How Green Teams Accelerate CSR

Today’s business organizations are presented with the unique opportunity to increase profitability through greater eco awareness and the pursuit of a more sustainable business. To gain and maintain a competitive advantage over the competition, sustainable business leaders are looking for ways to advance the CSR vision by aligning sustainable business strategies through shared values with employees - green teams.

Upon first glance, the idea of a corporate green team may seem fairly simple—a small effort that allows a subset of employees to gather around a shared interest. In practice, however, green teams can be much more powerful than that. They can inspire, activate, and engage employees to create meaningful changes within a company.

While the post, Winning Characteristics of Green Teams, offers ides on getting started with green teams, here we focus on how green teams advance a corporate sustainability plan.

Green team meetings allow participates to meet, collaborate, and discuss on topics unique to their position in the organization. Namely, issues and areas of specific interest in how it relates to their job, their departments, and the overall organization.
Green team meetings leverage synergies that result from brainstorming sessions and sustainable business strategies implemented in other departments.
Green team meetings foster socialization, and greater team work.
Green team meetings allow for grassroots sharing of ideas, as well as a means to disseminate essential information related to the corporate CSR vision.
They provide "on the ground" alerts to hot topics and cultural trends within the organization.
Green team meetings help foster a collaborative culture in the organization which helps organization to achieve its objectives collectively.

Employees are often argued to be the greatest resource of a company. When employee’s values resonate with those of the corporation, they are more productive, loyal, and their work is meaningful. Green teams functioning within the organization have the capability to align the corporate sustainability within the organization.