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Greening the Workplace With a Culture of Well-Being

Written by: Serge Charlebois

Article Overview: We often look at superficial ways to reduce our environmental impact and our consumption but until we solve the cultural problem at the root of our mindless consumerism, these solutions are simply band-aids that are bound to fall off sooner or later.

Greening the Workplace With a Culture of Well-Being

Transforming your workplace into an environmentally conscious one can seem like a daunting task. But it can also be an extremely rewarding personal experience for everyone involved and a very rewarding team-building and bonding exercise. Green living is something that more and more people are taking on in their personal lives and chances are a large part of your work-force has already made personal choices at home and are eager to see more responsible action taken at work.

If you read environmental literature or watch environmental cinema and documentaries, you’ll usually find a common thread. Environmentalists agree that the problem that is plaguing our planet today is not one of too much pollution or emissions of green-house gases, it isn’t the problem of toxic run-off and ground contamination from land-fills and agriculture or the problem of over-fishing and clear-cutting of old-growth forests and the destruction of ecosystems. Although those are all problematic events that we need to pay attention to, these are not actually the problems that have lead us to where we are today; they are the symptoms of the real problem which is a cultural problem and it’s a much bigger problem than all of the afore mentioned symptoms because this cultural problem is at the root of our destructive ways. We’ve created a culture of more, bigger and better. It’s a quantity-not-quality culture. It’s a culture driven by the economy and the media as opposed to our own passions and loves. It’s a culture of well-having as opposed to well-being. It’s a culture based around economic growth and the simple truth is: our planet can’t handle any more growth! These values have been imposed upon humans and many of us have bought into it whole-heartedly without even knowing what we singed up for.

If we hope to have more than a marginal success with any environmental initiatives, we need to ensure that our culture transforms from one of well-having to one of well-being.

The same is true in any work environment, you need to encourage and support your work-force to live in well-being if you really want your environmental initiatives to work. Someone who lives a life of well-being will see the value in green living at home and at work and reducing their consumption and making sustainable choices will make sense to him or her; it will seem like the right thing to do as opposed to a punishment or an unfair imposition. How can a culture of well-being be established? Reward your employees not with material wealth but with services that ensure their well-being. Organize yoga classes or a massage service or a fund-raising walk, run or biking event. Subsidise public transportation vouchers (tax write-off) and organise office car-pools to help your employees to not feel trapped into driving to work as their only option (this is especially important with gas prices on the rise again). Whatever you end up doing let it be known that you care about your employees’ well-being and that’s a big part of why you’re Greening their work-place.

If you don’t already have an environmental committee, open this opportunity up to employees. Your environmental committee will act as an ear for complaints and suggestions from the work-force and come up with plans of action to address these issues.

Once a course of action has been chosen, there’s a wonderful opportunity to give back to your employees as they give back to the company. Take half a day or a full day, cater organic, local foods for your employees, have an environmental workshop team come in and train people on what they can do on a personal level to maintain a green workplace then have everybody execute the eco-action plan together. Having your work-force participating in your company’s environmental initiatives is very important. It’s empowering the whole work-force as opposed to only a handful of volunteers in your environmental committee, it’s building a sense of ownership and responsibility and it’s strengthening relationships. For any environmental reform to work there has to be a sense of ownership and responsibility present. Everybody needs to know that they are just as responsible as the powers-that-be for the success of the endeavour.

You can introduce as many initiatives as you want but if nobody participates, they won’t work. This is why incentives like yoga classes, free lunches and transportation vouchers are important to reward your employees for taking on this positive shift in values and to encourage them to continue being committed to the cause. But nothing is more effective for establishing unity and effecting change than a leader who leads by example. The more the company leaders buy into their own initiatives and shift their personal culture from one of well-having to one of well-being and start biking to work and encouraging other employees to continue living green, the more this happens, the more people will jump on the wagon and the more planet earth and our survival on it will prosper.

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Article Tags: clear cutting, common thread, conscious one, daunting task, ecosystems, environmental initiatives, environmental literature, environmentalists, green house gases, ground contamination, marginal success, old growth forests, passions, personal choices, personal lives, quality culture, responsible action, rewarding personal experience, simple truth, transforming your workplace



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