The banking industry has many challenges on its plate right now. At Wells Fargo, one challenge is how to promote the concept of sustainability to over 278,000 team members (as Wells Fargo calls its employees) and embed sustainability into its operations.
I had the opportunity to speak with Krista Van Tassel, Vice President of Environmental Affairs and Team Member Engagement Manager at Wells Fargo. She highlighted Wells Fargo's most promising employee engagement and green teams practices, including:
- Link green teams to a corporate goal
- Provide posters and templates with a consistent brand
- Recognize achievement and participation
- Link volunteerism to sustainability priorities
- Engage customers
Green Teams at the Heart of Employee Engagement Strategy
Environmental Affairs at Wells Fargo tackles a range of issues, including operations, products/services, community and team members.
At the heart of its employee engagement strategy is supporting over 50 Wells Fargo Green Teams -- communities of practice groups where team members (employees) voluntarily organize around the subject of green. The teams are organized either around a line of business or a geographical region. As Team Member Engagement Manager, part of Van Tassel's job is to provide resources and structure to the program, without stifling the creativity that is a hallmark of green teams.
Five Green Team Best Practices
About a year ago, GreenBiz.com and I released a white paper, Green Teams: Engaging Employees in Sustainability, which identified 10 best practices for green teams. Building on this paper, this piece highlights five of the green campaigns and communications strategies Wells Fargo is using to engage team members.
1. Link green teams to a corporate goal: "We allocated 3 percent of our greenhouse gas goal to team member behavior changes. Around that, we produced a campaign that encourages people to conserve energy and equipped each of our teams with a suite of communications materials to provide on-the-ground education," explained Van Tassel.
In 2010, Wells Fargo also tackled other topics, including recycling and waste reduction, paper reduction and commute options. The formula it used was a combination of internal communications with a consistent brand to reach all employees using existing major line of business portals (each of the 85 lines of business has its own portal), as well as providing green teams templates and materials to execute on-the-ground campaigns.
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eBay, Yahoo and Intel all
eBay, Yahoo and Intel all have green teams--some of their best practices are included in the white paper I mention. Most green teams are voluntary and don't have formal enforcement roles, although some leave reminders/prompts/notes to remind folks to take action.
Interesting Article!! Thanks
Interesting Article!! Thanks for writing it. It is always good to see larger corporations taking on the sustainability challenge. Engaging employees and customers is a great way (maybe only way) for a corporation to meet Sustainability goals. Kudos Wells Fargo!!
This is a good list of
This is a good list of suggestions for organizational green teams. I am on the green team at my organization, and we are constantly looking for ways to apply our efforts to the operations of the organization and engage new members and departments. It is also great advice that we can share with our small businesses members that are interested in becoming more sustainable, as we are a small business organization and I work on these issues for our members. Obviously employee and stakeholder engagement is essential for sustainability to succeed, so any advice that you can provide from personal experience is relevant and appreciated.
- Tim Kovach,
Product Coordinator, Energy Programs at COSE
www.cose.org/blog
www.twitter.com/COSEenergy
Thanks for the article! It
Thanks for the article! It is good to see such a big firm helping its employees engage one another to help the company act more responsibly. A corporate culture of sustainability is sure to be more engaging than simple directives. What other companies have you come across that use the Green Team approach to engaging employees around their sustainability efforts? Also, do these green teams have any authority to enforce environmental policies, or are they just organized as groups of people that help others voluntarily do the right thing?