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How to be a greener employee in an unsustainable workplace

The world’s most climate conscious generation shouldn’t spend the majority of their time in spaces that compromise their future.

The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime. Depending on decisions you make now, those 90,000 can be spent in complicit nonchalance towards climate degradation, or in green spaces. Learning how to speak up about environmental issues in the workplace is an essential skill of you want to be on the right side of this particular sliding door.

According to BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method), a sustainability assessment method for infrastructure and buildings, the most environmentally efficient office space in the world is currently soaking in the fumes (literally) of Amsterdam, prevailing despite stiff competition as the greenest thing in that city.

The Edge, whose biggest renter is Deloitte, has an outstanding BREEAM score of 98.36%. The building is entirely carbon neutral. Its extensive electricity needs are met by an armour of solar panels whilst it siphons heat from the ground for thermal regulation. It uses rainwater to flush toilets, and its 60-metre-high atrium has a central hole in its roof to ventilate the entire building.

Clearly, The Edge was designed with sustainability in mind, but this puts it in the minority. BREEAM’s modelling shows that modern office buildings can range from the climate productive, to the criminally negligent. The top 100 emitting companies in the world make up 71% of GHG emissions, with its footprint spanning its products, supply chain, buildings, and employees. Indeed, the urban spaces that are business’ natural habitat are usually populated by cloisters of high rises built before ‘climate’ and ‘crisis’ ever met in the same breath.

Buildings and construction together account for 36% of global final energy use and 39% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, with the corporate sector accounting for the lion’s share given their immense energy needs, plus trade and resource costs.

There are ways that we can make modern office spaces more energy efficient. As Abhinav Jain, environmental researcher at Duke University and advocate at new climate action platform YouChangeEarth, told Thred, ‘we can trace every ton of CO2 emitted to 32 square feet of ice irrevocably melted. This is on top of each ton being like planting a few trees. Small decisions in companies can offset tens or hundreds of this impact… and build a more resilient society and also often work towards improved company profits.’

Some of these decisions, like introducing a recycling system, are so easy you wonder why nobody in your company thought of it before. Unfortunately, the reason no one did is the same reason modern office spaces are overwhelmingly climate unfriendly: they’re mostly managed by older generations who, in general, are a few steps emotionally behind the urgency of environmental decline.

If each generation has its cross to bear, the climate crisis is surely ours. Like it or not, it’s up to Gen Z to convince our bosses that being climate conscious is actually better for business in the long run. After all, nothing puts a spanner in the works of capitalism like unpredictable natural disasters, disrupted international trade, and general economic implosion.

Luckily, Gen Z’s power as an employed (and employable) group is steadily increasing. As of 2020 we now makeup over 36% of the global workforce, and this will grow as we age into an economy that boomers are ageing out of. This gives us power. Employers know that for their businesses to have longevity they need to attract young, fresh talent – they need us. Gen Z are in a position to be picky about the standards we expect from our workplaces, and we can use our voice to advocate for change in business practices.

Given that speaking up in board meetings can be intimidating, especially if you’re the youngest in the room, here are some tips on how to be an office eco warrior without ruffling too many feathers:


Ask about your company’s CSR policy

Though in no place is it writ into federal law that companies must have a transparent strategy for social accountability, CSR or ‘corporate social responsibility’, is a form of soft law. It’s seen as best practice for all legitimate firms and businesses to have a CSR policy in order to avoid transnational tort liability and a bad reputation.

Examples of CSR initiatives would be internal policies such as improving labour practices, reducing their product’s overall carbon footprint, embracing fair trade, offsetting emissions from work related travel or exports, or engaging in charitable giving and volunteer efforts within local communities.

As a rule, big companies generally have CSR commitments on their website, and at the very least it should be available for employees to review. By asking your line managers to review the CSR you’re guaranteed a win/win – either you find out how your company is thinking about sustainability, or your employer is politely reminded that they’re in serious breach of common business practice.

If you do find that your company doesn’t have a CSR business model, suggest that one should be made. There are plenty of templates available that you can point management towards, such as this one, and ex-Facebook Sustainability leader, Bill Weihl, is building a ‘Climate Voice’ movement here.


