Resource Efficient Scotland (RES), an advice and support service run by Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS), has today (10 August) announced a series of free workshops and webinars, as well as a ‘Staff Engagement Toolkit’ on resource efficiency for Scottish businesses.
The new scheme has been designed to encourage staff to use energy, water and materials more efficiently. RES suggests that the scheme will not only make Scottish organisations more environmentally friendly, but also has the potential to help them make significant savings.
Toolkit and seminar details
The Staff Engagement Toolkit includes a range of materials designed to help managers engage their staff, including free posters and stickers, staff training courses, quizzes and Green Team support tools.
The series of workshops presented by RES begins tomorrow (11 August 12:45 – 13:30) with a free webinar entitled: ‘How to run a staff engagement campaign’, which aims to ‘show [businesses] how to prioritise campaign aims and develop communication programmes that will maintain momentum’.
Later in the month (19 and 25 August), RES will be hosting free half-day workshops at Edinburgh Zoo. Issues the workshops hope to cover include:
- Growing a greener business with a Green Team.
- Getting management walking the talk.
- Stoking a passion for resource efficiency.
- Understanding priorities before looking to change behaviours.
- Keeping the conversation going.
- Sharing success and recognise individuals.
Cutting resource use crucial to environment
Marissa Lippiatt, Head of Resource Efficiency at Zero Waste Scotland, said: “Everyone can help cut waste at work. Encouraging staff to be smarter with resources is crucial to better environmental performance, not to mention benefiting the bottom line.
“For example, if just one person printed 40 fewer sheets of paper a week, the amount of paper saved in a year could reach end-to-end across the entire length of the pitch at Hampden (the Scottish national football stadium) six times!”
Case study shows importance of staff engagement
RES points to the case study of sport and leisure provider Edinburgh Leisure, which runs sports centres and community programmes across the Scottish capital, to show how having a more engaged staff can lead to company savings and help the environment.
The programme claims that greater staff engagement on recycling has led to: an increase in Edinburgh Leisure’s recycling rate of 41 per cent, with a resulting cost saving of £16,000 a year, and a four per cent year-on-year reduction in its CO2 emissions.
Alan Hughes, Energy and Sustainability Manager at Edinburgh Leisure, said: “Our Green champions are very passionate and, coupled with the autonomy they are given to implement improvements, they have been central to our progress to date.
“The positive impact staff engagement has had on our resource efficiency performance is really recognised by our Strategic Leadership Team and board members, which is crucial to securing continued investments of time and finance.
“The new tools and support from Resource Efficient Scotland will be a great way for organisations to get staff involved in changes and start saving money.”
Read more about Resource Efficiency Scotland’s series of business waste workshops and materials.
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