Throughout my 15-year career at DHL eCommerce, where I plied my trade in the field of logistics and quality, I’ve sent millions of packets and flat direct mail over vast distances to every corner of the world. While I derived much job satisfaction from knowing that all those items were delivered successfully and I had met our customers’ expectations, I also knew all that came at an ecological cost.
The jets and vehicles used in most of the delivery journeys consumed fuel, which meant carbon as well as other greenhouse gases were being pumped into our atmosphere. It bothered me, but I didn’t feel there was much I could do about it. It’s a well-reported fact that the transport industry is responsible for producing about 14 percent of all green house gases globally and the number is increasing annually.
The good news was, I was not alone in seeing this as a serious problem that needed to be addressed! In 2007, the top management at Deutsche Post DHL headquarters in Germany established a company-wide Go Green program with the specific mission of lowering the carbon footprint of all groups and divisions within the Deutsche Post family. It took a while, but in 2014 I was finally able to get involved as the Asia Pacific Head of Go Green for my business unit.
I got to work immediately. The Go Green program was more than setting and meeting ambitious carbon reduction targets, it’s also about building a culture. The company’s goal was to transform the 500,000-strong workforce into green embassadors in their communities. For my role, I put together training materials and events. I worked with a team of motivated colleagues to organize those same events across the region. We spearheaded special projects to reduce paper and electricity use and to mitigate carbon emissions by planting trees and growing environmental awareness in our communities. I was also able to steer DHL into a position of industry leadership in wildlife conservation by putting in place methods and measures to stem illegal wildlife trafficking through our networks.
While the movement of goods is still to this day a huge contributor of global greenhouse gas emmissions, I am gratified that I had the tools and support of a company that allowed me to play a small role in solving a problem that’s important to me.
To me, job satisfaction comes not only with pay checks and benefits. In this regard, I think many people are similar to me: we are happier when we are part of a solution! I find much more joy and meaning in life by building and solving problems! So if you want to build a company that can take pride in its sustainability credentials and attract and provide employees with job satisfaction that is built on the knowledge that one is doing good, here are some suggestions:
1. Understand what you are dealing with. For example, what resources does your organization use and how much goes to waste?
2. Identify a mission and build support through the whole organization to work on the mission. For example, a first step might be to define KPIs for group action.
3. Set a realistic target and timeline. For example, how much and by when can waste be reduced? More importantly, “zero” waste is only a milestone — at some point, you can even build into your processes to take in external waste so you end up with negative output. In other words, you can go beyond zero waste.
4. Highlight all results, whether they’re good or bad, in all of your organization’s communications and share them with everyone.
You don’t need to do this alone or create a new sustainability position within your company to manage this. Contact me and see how an experienced leader of sustainable programs can help you!
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