Sow the right seeds in company discourse

You don’t need to be the loudest in the room to make the biggest impact. Sometimes, the best environmental advocacy is a few well-placed comments.

When new initiatives, products, or projects are introduced in company meetings, simply asking about their carbon impact can be incredibly valuable. If your company has no in-built sustainability department, these questions might have been overlooked.

Moreover, it’s entirely possible that by breaking the climate discourse barrier you’ll encourage colleagues to think differently too. Often those who didn’t grow up surrounded by climate stats are ignorant rather than malicious and are actually looking for Gen Z guidance on how to be woke in this new, scary world.

‘Simply bringing up “could we reduce our carbon emissions at all?” in meetings on staff get-aways, product design, supply chains, or simply moving offices, does NOT have to be pushy and can suddenly switch the group consciousness to reduce tons of CO2 emissions’, says Kathleen Benson, Co-Founder of the You Change Earth project.

Regardless of whether your company operates in the primary or secondary sector, chances are at some point it involves itself with other businesses, either as partners, or as a cog in a production line. One great way of ensuring an ethical portfolio is by certifying your business in bed with other responsible conglomerates. If your bosses are considering switching suppliers, distributors, mergers, or getting involved with a new business partner in any way, blemishes on their human or environmental justice records should be aired in a public forum. And, to ensure you’re a solution-oriented employee, do your own research into ethical alternatives you could suggest.

Once you’ve introduce the concept of a corporate climate footprint to the office, the cat’s out of the bag. The objective is to prompt potentially willing yet impotent colleagues into thinking about corporate ethics the way you do. The more it’s on their employee’s minds, the more pressure employers feel to cave to common consensus. You can stage your own quiet coup d’état.


Form an environmental committee, but keep it low key

If you’re anything like me, the idea of going around asking people to join your new green group feels a bit cringey, or potentially cliquey. But there are ways of going about it that aren’t overtly stratifying.

A great way to start is by finding out if anyone you work with lives in your area, or on your route in. Carpooling is socially responsible, and, again, it’s all about getting the cognitive ball rolling regarding the ease of reducing your carbon footprint (also, you’ve landed yourself a captive audience to casually bring up any potential climate sins you’ve identified in your shared workplace).

Once you have identified others who might be interested in pivoting your employers towards greener practices, they’ll likely be happy to help research climate solutions for your office. It’s easier to approach governing bodies about energy use if you have cheap, local solutions to offer, but doing this for all sectors of sustainable evolution is a daunting task for one person. Asking your colleagues to do even a small amount of investigation will likely have a big impact on them – often, people are only notionally aware of their carbon footprint and can only be shaken into action with stark statistics – and having backup is empowering when speaking out.

Four ways your office could be more environmentally friendly

It’s no coincidence that the world’s greenest office building is in The Netherlands. In Dutch, there’s a  novel term, ‘nieuw werken’, that, loosely translated, means: a new way of thinking about work and work environments. It’s defined as the trend towards designing workspaces and work cultures that nurture and enrich the individual holistically, thus maximising productivity.

The potential end of businesses as stuffy, traditional workspaces, even the end of the regular 9-5 model (COVID-19 has showed us that it’s both easy and environmentally efficient to work from home), raises the most fundamental questions about human experience, and we should never doubt our agency as workers regarding the standards we accept. As William Reynolds, another co-founder of YouChangeEarth, memorably told me as I prepared this article, ‘…a few employees as advocates often have more power than thousands of customers to get management to pay attention to the climate.’

It’s time that our morals as well as our creative energy was decolonised from unsustainable work practices. Those 90,000 hours can work for us, or they can work against us; we should inhabit that period consciously. It’s time for nieuw werken.

 

Whilst these are just a few simple suggestions on plugging in your environmental conscience at work, the guys over at YouChangeEarth have an extensive ‘Use your voice as an employee’ guide that includes advanced eco ratification ideas like asking for a sustainable retirement plan. In fact, their whole website is a treasure trove of resources and tips for the Gen Z environmentalist – we thoroughly recommend it.

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