HR and the Environment « KnowHR Blog

HR and the Environment

Oct 15

What’s your HR department doing to show leadership on environmental issues? Sure, you recycle cans and bottles. You put all that paper from the printers and copiers in a bin. Heck, you even turn off the lights in your office when you’re not there. But it’s not enough.

Human resources — I’m talking about real, live people — deserve a clean and healthy environment that’s more than snazzy offices. And who’s better equipped to help with that than HR? Here are three things HR should consider right away to get their people thinking about the environment.

Talk to No Impact Man. Colin Beavan, No Impact Man, lives a mindful life in Manhattan with his wife and daughter. Read him. Consult him. Model him. Get a guy who’s living a no impact life to give you ideas. He’s got a thousand of them and has the legitimacy to speak about environmental issues on an individual scale. Your employees would be dazzled.
Watch “An Inconvenient Truth.” Al Gore won an Oscar for this film and a Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental advocacy. There are big ideas and small ones that people can get from the film. Make it available. Or at least make people aware. Start somewhere. And think about the ice in your cup. Like the Wicked Witch of the West and the polar ice cap, it’s melting.
Ask, “Why Recycle?” Yes, recycling is good, but step back and wonder whether you should be putting packaging into recycling at all. For instance, if you don’t drink bottled water you don’t have to recycle the package. That’s root cause thinking. Don’t think “recycling” when the real thought should be, “Do I really need this?”

Okay, that’s a start. There are over 150 million people working in the U.S. alone. If you’re in HR and looking for a cause, how about saving the world? Why think small?

About the Author

Frank Roche

Frank started IFRACTAL over 7 years ago with Sarah Chambers. Together, they've created HR communications and HR software for some of the world's leading companies. Frank is also studying Flamenco guitar and origami.