GREENiQ: harnessing employee power
Since we created our 2015 targets in 2007, we’ve been working hard to minimise our operations’ environmental impact. Targeting the obvious things can be straightforward. But to find opportunities to address our other impacts we need the knowledge and ideas of those who know the business best – the people on the ground in our operations.
This is where our employee programme GREENiQ comes in. GREENiQ encourages employees to act as environmental champions, as members of their site’s ‘green team’, with an awards programme for the best environmental initiatives. These work along ‘Olympic medal’ lines – from bronze for programmes such as setting environmental targets, to gold, for achievements such as sending no waste to landfill.
The first winners were announced in August 2010. More than 80 medals were awarded, including 32 golds, to sites across the world, including Shanghai, London, Buenos Aires, Budapest, Dublin and Menstrie in Scotland. Each winner was awarded £15,000 to invest in a new environmental initiative of their choice.
The GREENiQ management team are building on the great enthusiasm generated by the 2010 awards, by launching a new platinum category. This rewards gold medal sites that help another facility start a green team. It’s a great way for two sites in different parts of the world to team up, share experiences and spread best environmental practice. Although the scheme is in its early stages, eight platinum pairs have formed already, linking sites from Europe and North America with Asia and Africa.
‘Reducing our environmental impacts is a serious issue, but to engage colleagues we wanted to make it fun as well as worthwhile,’ says Fergal Reilly, Environmental Co-ordinator Facilities. ‘Our business is about celebration and we try to bring that into everything we do. GREENiQ works so well I think because we tap into our people’s sense of community – and their competitive spirit!’