its restaurants and its Soles 4 Souls shoe drive.
They’re reaching out not only to employees to encourage them to be more green but they’re also reaching out to their customers, says Black.
“We knew, going out to corporations and businesses of all sizes, that there was an opportunity for them to really gain good exposure for what they were doing and to try to rally more enthusiasm amongst their employees for what they were doing, at no cost,” she says. “Organizations that are willing to participate and take some leadership here are demonstrating to their employees that they’re good corporate citizens and they care.”
A must-have?
If HR is looking for something that can turn some heads, engage the workforce and can really show some good and pull in management, this is the way to go, says Ceridian’s Soule. And the move to greener pastures could be more of a must-have than a nice-to-have.
In 2006, Ceridian was asked by one supplier to detail its corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental policies, forcing the firm to formalize its approach.
“If anything gets management’s attention, it is when there’s business on the line,” he says. “That’s not a slight against them (but) that finally makes them realize this isn’t just employee rumblings.”
The green movement is also showing up as an issue in recruiting efforts, particularly with younger people, says Soule.
“When that young worker shows up at an interview and, during the process, asks that manager what is their CSR policy, they’d better know what ‘CSR’ stands for, number one, and they might want to have a couple of examples.”
