5
Engage your colleagues
Colleagues are your best analysts, advisors and advocates. Bring them on board.
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Why you should take this step
Passionate people are a vital component in your carbon neutrality journey. Engaged colleagues may even help you reach your goal faster than expected, as individuals commit to reducing the emissions they are able to influence. Driving widespread organizational and cultural change requires investment of time and resources, but the rewards are great.Questions on your mind
- How can I draw on expert insights across my business?
- Can I cut the cost of external partners by collaborating with in-house data analysts?
- What’s the best way to develop advocates who can inspire other colleagues to engage?
- Will achieving carbon neutrality create more motivated employees?
When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.
- Howard Schultz, former CEO, StarbucksFind your advocates
Try to explain your carbon neutrality ambition. You’ll see a range of reactions – confusion, indifference, skepticism, excitement, pride and more! Start with colleagues who are furthest along the engagement journey, and build a ‘coalition of the willing’ with representatives from every department. Then, activate these advocates to bring other colleagues onboard.
Make it understandable
Carbon neutrality is not easy to understand. As a leader, your job is to turn this abstract concept into a specific and relatable goal for all employees. Use real-life examples to illustrate your emission sources, and outline specific ways employees can help reduce your emissions (Step 6). Keep your explanation clear and concise – you can always add complexity upon demand (and invite your colleagues to dive into the 10 Steps to Becoming a Carbon Neutral Business)!Back to basics
Our employee engagement drive began with a clear ambition: create the simplest-possible carbon neutrality explanation. Avoiding technical nuances, we introduced a more relatable concept: balance. Essentially, carbon neutrality is our commitment to balancing the emissions we produce, with the emissions we reduce or offset.Watch: the game that could change the world!
A simple, cardboard game is the most successful way we’ve engaged colleagues. During LM Wind Power’s 2018 leadership summit, we introduced our game – ‘Go carbon neutral in 30 minutes’ – to help our top 130 leaders understand and become advocates for CleanLM.Play our game
To play, teams simulate how to take a fictional organization carbon neutral. In the process, they need to agree on the best route, from both a financial and reputation perspective. Since this first outing, we’ve played this game with various stakeholders – new employees, business leaders in Denmark and even with roundtable participants at the 2018 Sustainable Development Goals Summit in Brussels. Get in touch to learn more.