4 Questions you need to be asking if you want engagement on your Sustainability Initiatives?
Polls show the employees and tenants of the built environment want sustainability but are we rolling it out in a way that they can participate?
Think about it for a moment, it’s five o’clock, or more likely six, you’ve been on calls all day, concentrating on projects, doing what we do. You are tired, you know you need to eat healthy, but you are just exhausted. In fact, you might even just skip dinner and grab a drink to try to unwind. One thing is for sure; you are not about to start an hour of cooking accompanied by an hour of prep. Well, most likely not.
We all experience that moment from time to time when we are just overwhelmed, we just don’t have time, and we just need to take the easy path. When it comes to diet, well, that easy path is probably grabbing something made by someone else. To improve the flavor, they add fat and sugar in places you never dreamed had you made it yourself. They package it in disposable, often one-time use plastics, and without a second thought, you may have very possibly just thwarted your own goals if eating healthier is one of your goals.
You may be wondering how this is in any way related to sustainability, but to effectively engage, we have to understand who we are engaging with. We scratch our heads and wonder sometimes, why do people not recycle? Why do they not turn out the lights? Why do they not try to reduce their energy bill and consumption?
The answer is often; they are busy. Living in the short term, not thinking about the long term. They may kick themselves when they get the electric bill 30 days from now, but right now, in the moment, they just don’t want to think about it. These decisions have impacts on both ourselves and the communities that we live in.
Let’s think for a moment about that community and the trajectory of the planet that community is on. The last seven years have been the hottest seven years on record (Source). We are producing greenhouse gasses at a rate greater than the earth can absorb; in fact, the CO2 levels are higher than they have been for the last 800,000 years (Source). While we keep increasing those greenhouse gasses, we are removing tree cover at an increasing pace; in 2020, over 100,000 miles of forest were lost (Source). Wildfires are increasingly removing more trees and killing people in the process. Storms are increasing in size and frequency. Sea Levels are rising at an increasing pace. There is a real reason to be concerned.
When polled, not only are we concerned, but an increasing number of our tenants also claim sustainability is important. The media shows us the data over and over. It seems well known what steps we need to take, but we aren’t. The actions taken are not on the scale needed to truly effect change. It’s not that we don’t care; it’s that we don’t have time. We are too busy focusing on the next minute to consider what might happen tomorrow.
How often are we looking at our portfolio? We know we need to identify opportunities to make changes, but we are so busy, we just don’t have the time or resources to identify where those opportunities are. Kind of like the six pm decision I described earlier. The urgent takes the place of what is important.
Our engagement strategy has to consider the hamster wheel that many of us are stuck on to be successful. One strategy is to address the wheel itself. That strategy is incorporating wellness into your sustainability strategy. Wellness plays a critical role at both work and home, and from a built environment perspective, it is actually a key component to effective sustainability engagement. Not only do we promote healthier and more productive environments through wellness strategies, but we can also promote less stressful environments.
Stress has an interesting effect on us. According to this Yale study, when we experience stress, our brains turn off the frontal cortex, where higher-order cognition and decision-making occur. We move from considering all the circumstances into a more primitive fight or flight reaction. The frontal cortex is effectively shut off.
Stress has other impacts as well, such as leading to our feeling overwhelmed or even burnt out. Increasingly our society is struggling with depression and other mental health issues. In fact, the World Health Organization states that over 264 million people struggle with depression (Source).
In her April 14th article and inspiration for this blog post, Arianna Huffington spelled out the issue, “Why are we addicted to short-termism and magical thinking, even as we know what that will mean for the planet and for us? It’s not a lack of I.Q. And it’s not a lack of money. As John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate, said in January, our short-term thinking means we’re spending huge sums of money on the downstream consequences of climate change, like hurricanes and other natural disasters that are on the rise: “We’re spending more money, folks. We’re just not doing it smart. We’re not doing it in a way that would actually sustain us for the long term.”
So how do we make better decisions, how do we improve the effectiveness of our engagement? How do we align people’s desire to do the right thing with doing the right thing?
