Sustainable Staff Training (SST) & Projects is a initiative of Total Environment Centre's Green Capital program, which focuses on education for sustainability in order to accelerate the adoption, rollout and delivery of sustainability solutions for organisations.

We believe businesses that engage staff and are working towards a learning culture will make their business more adaptable, sustainable and prepared for the future. Our work integrates research and collaborative experiences from Green Capital and Total Environment Centre.

How do we do it?

We have a practical approach to stimulate positive, innovative systems thinking to encourage the integration of sustainability into core business. The benefit of this step change process is the company’s improved efficiency and long-term viability in the market place.

We offer advisory & research services, tailored workshops, steps to sustainable staff and a staff engagement program. The sustainable staff training explores the value of sustainability and it's integration in all facets of the organisation by mobilising human capital. With this program we promote cross-functional communication, cooperation and collaboration to overcome existing boundaries within systems and structures.

What do we offer?

1. Advisory and Research Services
2. Tailored workshops / events
3. Steps to Sustainable Staff - Workshop for Executives: A 2.5 hour workshop for executives covering organisational steps, systems & frameworks, culture change and staff engagement.
4. Sustainable Staff Training: A six-month staff engagement trajectory, the outline can be downloaded here [PDF26Kb]

For more information on our offering, please call Irmine van der Geest at Green Capital on (02) 9261 3566 or email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Projects

NSW DECC: staff engagement on energy efficiency
Currently we are working on developing and eventually facilitating engaging and informative workshops in partnership with NSW Department of Environment & Climate Change (DECC) on energy efficiency and sustainability. The 3-hour workshop will inspire and motivate staff to take energy efficiency into consideration in both their personal life and in the workplace.
For more information please click here.

St James Ethics Centre: tools for SME’s to become more sustainable
Recently we have finalised the project “Roadmap of a Sustainable Building”, comissioned by St James Ethics Centre and funded through Federal Government. The project was developed to highlight challenges and opportunities for different parties, both within and outside a building supply chain, working on a building with sustainability characteristics. Outcomes of the project can be used to progress further on the journey towards more sustainable buildings in Australia. The building, at 376-382 New South Head Road in Double Bay Sydney, has been chosen as a case study subject. Learnings from the process of planning, designing, approving, constructing and using this building were investigated to develop advice, tools and guidelines to encourage sustainability practices for environmental and social gain for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) generally and for the building industry overall.
For more information look at http://thehub.ethics.org.au/sme/national_sme_project

Roche Australia: presentations and workshop to move from ideas to action
We helped Roche Australia to further catalyse staff awareness and responsibility in key areas of concern by giving two presentations and a workshop for the Sustainability Working Group. The two presentations dealed with:

• the business case for sustainability – risks & opportunities, and
• sustainability and organisational change – how to create a cultural shift towards sustainability

The workshop helped the group evaluate and cluster initiatives, brainstorm on people’s personal challenges as well as methods to overcome them and how to progress further.

Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre: client – supplier – staff sustainability engagement forum
We worked on a supply chain sustainability engagement project with Australia’s largest venue for conferences, exhibitions and special events. We provided sustainability expertise and designed a forum to engage a range of industry and Green Capital speakers to provide insights into the challenges and opportunities for the events sector. More than 100 Sydney Convention Exhibition Centre clients, suppliers and staff attended to be engaged on key points to consider making events more sustainable, encouraging reduction in events related carbon and ecological footprints.
Further details and the presentations can be found at: http://www.scec.com.au/media_centre/sustainabilityforum/

NSW Registration Board for Architects: learning from an environmental footprint reduction journey
Reducing your environmental footprint – pilot project workshop and guideline development for the NSW Registration Board for Architects. SST-Green Capital has provided sustainability expertise to develop the project, workshop design and providing feedback on draft guidelines for the pilot phase. The project will develop guidelines to assist small firms of service professionals to reduce their environmental footprints. The pilot phase aims to identify and remove barriers to low carbon activity and encourage more sustainable behaviour.
For the end result, please visit: http://www.reducingcarbonemissions.org/

Philips and Diageo: catalysing change for sustainability in the business
Green Capital's Sustainable Staff Program has run successful pilot programs with two multi-national corporations, Diageo Australia and Philips Electronics. The program delivered a tailored one day session as well as preliminary activities and follow up sessions. Using business issue specific case studies, the selected groups of senior managers looked critically at current business practices, risks and opportunities in order to develop sustainability initiatives with a strong business case. For both companies the training has encouraged a holistic approach to sustainability, critical and systems thinking and development of increased accountability for sustainability programs. Since the training delivery there has been a significant amount of activity in both companies, from energy and water efficiency programs, more sustainable supply chain management, running sustainability training with sales and induction staff to adding sustainability criteria into decision making processes.

Resources & Papers

Four ‘snapshot’ documents were produced in March 2008 as follow-up of Green Capital’s Sustainability Inc forum series held in August 2007, with the funding from the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage & the Arts.

Sustainabilty & Organisational Change Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]
Sustainable Supply Chain Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]
Green Marketing Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]
Waste & EPR Snapshot [PDF 135Kb]