The issue
When considering environmental impact, lots of research has focused on how people behave at home or as consumers. Behaviour in the workplace has been largely ignored. However, a UK full-time employee spends almost a quarter of their week in the workplace.
Workplaces can be very energy and resource intensive. Computers, printers, lifts, waste recycling, heating and air conditioning all consume energy and contribute to carbon emissions. People behave very differently in the workplace, where they don’t pay the bills and aren’t explicitly rewarded for pro-environmental behaviour.
The research
The team examined a range of organisations and interventions. They investigated how pro-environmental behaviours, and their antecedents and facilitators, differ across organisation types.
They studied how interventions to encourage positive behaviour were tailored to each individual workforce, from traditional communications such as posters and emails, to competitions between departments.
Their research highlighted how corporate social responsibility and the encouragement of pro-environmental behaviour can work alongside each other. It also revealed where interventions can go wrong, prompting negative reactions from employees. Finally, insights into the process of developing interventions helped to identify best practice for teams involved in this type of work.
The outcome
Using their findings, alongside a growing body of complementary research, the team has helped to develop social marketing interventions to encourage employees to act to reduce impacts on the environment.
The work has led to successful interventions in organisations as wide ranging as universities, heritage tourism, the NHS and beyond.
