July 16, 2007—In conjunction with the “Live Earth” concerts to raise awareness of climate change, the UK’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) published a Web survey on its workSMART Web site that reveals that more than half of UK employers are failing to do their part to save energy in the workplace.
According to the survey, less than half the respondents (44.8%) said they worked for an employer with an environmental policy. Employers in London were rated the least likely to have a green policy (42.3%), followed by Scottish employers (43.3%) and bosses in the South East and East (43.6%). Employers in the South West were rated the greenest, with employers in this part of the country scoring over 50% (50.5%).
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said, “This TUC survey highlights the importance of taking climate change and ‘greening’ the workplace seriously. It’s not difficult for employers to encourage staff to do their bit; even small steps—like turning off lights and computers when they go home, or recycling paper or printing double-sided—can make a huge difference when everyone gets involved. Employers must also do more to ensure their staff are made aware of green policies like recycling, power saving options, and travel schemes, and that staff have a say in improving these policies and practices, preferably through trade union green reps. Our survey also underlines the importance of employers and unions working together, and having green reps in the workplace. Where these union reps exist already, they are achieving energy savings and huge cost benefits for their employers.”
Staff responding to the Web survey reported that the environmental action they did the most often was switching off computers and machinery before they went home (72 per cent). They said they were worst at printing double-sided (23.6%).
Bosses get the thumbs up from their workforce for encouraging paper recycling, with three-quarters (72.6%) saying their employers encourage them to do so. But bosses score low marks for encouraging the re-use or recycling of cups. Just one in three employers (34.3%) do enough to encourage this, according to their staff.
