Peer pressure persuades staff to go green

21/10/2008

Pressure from colleagues to adopt more environmentally friendly working practices has persuaded more than a third of staff to ‘go green’, a new study has revealed.

A further 42% said they supported environmental initiatives in the workplace because of their own environmental beliefs.

However, persuading staff to see the error of their ways in no simple task. The research revealed that a one-size-fits-all approach to behavioural change is inappropriate. A variety of factors were identified as potential green behaviours in the workplace.

Personal success came closely behind personal beliefs and peer pressure with one in six employees seeing career benefits from being seen to be green, while 17% expect direct financial rewards.

Wasteful behaviour by employees in office jobs increases energy consumption by 20%, costing UK forms over £157m every year. This set to rise further with energy prices for businesses having already risen 38% in 2008.

James Robey, head of corporate sustainability at Capgemini UK, who commissioned the research said: “Achieving the necessary change in business culture requires employee engagement and co-operation.

“From our experience, engaging employees and offering them simple, effective ways of changing their behaviours appears to deliver the most significant level of engagement. This can only be accomplished through strong leadership from the top combined with simple effective systems at the front line.”