Employees turning their workplaces green

JAN Juc’s Laura Wilson is one of a growing number of employees who want their workplaces to do more to respond to climate change and are “greenskilling” themselves to help make it happen.

Ms Wilson has worked for international mountain bike company Specialized for more than a decade, and recently developed her role as strategic initiatives manager to help accelerate the company’s climate action.

She said she was originally curious to learn more about climate change and how she could have a positive impact.

“I want to influence what our future looks like and be part of a company who is fully focused on climate change.”

Ms Wilson joined the WorkforClimate Academy, run by Australian non-government organisation WorkForClimate, and credited the course for helping supercharge her workplace towards ambitious climate action and also growing her confidence, knowledge and passion for maintaining a safe and liveable planet.

“The course has given me a framework for taking action,” she said.

“It’s helped me understand what levers to pull here and there, how to apply pressure at different levels of the business and how I can find allies, because you can’t do it all alone.”

She used WorkforClimate’s playbook on switching to renewable energy to help transition Specialized’s Australian headquarters and three of its Australian retail locations to renewable energy providers.

“We sent an email to all our retailers about the switch and actually heard back from several of them saying they’d been influenced by us to do the same thing,” she said.

“It’s amazing the power that you can have as a business.”

Ms Wilson has also implemented a Sustainability Playbook and Sustainability Champions Program for Specialized’s offices around the world.

Research from Deloitte shows companies are feeling considerable pressure from their employees to act on climate change and that activism in the workplace was leading to action, with half of executives saying their organisations had increased sustainability actions as a result.

WorkforClimates director Lucy Piper believed the rise of workplace climate activism was challenging the definition of what made someone an “activist”.

“Climate activism doesn’t always look like climate activism,” she said.

“By educating, upskilling and uniting climate-concerned employees, we’re building a movement of climate leaders (or activists) who are using their outsized impact to decarbonise and mobilise their organisations, without glueing their hands to a Monet.”

She predicated “climate activist” would become a mainstream profession in 2024.

“We need the corporate world to move faster on decarbonisation if we want to meet our net-zero targets,” she said.

“But that doesn’t mean all businesses need to hire climate experts.

“They should be upskilling their existing employees who are passionate about sustainability and who are willing to learn the tools, frameworks and leadership skills needed to drive climate action within the business.”