Public Servant Lifestyle

Despite growing awareness less than half of employers have environmental policy, says web survey.

Fewer than half of employers have an environmental policy, according to respondents to a web survey released by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) as it hosted a conference looking at what the Climate Change Bill means for UK workplaces.

The survey conducted on the TUC's world of work website www.worksmart.org.uk asked respondents how good they were at being green at work and how much their employer encouraged them to be environmentally responsible.

Only just under half (44.8%) say they work for an employer with an environmental policy, with employers in the South West the best as the only region with employers scoring over 50% (50.5%). London employers were rated the least likely to have a green policy (42.3%).

Easy Being Green?

TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O'Grady commented: "This TUC research highlights the importance of changing employer attitudes and taking 'greening' the workplace seriously. Small steps, like recycling paper or turning off lights, can make an enormous difference when taken by everyone.

"It also underlines the need for trade union green reps in the workplace. Where these union reps exist already, they are achieving energy savings and huge cost benefits for their employers. Unions and employers need to do much more to help UK businesses start to clean up their act and begin to make a real difference."

Staff responding to the web survey report that the environmental action they are most likely to take is switching off computers and machinery before they go home (72%). They are worst at always printing double-sided to save paper (23.6%).

Staff give their bosses their best marks for encouraging paper recycling, with three-quarters (72.6%) saying their employers do enough to encourage them to recycle. But bosses score low marks for encouraging the reuse or recycling of cups. Just one in three employers (34.3%) do enough to encourage this, according to their staff.

On three issues in the survey staff said they did not meet the standards expected of them by their employer. On recycling paper, turning off lights and printing double-sided staff gave their bosses higher marks than their own behaviour. But staff rated themselves better than their bosses on turning off PCs and equipment at night and reusing/recycling drinks cups.

For a short summary of the Climate Change Bill's aims and provisions from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) follow this link (30KB .PDF)



*The survey was conducted on the TUC's world of work website www.worksmart.org.uk during May 2007 and there were 1441 respondents.

More information available in Education & Training, Work Environment