WPP, the global engineering consultancy, has been trialling a new scheme to get employees to cut their personal carbon footprints (The Times). As part of this mini cap and trade scheme employees are given a personal emissions target - fines are handed out for every kg of CO2 emitted over the limit and, similarly, if they reduce their footprint they are rewarded.
The 'policing' of personal carbon footprints is the opposite of our approach to incentivising employees to reduce their footprints. Our programmes aim to engage, motivate and enable employees to make changes, in other words, the focus is on empowerment rather than force! This does not lessen the results and in the long term, the shcemes are likely to be more successful.
We also strive to avoid cultivating the 'offsetting' attitude, whereby employees make a change in one area of their life but fail to think about the environmental impacts of other actions. You have to feel sorry for the Managing Director of WPP, Stuart McLachlan, who cycled from Richmond to the City everyday but still got fined for his flight to South Africa. Should have opted for a 'staycation' Stuart!
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