How to manage the ecological transition in companies?

Faced with the climate emergency, it is now essential to place environmental and societal issues at the heart of your company’s concerns and to commit it to the ecological transition. To activate this change and get employees on board with this transformation, several good managerial practices can be activated.

 

The ecological transition: an essential CSR challenge

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the actions deployed within an organization to meet the challenges of sustainable development.

Since 2019 (Article 1833 of the Civil Code), all organisations, regardless of their size and sector of activity, must deploy a CSR policy that takes into account the social and environmental challenges of their activity.

In addition to this regulatory imperative, implementing a CSR approach and embarking your company in the ecological transition makes it possible to:

• Save water and energy;
• Strengthen its competitive advantage;
• Giving meaning to work;
• Strengthen the commitment and sense of belonging of the teams;
• Improving the quality of life at work;
• Enhance your employer brand and attract talent;
• Enhance your brand image with stakeholders (customers, business partners, suppliers, etc.);
• …

 

Our advice for managing the ecological transition in business

• Raise awareness and train your teams

To ensure the commitment of employees to such a project, it is first and foremost necessary to help them understand the issues related to this change, as well as the individual and collective benefits.

To generate this awareness, it is possible to organize events in this direction: training, conferences, webinars, individual and collective coaching sessions, Climate fresco workshops, individual carbon assessments, etc.

• Getting employees on board with the ecological transition

The success of the ecological transition of a company is directly linked to the commitment and involvement of employees. Unfortunately, According to a study conducted in 2020, only 8% of employees were invited to integrate CSR into their business practice, while 7 out of 10 employees said they were ready to invest more.

The manager must therefore involve his teams in the company’s strategic orientations, in CSR and in the actions carried out in favor of the ecological transition.

It is therefore essential to adopt a participative management style, which promotes collective intelligence, initiative and exchange. In particular, the manager will be able to encourage employees to share their ideas to activate and accelerate the ecological transition.

This also requires close communication, desiloed, between the different departments of the company. In particular, it is recommended to communicate regularly about the actions carried out and the benefits generated at the environmental level. This will allow the teams to see the impact of the initiatives carried out in a tangible way and will help strengthen their commitment.

To strengthen the management of your ecological transition, it is also possible to appoint a CSR manager. The latter will be responsible for supervising the actions, developing the social responsibility policy and carrying out regular reports to monitor the results according to success indicators.

• Encouraging eco-gestures internally

In addition, several actions can be deployed internally to get your company on board with the ecological transition and reduce the environmental impact of the activity.

Thus, the manager can encourage and reward virtuous behaviors and eco-responsible gestures in his team, such as:

• Reduce waste;
• Implement selective sorting;
• Reduce or even eliminate the use of paper, cups, caps, plastic bottles;
• Limit energy consumption (turn off computers, unplug electrical appliances, etc.);
• Favour the least polluting transport (public transport, carpooling, cycling, etc.);
• Offering a responsible catering offer, with local products;
• Create ecological facilities (vegetable garden, beehives, etc.);
• Implement teleworking ;
• …

Other actions can be implemented on a larger scale to contribute to the protection of the environment and reduce the carbon footprint of the activity:

• Improve the energy performance of the premises;
• Use a renewable energy supplier;
• Reduce waste production;
• Reduce water and energy consumption;
• Assess and reduce the environmental impact of the supply chain;
• Buying responsibly by turning to environmentally friendly products and suppliers.

Before any action is taken, a detailed audit will first be required to assess the sources of direct and indirect emissions and define an appropriate action plan.

• Call on a CSR interim manager

Managing your company’s ecological transition is a time-consuming process, which can be very difficult to manage internally. To ensure the success of This change management can be very beneficial to call on an interim manager who is a specialist in CSR.

At WAYDEN, we are able to mobilise an interim CSR manager, whose expertise and interpersonal skills have been proven. This seasoned expert, with more than 20 years of career, will be able to effectively unblock resistance to change, to embark, federate and motivate employees in this large-scale project. Immediately operational as soon as he or she arrives at the company, he or she will also help managers and management to define appropriate CSR actions and activate the right levers for an effective and sustainable ecological transition.