Do employees support and engage with corporate sustainability strategies? According to a new report, it depends.
Brighter Planet, an organization which uses "hard numbers and raw data" to explore opportunities and trends in sustainability, has released the results of its second biennial survey on employee engagement with sustainability, and discovered several important trends.
Brighter Planet states that since 2009, they have found that corporate sustainability programs are "becoming less effective as they spread." Their results suggest that "employee weariness at ineffective sustainability initiatives could undermine promising progress."
Additionally, they found that the most effective companies are those that promote a breadth of sustainability programs, especially in "emerging green issues like procurement, water use, and business travel," and companies that make a point of collecting data on "their footprint, the impact of staff travel and commuting, and employee sustainability efforts."
The organization writes that its survey includes responses from almost 1,000 individuals in 47 states and 51 countries, including employees from "WalMart, Visa, UPS, Coca-Cola, Exxon, McDonalds, the U.S. Government, and many other leading organizations."
If you're weary of companies that may be "greenwashing," check out HuffPost blogger Candice Batista's list of resources for sifting through companies' environmental claims. Click here to view advertisements from companies that may have less than sustainable intentions.
To read Brighter Planet's full report on employee sustainability engagement, click here.