On Wednesday I was at an event organised by CIPD North East for HR professionals. I’d been asked to come along by my colleague Tracy Scurry of Newcastle University Business School as she was facilitating a discussion session on the role of human resources on sustainability and she thought my experiences would add to the conversation.

As is often the case in these sessions, the interesting thing is the ‘journey’ that delegates go on. At the start, the discussion was centred around how people could be persuaded to behave in a sustainable way, by the end, it had evolved to focus on how to keep up with the sustainability demands of current and future employees. That’s quite a change in perspective and the change in mindset of delegates alone made the session worthwhile, never mind all the hints and tips.

By chance, when I got home, I came across a zingy quote in a WBCSD document:

CSR – HR = PR

Actually, I’m not sure it is strictly true. Surveys suggest on 10% of business drive CSR/sustainability through HR (although that figure had doubled in the last few years). But it is certainly true that if employees are not involved, they will tend to see any CSR project as greenwash and the project will almost certainly be less effective than it would without the involvement.

Whether employee involvement in sustainability is driven by HR is a different matter… but if you want to engage your HR department in sustainability, it’s a flattering quote!