Tomorrow I’m running a waste workshop for a small manufacturing company (you wouldn’t know their name, but you’d know some of the brands they manufacture). The whole structure of the workshop is designed to embed the underlying principles into the thinking of the participants. In fact the reason for having a workshop rather than doing a “clipboard consulting” walkover review is to develop sustainable solutions owned by the company employees, not by me.
There is no Powerpoint (hurrah!) because I want them to come up with the answers rather than me preaching to them. So the technology comes down to the humble flipchart and pen. I will elicit the drivers for going green for them, because I want them to think about them rather than having to sell those drivers to them. We will be developing a model of their company and identifying where opportunities to make improvements lie.
This approach has three benefits:

• We get to harness their brainpower, experience and knowledge to identify problems and solutions rather than just my expertise;

• They own the solutions, making it far more likely they will be implemented effectively;

• The enthusiasm generated by this approach can lead to further spontaneous solutions appearing in the future.

For these reasons, I’m increasingly finding that my consultancy, staff engagement and training projects are converging in an amorphous single beast. Training makes more sense if learning is applied to the organisation concerned and consultancy is much more likely to ‘stick’ if there is a capacity building/engagement element.
Whether or not you engage an outside provider to help you green your organisation, I thoroughly recommend going down the workshop approach. So put away those clipboards and get out those flipcharts!