When trust is broken, engagement drops, and when engagement drops, even the best sustainability strategies fall flat. Which leads us to ask: if employees don’t believe in their company’s sustainability efforts, how can these initiatives succeed?
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The trust gap in corporate sustainability
Companies are making big promises about sustainability, but do their employees actually believe (in) them? Recent research suggests that many do not.
A recent study found that only 52% of UK workers think their employer’s actions align with their sustainability claims, while 12% believe their company actively contradicts its stated ESG values. These numbers unfortunately show a growing gap between words and actions, further enhancing skepticism among employees.
In fact, this feeling is even stronger among younger employees, who are more likely to value corporate sustainability, with more than half of workers between the ages of 18 and 34 considering ESG commitments very important, and 32% of those employees considering leaving their job if their company’s sustainability actions do not align with their personal values.
Do your employees know how to contribute to the ESG strategy?
When trust is broken, engagement drops, and when engagement drops, even the best sustainability strategies fall flat. Which leads us to ask: if employees don’t believe in their company’s sustainability efforts, how can these initiatives succeed?
In DoGood we believe the answer to building trust lies beyond technology or regulatory compliance, this is, while tools and policies are absolutely necessary and helpful, the real key is to build a strong company culture.
Technology won't fix the problem, sustainability is a cultural shift
In response to growing sustainability pressures, many companies invest in technology to track and optimize diverse sustainability concerns such as carbon footprints or energy use, but as valuable as these tools are, they cannot help build trust on their own.
If employees don’t believe in their company’s commitment to sustainability, no amount of tracking softwares or sustainable certifications will make a real difference. For sustainability strategies to work, employees need to see real, consistent action.
And here is precisely where many companies fail to see that sustainability cannot be solely understood as a compliance issue, this is, as something to monitor and report, but rather treat it as a cultural shift, and a very important one.
True, lasting change happens when sustainability is embedded into how employees work, collaborate, and make decisions every day. And that requires understanding not just technology, but human behavior.
Why company culture matters
At the end of the day, sustainability is about people, and therefore, companies need to understand how individuals as human beings understand, adapt and exercise change.
Research in behavioral psychology shows that real change happens when individuals feel personally connected to a cause and see it reinforced in their daily environment. If sustainability is just another corporate initiative, employees are not likely to engage, but once it becomes part of a company’s identity and its woven into daily operations and decision-making, it can in fact turn into a habit rather than an obligation.
In this regard, we can say that culture is the missing link between strategy and action, as employees are far more likely to adopt sustainable behaviors if they see their peers and leaders doing the same and celebrating others’ sustainable achievments.
Understanding the psychology of change in sustainability
All in all, employees trust companies that practice what they preach, that offer transparency, clear goals, and a sense of personal impact in the process. When companies align sustainability with workplace culture, they don’t just reduce waste or cut costs, they create engaged, motivated employees who see sustainability as a natural part of their role.
Building a culture of trust and sustainability
Technology can track progress, but culture is what makes sustainability stick. When employees see sustainability as a shared mission rather than a corporate directive, they are more likely to engage and trust leadership’s commitments.
To turn sustainability from a strategy into a habit, companies need to embed it into daily operations and decision-making. Here are a few tips on where to start:
- Lead by example: Employees always take cues from the top, which is why leadership should embody sustainability in their daily decisions, from office practices to business strategy.
- Make Sustainability Personal: Companies should help employees see and understand how their individual actions contribute to broader sustainability goals, that being through impact data, stories, or recognition.
- Encourage Participation: Give employees a voice in sustainability efforts. Whether through green committees, challenges, or team-driven initiatives, involvement builds ownership.
- Reinforce positive behaviors: Organization may use incentives, gamification or public recognition to make sustainable choices the norm rather than the exception, finding sustainability ambassadors in the process.
Sustainability as a people strategy
If there is a clear conclusion we can draw from all we’ve discussed above is that while technology and tools provide the foundation for measuring and tracking sustainability, it’s the company culture that ensures these initiatives take root and flourish.
In order to make an impact, companies must first recognize that sustainability is a people strategy and therefore it is crucial to foster and environment of trust, engagement, and accountability at every level of the organization.
Employees who feel that their actions contribute to a meaningful cause are more motivated to make sustainable choices, both in the workplace and beyond. This mindset shift doesn’t happen overnight, but with consistent leadership, transparent communication, and employee involvement.
Building employee engagement across the company
In DoGood, we aim to simplify the complex web of sustainability objectives for companies by offering a platform that translates the high-level ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) objectives into actionable tasks for every single employee.
Then, each employee not only knows how to make an impact but also feels empowered to contribute meaningfully to the greater sustainable strategy.
No more vague directives. No confusion. DoGood automates the process, making it seamless for the workforce to know precisely what steps to take.
