5 ways to build a sustainability-focused work culture that aligns with employee values

• A survey suggested young employees were choosing where to work based on personal ethics.
• Company leaders must create a purpose-driven culture focused on sustainability, experts say.

Sustainability continues to be a hot topic in the workplace in 2022, especially as employees put more pressure on their company leaders to create an environmentally conscious culture.

In Deloitte's 2021 millennial and Gen Z survey, 49% of people between 18 and 25 and 44% of respondents between 26 and 38 said they'd picked their work and employers based on their personal ethics. The younger group identified climate change as their top concern, while the older cohort identified it as their third-highest concern, after healthcare and disease prevention and unemployment.

"Building a sustainably focused culture isn't just about how you manage your company's footprint," Mastercard Chief Sustainability Officer Kristina Kloberdanz told Insider. "It's equally important to also focus on how you innovate and ensure that employees are empowered and encouraged to think and build with a climate-conscious mindset."

Tools and techniques to build a green culture

To build a company culture around sustainability, leaders must create a purpose-driven organization where employees can find meaning in their work.

Jeana Wirtenberg, an associate professor at Rutgers Business School, associate director of the Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation, and the CEO of Transitioning to Green, said a marker of business success is being able to converge company growth with service to the environment.

Insider spoke with Wirtenberg and Kloberdanz about five ways leaders can develop sustainable values across their organization.

1. Incentivize employees while making sustainability fun and accessible

Creating practical environmentally conscious activities can provide more interactive fun for employees, Wirtenberg said, suggesting that companies lean into their young workforce and create competitions with rewards.

At Transitioning to Green, a global management-consulting firm that helps companies integrate sustainability into their organizations, Wirtenberg's team is rolling out simulations and games, including an ecological-footprint game in which people can calculate their carbon emissions.

For Kloberdanz, this means merging an internal rewards program with sustainability: The program encourages employees to reward their colleagues with trees planted in their honor through Mastercard's Priceless Planet Coalition, which supports global forest restoration.

Kloberdanz also said that at Mastercard, senior employees' compensation is linked to progress in the company's three global environmental, social, and governance priorities, one of which is carbon neutrality.

2. Reimagine the employee relationship

Wirtenberg said leaders should ensure that their human-resources teams are engaged in hiring and supporting a workforce focused on sustainability.

This includes listening to employees' climate-related concerns, hiring people who express an interest in sustainability, training employees on best practices, and engaging the wider company on sustainable initiatives.

3. Promote activism

Wirtenberg said millennial and Gen Z employees believe their companies have a responsibility to pay attention to and act on global issues.

For example, Microsoft has said that in 2020, after hearing feedback and concerns from its employees, it established three sustainability-related goals for 2030: become water-positive, carbon-neutral, and waste-free.

4. Inspire company innovation

Wirtenberg advised that companies pull from their top talent to develop green products and services, make supply chains greener, and conduct life-cycle analyses of new products.

In 2021, Kloberdanz said, Mastercard launched a Global Sustainability Lab to give employees a space to innovate on climate solutions and work with a network of outside partners to create sustainable enterprises.

With the help of the data service provider Doconomy, the lab recently launched Mastercard's Carbon Calculator. Kloberdanz said the tool had gained the interest of banking partners and created more opportunities for Mastercard's sales teams.

5. Create internal initiatives

Wirtenberg suggested integrating sustainable actions into the everyday work culture — for example, matching employees' gifts to nonprofit organizations that they care about and offering volunteer opportunities during the workday.

For example, through WeSpire's employee-engagement software, companies can add funds to their employees' accounts to donate to causes including environmental protection. It gives each person the ability to control where to direct the funds and allows them to add their own money to the donation.

WeSpire said in a blog post that employees of one company that used its program donated 62% of the company's funds in three months.

Sustainability and the year ahead

While sustainability became a top corporate priority in 2021, Wirtenberg expects more companies to announce measures to reduce their carbon footprints and consider the ways that climate justice plays a role in their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

Wirtenberg also predicted that companies, faced with demand for ESG goals and initiatives, will be called on by employees to help them reskill, including by increasing training around sustainability and green development goals.

"We need to be clear that sustainability isn't a passing trend but something every company and every individual is responsible for," Kloberdanz said.