Employee engagement and the bottom line 

A new study by finds that environmental and sustainability employee education and engagement initiatives help companies achieve a range of business objectives from attracting and retaining employees to boosting the bottom line. 

Those findings, along with examples featuring some of the nation’s leading companies, come from the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) Business & Environment programme in “The Business Case for Environmental and Sustainability Employee Education.” 

“While in the past, most environmental education programmes were primarily for environmental safety and health employees, many companies now realise that to achieve their sustainability goals, they need to involve the entire workforce (or all their employees),” said Diane Wood, president of the National Environmental Education Foundation. “Successful employee engagement programmes motivate employees and can be an asset in recruitment and retention." 

The publication takes an in-depth look at examples where companies saved money, improved efficiency, built stronger customer relations  - or succeeded in doing all three  - through E&S education programmes, presenting a compelling business case for environmentally literate employees. Company examples indicate that while there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to E&S education, engaging employees at every level of the company is essential to successful initiatives. 

But educational programmes must compete for resources, so building a strong business case for an E&S education programme can be as important as building the program itself. The publication also includes best practices, next steps and resources for making the business case for E&S education.  

“When it comes to looking at ways to reduce our footprint, we see a direct correlation between reducing our costs and engaging our employees. The Business Case white paper highlights such correlations,” said Carrie Freeman, corporate sustainability strategist at Intel. 

“The case studies in this report demonstrate that employee environmental education and engagement helps a business achieve its sustainability goals while also reducing costs,” said Margaret Lindeman, sustainability strategist at Lockheed Martin. 

The white paper is a companion publication to “The Engaged Organisation,” released last spring. A survey undertaken as part of the publication found that a majority of companies surveyed (65 percent) value environmental and sustainability knowledge in their employees and that more than three out of four surveyed said that knowledge will increase in importance as a hiring factor within five years.