What is involved in a Futerra environmental training session?

HR News posted an article to let the world know that there is no topic “as urgent as sustainability right now”. Sustainability is no longer just the concern of the Sustainability Manager and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) teams. It’s every employee’s responsibility to be mindful of and act upon sustainability.

Also within the article, HR News recommends that companies involve sustainability in their on-boarding processes. They recommend sustainability training to “ensure that each employee is aware of what their part is in achieving these (sustainability) goals”.

We agree.

By popular demand, Futerra has just recently launched its sustainability training business, Futerra Academy. Although we have been doing training workshops since Futerra began 21 years ago, it’s time for us to connect with the workforce in an entirely new way; by training everyone. By democratizing sustainability knowledge across the business, we aim to fuel the change we wish to see by empowering every employee to make a difference.

Whether it’s Amazon building their grassroots sustainability network to deliver on their sustainability strategy or employers sending employees on environment trips to improve wellbeing, sustainability is coming to the forefront.

In fact, here are some stats for you…

97% of employees say their company’s action on climate change is important for their motivation and wellbeing

83% of people want to take action on climate change in their jobs

AND… here’s the real biggie:

More than half of workers in the UK feel that their company’s climate action impacts their job satisfaction, with one in ten ready to leave their position for one that offers sustainability-related training.

Once you’ve decided you want sustainability training, we need to think about how to build your curriculum. Sustainability training is usually offered in one of three ways;

1. Face to face
2. Via webinar
3. Through eLearning

After your business decides it wants to invest in sustainability training and by what method, it’s time to think about the modules. In general, sustainability has moved to a place of intersectionality, looking at the link between environmental and social and the importance of tackling both.

Therefore, it’s important your sustainability curriculum encapsulates the social and the environmental and from there you can choose which ‘hot topics’ to focus on. At a minimum, offering a ‘Sustainability 101’ style training is beneficial to your workforce and we recommend tailoring the content to your business’ sustainability strategy. This helps embed your sustainability strategy amongst the workforce so staff are clear on targets, goals and how they can help your business achieve them.

Outside of your 101 training, it might be worth focussing in on hot topic areas that are relevant to your industry. If you work in fashion for example, you might want to focus on water usage and climate to look at the eco-friendliness of your clothing lifecycle and supply chain. Sometimes it’s helpful to look at purposeful brands too, to ensure that your brand is living its mission. Sustainability communications training can avoid accidental greenwashing claims and help businesses be more transparent with its customers.

To learn more about sustainability training, you can contact us using this email address hello@wearefuterra.com