Engaging with the outdoors to raise environmental and climate change awareness
As well as a positive approach to promoting wellbeing within the workforce many employees, and potential employees, view how organisations take positive action to address climate change and raise environmental awareness as a major motivational factor. Recent research has shown that over 90% of employees felt that how their employers approach the challenge of climate change was fundamental to their sense of wellbeing and levels of motivation, and vital to the future success and prosperity of the organisation.
Employees are aware of the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDG), which require organisations to demonstrate how they are helping to advance sustainable development , including by aligning to SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing covering mental and physical health) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). However, research shows that many employees (over 60%) are unclear on their organisation’s climate change commitments or indeed the actions being taken to meet those commitments.
Within millennials and younger workers there is a growing trend of ‘climate quitting’, whereby staff opt to find employment with organisations they perceive to have better environmentally credentials . Many (close to 50%) expect their employer to have a clear and tangible commitment to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues while a substantial minority (20%) have not taken up an offer of employment as they felt the employer’s ESG stance did not align their own personal values.
It seems clear therefore that in these times of restricted labour markets organisation can’t afford to ignore how their environmental and climate change credential are viewed by their staff and the wider the labour market if they want to attract and retain the best talent, particularly in the younger demographic.
A vital component of any effective environmental programme is that it has the buy in and active support of staff, requiring targeted efforts to raise awareness of the challenges as well as the actions being taken to manage them. For engagement programmes to be more than tokens their design must be based on a clear appreciation of the levels of climate and environmental knowledge held by staff and the employees’ own environmental goals. Employees need to not only understand the facts of climate change but be able to translate those into the implications for themselves and the employer organisation as well as their local environment and communities. With support and the wherewithal to act, they will be better placed to work together to inform the future of their organisations and communities.
When it comes to raising awareness of the environment and climate change, while at the same time demonstrating meaningful commitment to these pressing issues, taking a hands-on approach is key. Providing the space to purposefully engage with the outdoors while learning about the geology, flora, fauna and history of areas local to employees is a fantastic way to bring environmental awareness ‘alive’ and at the same time make the message of climate change impacts more individually pertinent. Done well such engagements enable people to connect with their outdoor destinations, to see the impacts of human induced climate change on their doorstep and go some way to personalising the imperative to work together to support climate action. They can also offer the chance to volunteer to support environmental focused projects, with the consequential benefits from such ‘giving’ including boosted self-esteem and feelings enhanced wellbeing.
When planning programmes that aim to raise climate change awareness and promote active engagement with environmental initiatives be sure to include time for people to immerse themselves in their local natural environments, to learn about the fragility of those environments and to better appreciate the necessity to act collectively to protect them.