Sustainability engagement is the essential element that unleashes an organization’s full potential to prosper, benefiting both people and the planet.
People participate in what they help create. We design participatory programs, systems, and structures and integrate them across your organization.
Engagement is necessary for effectively integrating sustainability across an organization. Sustainability initiatives often fall short when they don’t involve the people responsible for day-to-day execution. Our team brings sustainability-specific expertise and a participatory approach to identify and develop the most relevant engagement strategies.
Our team has significant experience in the field of both employee and community engagement, including expertise in identifying and involving key participants to our planning processes using the IAP2 framework, ongoing engagement work that promotes individual and organizational change, and training in Technology of Participation facilitation methods.
Our Approach
Whether you are just starting out with sustainability engagement or have a robust plan and need help designing and executing tactics, we are adept at meeting you where you are and helping you get to where you want to go.
- Know who you are trying to reach through Key Party Mapping, defining audiences, and appropriate engagement activities.
- Create an Engagement and Communication Plan that outlines audiences, messaging, communication channels and techniques, and timing for engagement.
- Develop engagement resources, from slide decks and website resources to flyers and posters
Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
The most resilient organizations, communities, and groups of people are ones that are created together with all of the unique perspectives and backgrounds found within those groups. We are committed to centering inclusive and equitable participatory decision-making in our work and driving toward decisions and actions that benefit human and non–human parts of nature. In our engagement work, we use our Key Party Mapping process to ensure that all voices are represented at the decision–making table, including those that have historically been absent.
End-to-End Communication Campaigns
Our engagement experts lead and promote sustainability engagement activities that leverage tools, education, and training to increase awareness among key parties and the community at large. We help you promote your sustainability initiatives, lead community engagement, coordinate internal programs, develop organization-wide sustainability events, and collaborate with the local community on sustainability initiatives. We create content for your communication channels as identified in your engagement strategy. An effective process requires engaging a wide variety of key parties, and we have the expertise to do just that.
Facilitation
The best-laid sustainability efforts fail when solely focused on strategies to reduce environmental impact without engaging the teams of people making hundreds of daily decisions. Sustainability engagement is the key that unlocks an organization’s true potential to thrive and benefit people, the planet, and the pocketbook. From grassroots Green Teams to grass-tops Executive Sustainability Committees and everyone in between, we work with you to successfully engage your organization to incorporate sustainability. We design programs, systems, and structures that are participatory in nature and integrate them across the organization.
Our team is trained in Technology of Participation (ToP) methods to facilitate engaging workshops that enable groups to build consensus and achieve a shared goal. We also use Community-Based Social Marketing Engagement (CBSM) methods to prepare engagement plans that properly engage key participants in meaningful ways.
Sustainability Engagement Survey
Our Sustainability Engagement Survey has been used by nearly all of our clients to take the pulse of their organization’s sustainability culture. The survey creates a benchmark Sustainability Engagement Score (SES) for measuring key engagement and sustainability knowledge levels and allows for decision-making informed by data.
The survey has provided a large data set to compare and contrast your results. The SES also provides an excellent metric that measures your organization’s engagement efforts over time.
Engagement Strategies and Programming
We help organizations identify their key parties, develop engagement strategies, and facilitate transparent communication. Below are examples of methods we use to engage all levels of an organization to develop strategies and encourage action:
- Developing goal-specific Working Groups such as Waste, Emissions, Engagement, Water, Purchasing, and Transportation
- Establishing Ambassador groups for peer-to-peer communication
- Focused implementation workshops to prioritize projects and identify owners, such as developing actionable annual work plans to move sustainability projects forward
- Opening the Sustainability Engagement Survey to input from all staff to learn what opportunities and innovations can be reviewed, prioritized, and pursued
- Inviting subject matter experts to special project teams
Sustainable Behavior Change Programs
We cultivate the conditions for solutions that grow within the organization by designing frameworks that are both lasting and adaptable. Our implementation frameworks include executive sustainability committees, topic-specific working groups, sustainability engagement surveys (SES) to assess organizational sustainability culture, and a “plan, act, reflect” cycle for project execution and built-in learning.
Let’s talk!
Verdis Group’s engagement and communication supply your organization with the necessary expertise and tools to set yourself apart as a climate leader. Reach out today to start your journey with us.