Opportunity to train teams on sustainability practices to prepare for future office returns and creative ways to host employee “fun events” to continue fostering community while at home.
Sustainability within a business often requires process and behavior changes. We have found that providing training and employee engagement opportunities are key to making these changes stick. It's also a great way to foster dialogue and generate shared purpose on the topic of environmental sustainability.
Here are a few recent training programs that we developed and implemented for clients with success.
Zero Waste Events
Yes, we did a zero-waste events training during the pandemic. This was a great time to get people prepared and planning for how they will host zero waste events when the times comes for people to get together again in person. Zero waste events require planning and gaining buy in from vendors and other staff members. The company we worked with hosts many events a year and this was a dedicated training hour for the teams to understand what it takes to host zero waste events, learn about how to evaluate the options for food/drink/décor/serving-ware and how to communicate and encourage attendees to participate in making the event zero waste. At the end of the training, we asked the team to start developing their zero waste event planning manual!
Sustainable Purchasing
We hosted a webinar on this topic and worked with a client to train their facility teams to incorporate sustainable purchasing into their buying behavior. Often times, purchasing within corporations for the day-to-day items happens with not enough thought for the environmental impact of the items.
We conducted a training with the purchasing teams to give them the information necessary to re-think what they purchase. And with most people working from home for the time being, this is an opportunity for the teams to spend the time researching and putting into place new environmentally preferred purchasing policies (EPP).
We walked through the components of an EPP and helped the teams kick off the work. Topics include sustainable purchasing and materials management of office supplies, furniture, food, beverages, event collateral and much more.
General Sustainability in the Office
With folks working from home, it might seem weird to do a training about sustainability in the office. But this is a great time for sustainability teams and office managers to think about how things can be different when employees come back to the office. Not only will employees need training on how to dispose of their PPE (hopefully they are using reusable ones) but it is an opportunity to re think the recycling and waste bin setup, signage and new sustainability programs. We do trainings to help sustainability teams start the process of rethinking their sustainability programs while staying safe during the current pandemic.
Each of these trainings can be further customized to meet the goals of your team. In addition to the topics above, companies can host fun employee engagement programs to find ways for employees to connect with each other even if they are not in the office together – we host DIY programs where we share recipes to make beauty / personal care products at home, discuss how to incorporate sustainability at home and even do zero waste arts & crafts with kids.
If this sounds of interest to your team please get in touch at info@thinkzero.com