This morning I facilitated a wonderful session of the Corporate Sustainability Mastermind Group. We had several new participants, so I picked a nice broad topic to let them get up to speed with how the group works: overcoming barriers to Sustainability.

One issue amongst many that came up was how to unleash the creativity and energy of employees who want to do something positive – or could do something positive given the opportunity. This will not only help your efforts, but it has been shown to make them perform better at their job too. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Reward success: I suggested that one of my clients, who valued innovation, add an annual Sustainability award to their list of innovation awards. Years later, they still seem to be doing it! Other organisations have found success by running Sustainability challenges (eg cutting paper use) between teams. The winner gets to pick a charity to donate the prize to.
• Don’t expect too much or too little of Sustainability Champions – see them as the oil in the engine, not the fuel (I know, I need a better metaphor). They will only be able to control what they can control, so challenge them to identify and change something within their immediate sphere of work.
• Whether with Champions or the wider employee base, run quick wins workshops to identify opportunities – or barriers to remove (often the most effective quick wins).
• Cascade Sustainability targets down through the organisation, translating them as you go, so managers at all levels will know they are expected to change the way they do business.
• Show change at ‘touch points’. One participant this morning told the story of a company who replaced a well known coffee chain at the business with a local company who, unlike the big chain, would provide reusable cups. That might be minor on the grand scale of Sustainability in a mega-corporation, but try claiming you are green while forcing employees to use disposable coffee cups. It doesn’t add up.