Search Results for: environment

Government Environmental Improvement Plan is ambitious but needs a clear plan

Government Environmental Improvement Plan is ambitious but needs a clear plan

The UKGBC has welcomed the ambition and vision of the Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan, particularly the water efficiency roadmap which broadly aligns with UKGBC recommendations. Yet the lobbying group also claims that the Plan falls short of providing the practical targets and policiesThe UKGBC has welcomed the ambition and vision of the Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan, particularly the water efficiency roadmap which broadly aligns with UKGBC recommendations. Yet the lobbying group also claims that the Plan falls short of providing the practical targets and policies for the built environment to play its part in halting nature’s decline. Many critical areas of interest to our sector – including planning system reform, policies for environmental net gain, and tangible targets – are insufficiently explained or missing entirely from the Plan. More →

Reliance on hero leaders holds back progress on the environment

Reliance on hero leaders holds back progress on the environment

Reliance on a wise ‘guru’ leader or ‘hero CEO’ endangers progress in tackling the environmental crisis by shifting responsibility, according to a new report from CEMS. Instead, all leaders need to adopt a corporate culture of ‘collective’ responsibility, empowering all employees to make decisions with a generational outlook if real change is to take place.  The new report – Leading for the Future of Our Planet – builds on findings from a CEMS survey of 4,206 professionals across 75 countries revealing that the environment is the single greatest concern facing modern-day business leaders, overtaking technological advancement. More →

A safe and healthy working environment is now a human right

A safe and healthy working environment is now a human right

healthy working environmentA landmark decision was made recently in the long history of efforts to protect people from injury and illness at work. At a hybrid conference held by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, for those attending in person, delegates voted in favour of a resolution to make the principle of a safe and healthy work environment a human right. That’s correct; we managed to reach the third decade of the 21st century without a safe workplace being a fundamental right of us all. More →

ESG: only a third of people think their workplace has a positive impact on society and the environment

ESG: only a third of people think their workplace has a positive impact on society and the environment

ESGAccording to a poll from YuLife and YouGov, just over a third (39 percent) of people think their place of work has some sort of positive impact on society and the planet. This is in spite of the many announcements from organisations about how ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) can boost employee engagement and help them stand out from their competitors. With many businesses having upped their ESG investment in recent years,  the new YuLife-YouGov report claims to shed light on what UK working adults want and expect from their workplaces, equipping businesses with vital insights into how to focus their ESG programmes most effectively. More →

Circular economy accelerator launched to address role of built environment in climate change

Circular economy accelerator launched to address role of built environment in climate change

circular economyThe World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) and its network of over 70 Green Building Councils have launched a Circularity Accelerator — a global programme that sets out to accelerate the adoption of circular economy and resource efficiency principles in the building and construction sector. Last week, the United Nations (UN) reported we have a 50 percent chance of exceeding 1.5°C of global heating in the next five years. Between the UN Climate Summit of COP21 in Paris and COP26 in Glasgow, the global economy consumed 70 percent more raw materials than the Earth can safely replenish. More →

Research casts doubt on environmental benefits of hybrid working

Research casts doubt on environmental benefits of hybrid working

commuters and hybrid workingA permanent post-pandemic switch to hybrid working may do little to reduce carbon emissions as the majority of remote workers travel further each week than their office-based counterparts, new research from the University of Sussex Business School reveals. The newly published study finds that, prior to the pandemic, most remote workers in England travelled further each week than office-based workers – despite taking fewer trips. This was partly because remote workers tended to live further from their workplace than non-teleworkers, so had longer, if less frequent, commutes. In addition, remote workers engaged in more travel on the days when they worked from home – for example, by making extra trips to shops and cafes. More →

Building workplace resilience in a changing environment

Building workplace resilience in a changing environment

workplace resilienceFor decades, it has been agreed that change is a constant. So, doesn’t it stand to reason that before a change or crisis happens, an organization should have the ability and resilience to transform? In the McKinsey report, The resilience imperative: Succeeding in uncertain times, resilience is defined as, “the ability to withstand unpredictable threat or change and then to emerge stronger.” In other words, it is the ability to sustain and endure. And it applies just as much to workplace resilience as any other element of the organisation. More →

People want employers to open up about environmental impact

People want employers to open up about environmental impact

environmental impactResearch from?PLAY, a product development studio, suggests that more than three-quarters of people (77 percent) want the company they work for to be more transparent about their environmental impact. More →

Creating a supportive environment for vital deskless workers

Creating a supportive environment for vital deskless workers

deskless The Josh Bersin Company a research and advisory company focused on HR and workforce trends and issues, has released its latest report based on insights from its ongoing Big Reset executive working groups. The report, The Big Reset Playbook: Deskless Workers, focuses on the recommended practices needed to create optimal work experiences for “deskless” employees in retail, healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality, transportation, and other sectors. More →

Built environment sector lacks clarity around its carbon emissions

Built environment sector lacks clarity around its carbon emissions

environmentAccording to new research, the majority (58 percent) of built environment professionals believe the sector is already doing enough to tackle its carbon impact, despite the built environment contributing 36 percent of total global energy-related CO2 emissions, and the most recent available data highlighting that CO2 from operational energy use of buildings reached its highest level yet in 2019. More →

Urban environments and buildings needs a transformation, report claims

Urban environments and buildings needs a transformation, report claims

urban environments smart cityAhead of COP26, green business leaders around the world have called for government and industry action on buildings and infrastructure. The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) has published a new report, which it claims helps to identify opportunities for how a transformative, integrated approach to urban environments and buildings is essential to deliver change in line with the commitments of the Paris Agreement. More →

Office furniture makers are getting creative about the environment

Office furniture makers are getting creative about the environment

Office furniture gets greenerI was reminded the other day of the instructions on a bottle of shampoo I once used which said, simply: “Wash, rinse and repeat.” Why? I’ve just washed my hair. Why do I need to repeat? It’s a bit like that old adage about how to sell more toothpaste, by widening the hole it comes out of, because we all still instinctively try to cover the whole of the brush head, however thick the line of paste. More →