We have to start by looking at the delivery of our programs. Are we making it easy? Are we using the right data? Data can be a useful tool or a sea of uselessness. If it isn’t actionable, clear, and pointing us towards better decisions - what is the point?
We also have to start by looking at our properties. Whether you manage commercial, industrial, retail, or residential - how are our properties contributing to the wellness of the occupants, staff, and visitors? How hard are we making it to do the right thing? Are we actually educating, so the occupants, staff, and visitors know what decisions are more sustainable?
Fortunately, there are existing frameworks that we can lean on to start to do better. When it comes to wellness, FitWel provides one such framework. I dove deeper into this strategy in this article and the seven health impact categories this certification addresses:
Improving the health of the occupant and the surrounding community. This may include children in nearby schools or families in surrounding neighborhoods.
Reducing morbidity and absenteeism by using strategies to promote decreased rates of chronic disease and mental health conditions. Fewer illnesses and a reduction in disease transmission means fewer missed days of work and more work productivity.
Supporting social equity for vulnerable populations to guarantee all persons have increased access to health-promoting opportunities. Vulnerable populations may have decreased accessibility to doctors, medication, etc., so this strategy ensures all building employees receive the same opportunities.
Encouraging feelings of comfort and happiness by promoting inclusion, relaxation, and perceptions of safety. This is achieved by brightening spaces, keeping spaces clean, enhancing a connection to nature, and welcoming social interactions.
Providing occupants access to healthier food options, promote healthier choices, and reduce the cost of healthier options.
Promoting occupant safety.
Increasing physical activity through routine activities such as walking up the stairs or providing access to fitness areas and equipment.
The connection is by promoting wellness, happiness, and comfort; we address the stress level of the occupant, employee, and/or visitor. Through deliberate design and implementation of strategies, we are providing the first steps towards decompressing. We are moving the brain from the fight or flight response described above and back to using that higher-order cognition and decision making (Source). To encourage longer-term impact actions, we need to make sure those we are engaging are at a place that those decisions are possible. The stress of the daily grind has to reduce to the point that we can think beyond the next thing we have to do.
Another area to explore is how easy or hard we are making it? I have used the example of waste and recycling in previous articles. It is a good example of how an over-complicated and poorly designed implementation can thwart our good intentions. In that case, there are really four components that are critical for effective recycling:
1. Convenience: Make recycling and garbage containers equally convenient for tenants to access.
2. Clarity: Label containers with image-based signs to help tenants identify which containers are for garbage and which containers are for recycling, as well as which items are accepted as recyclables.
3. Capacity: Provide sufficiently sized containers and adjust your waste-hauling service levels to ensure recycling containers don’t fill up or overflow before pickup day. Overflowing bins lead to frustrated residents and valuable recyclables heading to the landfill.
4. Color: Color-code your recycling and landfill containers to increase clarity for tenants.
Meeting people where they are and making participation easier than non-participation are key elements to effective engagement. If we make it hard, complicated, or confusing even, great ideas can fall short. When considering your next sustainability initiative, ask yourself these four questions from the perspective of the participant:
“If I am really busy, do I have time to participate?”
“Do I understand how to participate?”
“What is expected of me?”
“What is in it for me?”
If you have solid answers to those questions, your chances for successful engagement just dramatically increased. You can help reduce the impact of the built environment by sharing this blog with your peers. Together we can impact the 39% of greenhouse gasses attributed to the built environment. It starts with awareness, and we succeed with teamwork.
Stay well!
Chris Laughman is the ThirtyNine Blog author, a blog dedicated to reducing the built environment's impact. When not blogging, Chris is helping multifamily properties reduce their energy and water impact. This is done by using data as a foundation to recognize risks and opportunities. Innovation is leveraged along with experience to ignite solutions that have real impacts. Performance is then tracked to ensure the trendline stays laser-focused on the goal. To get there, we must build relationships within our organizations and outside of our organizations to build the critical mass needed to truly make a difference. We have before us a tremendous opportunity. Standing shoulder to shoulder, we will get this done.