5 Questions to Ask Before Going Green At Work
1. What Does ‘Going Green’ At Work Mean?
There are many definitions of ‘going green’ and while most of them revolve around taking actions that reduce an organization’s negative impact on the environment, ‘going green’ will look different at each organization.
When considering ‘going green’ for your organization, the first question to ask – what would that look like for us?
If you’re at a small travel agency, it may include offering suggestions around hotels, activities and locations that are eco-friendly as well as ‘greening’ your office.
If you’re an entrepreneur who works remotely with her/his team, it may mean reviewing your vendors (such as your web hosting company, your CRM tool, and your video conferencing company) to see if they are ‘green’.
If you work at a restaurant, it may mean looking at ways to reduce energy use, since restaurant use five to seven times more energy per square foot than other commercial buildings, according to the EPA.
What does ‘going green’ look like for your organization? What are the top three things that come to mind?
2. Why Go Green At Work?
While there are many great reasons to go green aside from the positive impact on the planet, it is important to figure out the top two to three reasons that resonate the most with your organization’s culture.
Continuing with the above examples, if you work at a travel agency, you may have found that some of your customers are asking for eco-friendly travel alternatives. Therefore, for your organization, you will want to consider it because your customers are asking for it.
If you are an entrepreneur with a remote team, choosing a web hosting company that has installed solar panels, for example, means reducing the risk of your website going down during a bad storm. The majority of web hosting companies have multiple back-ups, but the rise in frequency and severity of adverse weather means that power interruption across the country – and world – is a very real thing. Clearly, the likelihood of this happening is typically very low – this is just an illustrative example to encourage you to think differently about your ‘why’.
Lastly, if you work at a restaurant, identifying ways to reduce energy use means reducing operational costs, which is key in an industry with relatively low profit margins.
What is your organization’s ‘why’? And what is your personal ‘why’ for going green at your organization?
3. Who Cares About Going Green?
When looking at implementing a ‘green’ – or any – project, it’s important to identify your supporters, both within the organization and externally.
Is ‘going green’ something that would fit in well with your organization’s long-term goals?
Does going green align with where your industry is heading?
Would it position you as a leader within your industry– and is that important to decision-makers within your organization?
These are examples of questions to ask when considering going green. Clearly, it should be important for your customers or clients (‘green’ is for both B2C or B2B). The good news is that the majority of demographics – from Baby Boomers to Millennials to Gen Zers (and even GenXers!) care about going green, so it is highly likely that your customer/clients care.
In the above example of the travel agency, it is clear that the customers care – they want to support establishments that support the planet.
In the case of a remote entrepreneurial business, clearly it depends on your products and/or services, and it may very well be that your colleagues care. If you’re a start-up or part of a small team, even if everyone is working remotely, you are likely working long hours. Knowing that you work for an organization that not only cares about the product/service that it is delivering, but also about being a good environmental and community steward has been shown to increases job satisfaction and productivity.
If you work in a restaurant, management likely cares about the money that is being spent on overhead, and would likely welcome ways to reduce those costs.
Who in your organization and outside of it cares about going green? Make a list of the top one to three groups.
4. Why Do They Care?
You have now identified the main groups within and/or outside of your organization who are supporters of your organization going green. Great!
What motivates them to care about this? What is their personal agenda?
This question is important because answering it will enable you to craft a position for a green project that is more likely to obtain their support. While it is easy – though not simple – to start a ‘green’ project, the path forward is much smoother if you have internal and external supporters.
Some questions to ask the groups that you identified include:
How does our organization ‘going green’ support what you are doing work-wise?
How does our organization ‘going green’ align with your beliefs/values?
What do you care most about in relation to going green? Is it the internal benefits (e.g. reduced operational expenses, increased productivity, risk management) or the external benefits (e.g. additional sales and clients/customers as a result of going green, enhanced brand performance, increased access to capital, positive impact on the planet, grow goodwill within the community, etc…).
Be sure to reach out to representatives from your supporters and find out why they care.
5. Where To Start With Going Green?
Given that most organizations have a tight budget and limited time – and you likely do too - it is advisable to start with a small, low-cost project. You can use the information that you gleaned from answering the above four questions to guide the type of project as well as the messaging related to making the business case for the project.
If you are looking for a list of projects to get started, a great starting place is our free Beginner’s Guide to Going Green, which provides a list of 50+ projects to get started.