Engaging Employees in Sustainability

by Bridget Christenson

Twin Cities Business magazine features a story about the many ways companies in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area engage employees in environmental sustainability efforts.

Sometimes, it can be a small action by a few employees, like leading a volunteer clean-up effort at a nature preserve.

Other times, it’s an employee’s innovative vision that brings significant environmental savings and an entirely new way of operating, like General Mills’ biomass burner project.

At General Mills, we believe that employee engagement around environmental stewardship is critical to helping make us an even more sustainable company. It’s part of our ethos to do the right thing, all the time.

And that includes doing right by the planet we share.

Our 35,000 employees around the globe share in this responsibility and we are encouraged to apply a lens of sustainability in the decisions we make every day.

I spoke with Jerry Lynch, vice president and chief sustainability officer, about how General Mills engages employees in sustainability. He also shared some inspiring examples of our own employee-led efforts.

“Our business is very dependent on nature continuing to work well,” Jerry says. “We have to protect our natural resources and our employees are the ones who do that. Every day we strive to do the right thing and make choices that will benefit our business, our consumers, customers, communities and our planet. We do not know of a more sustainable business strategy for the long run.”

Hear more from Jerry, about how employees are making a difference, in this video clip.

Here’s a link to the article we mentioned in Twin Cities Business.

How are you supporting sustainability efforts in your workplace?