Happy Earth Day from Corporate Training Materials! What started as a US National holiday following a massive oil spill has turned into a global movement being observed for its 52nd year.
The inception of Earth Day in 1970 resulted in the beginning of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
Every year since, April 22nd is a day to recognize the importance of advocating, spreading awareness, and taking action on climate change.
A major area to influence and take action on environmental sustainability is in corporations and businesses. This week’s blog post is some of our favorite tips and tricks that you can pass on to your trainees to implement in their workplaces.
Encourage reducing waste in both training and the workplace as a whole
When you have a company, you have the potential to create a lot of waste. There are seven different types of pollution:
- Air Pollution: Contaminates like smoke or hazardous gases being put in the air. Example: Burning Coal, Paint fumes, and Exhaust from cars.
- Land Pollution: Contamination of the world’s surface due to improper disposal of waste. Examples: Littering, Illegal dumping, Oil Spills (inland), and using pesticides for farming.
- Light Pollution: the inability to view the stars due to the brightening of the night sky because of improper lighting. Example: Streetlamps without a hood.
- Noise Pollution: loud noises that disturb humans, animals, or other wildlife. Examples: Noises from automobiles, loud concerts or sporting events, and demolition.
- Thermal Pollution: When human activity increases the temperature. Example: Using cold lake water to cool off machinery, and then returning the now warmed water to the lake.
- Visual Pollution: Manmade visual aids that are visually displeasing. Examples: Graffiti on rocks, Billboards, Junkyards, and litter.
- Water Pollution: contamination of lakes, oceans, or any other body of water. Example: Illegal Chemical dumping, oil spills (on a body of water), and Raw sewage.
Large companies have the ability to create fantastic amounts of merchandise, which comes with a significant amount of waste. It should be a core value to be mindful of environmental preservation in every process of an organization. Be sure to remind your trainees of the benefits of this. Not only are they helping the environment, but they will also positively contribute to their company’s reputation and corporate culture. Steps to making your company more environmentally friendly could be as easy as recycling discarded paper, or extravagant as designing new processing machines to reduce or eliminate smoke. You can also provide training on corporate social responsibility as a whole with our Developing Corporate Behaviour Workshop.
In the context of an office environment, today’s technological climate makes it easier than ever to have a paperless office. With document sharing platforms like google docs, Microsoft Office, and various other cloud and digital computing services, collaborating without paper is entirely possible and sometimes even more convenient with work from home becoming more mainstream.
The effort to go paperless can also be implemented as a trainer. Online learning effectively eliminates the use of paper, and your instructor-led training can easily minimize its paper use. The PowerPoint slides allow for paperless content delivery, and you can give your trainees the option to print their training manual or use a digital device to view it by emailing the training manual ahead of time and letting them decide what is best for their learning style.
This leaves you only needing to print out worksheets and maybe quizzes (if you want them to be written). Being mindful of your paper usage will add up, and if you explain to your trainees why you work towards reducing your paper usage, you may inspire them to find ways to implement going paperless in their own workplaces.
Encourage starting a green committee in your trainee’s workplaces
Working towards a more environmentally sustainable organization shouldn’t only be one day a year. If your trainees are looking for a way to set and meet greener objectives, encourage them to start a Green Committee within their workplaces. This can be a voluntary or appointed committee that meets once or twice a month to brainstorm and implement greener initiatives that fit into the organization.
The best way to get started is by gauging interest. Once you set up your first meeting, you can assign roles and develop a mission statement for your committee. Next, decide on the specific tactics you will start to roll out. Ensure you are communicating with the organization as a whole to update them on the goals and objectives you are working on and be open to feedback. This could be done through a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter.
Tell your trainees that having an established team with a finger on the pulse of the current and ever-changing environmental factors will help them better determine their needs to make practical, sustainable change.
Lead trainees to appropriate resources
As a corporate trainer, you have a unique opportunity and platform to spread important messages that your trainees can take with them into their workplace. Sometimes simply spreading the proper information and resources is an ideal way to plant a seed and get your trainees thinking of research they can do to positivley impact their environmental footprint in the workplace.
Below are some resources you can direct your trainees to if they would like to learn more about climate change:
EARTHDAY.ORG is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 150,000 partners in over 192 countries to drive positive action for our planet.
Greenpeace is a network of independent organizations, which uses peaceful, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and develop solutions for a green and peaceful future.
ClimateChangeResources.org was made to help people navigate the complex challenges of climate change. They aim to provide understanding and also to reveal the paths to action.
https://climatechangeresources.org/mission-statement/
Since its inception in 1972, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been the global authority that sets the environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.
Conclusion
These topics are ideal to discuss in teamwork, leadership, or organizational culture workshops. But ultimately, encouraging environmental sustainability and including the topic in any of your training workshops can be a great way to incorporate some social responsibility in your brand as a trainer.
We hope our tips and tricks were helpful and the entire staff at CTM wishes you a Happy Earth Day!
Posted by Katelyn Roy on
Brief and insightful. I will definitely adopt this forthwith and also pass it on. Thank you