West Sussex County Council Sustainable Workplace Tool
Example of:
How sharing best practice initiatives across different sections can improve the sustainability of the entire organisation.
Key points:
- WSCC have developed a sustainable workplace tool as a way to identify and measure progress for achieving sustainability in the workplace.
- The tool focuses on six key areas: waste, water, energy, procurement, people and transport, and allows teams to identify what positive actions are already happening, and what areas they need to focus efforts on to improve.
The idea for the tool came from a Green Team in the County Council. They recognised that best practice was not being shared across their directorate, and developed a very simple version of the tool as a way to identify areas where best practice could be shared across their Directorate. The simple tool was then further developed with input from all Green Teams across the County Council. They broadened the topics, and scope of the workplace tool, and with the help of BRE consultants, made the tool as simple to use as possible.
The tool is divided into six sections, and poses questions relating to waste, energy, water, procurement, people and transport. The answer can either be Yes, No, Partly or Not Applicable. Some typical questions include:
- Are distribution lists used, so that only one or two copies are necessary?
- Are people allowed to take advantage of the employee volunteering scheme?
- Are monitors turned off when not in use?
Depending on the answer given to the question a score is generated. This score enables Green Teams to compare their work areas, and to also set targets which can be monitored.
The tool also generates an action plan for the Green Teams to use – giving suggestions about ways to improve the score, interesting facts that could be helpful for communications, and links to relevant intranet pages.
The intranet pages are a way for Green Teams to share work that they have done, or resources that they have found. There are a number of posters, facts, stickers etc that can be downloaded – saving each Green Team time when developing their plans on how to tackle an individual issue.
The use of the sustainable workplace tool has been included as an objective within WSCC’s Sustainability Action Plan 2007 – 2010. It states that all Services should firstly use the tool, and have a target of increasing their score by 5% for the next three years.
Each service is required to reflect this target with their Business Plans, thus enabling performance management to take place, and also increasing the direct tie in that Green Teams can have to their more senior management.
The sustainable workplace tool was launched in December 2006.
72% of all Services in the County Council are currently represented by a Green Team, and 52% of all services have completed a workplace tool. (October 2007)
Works is continuing to both increase the cover of Green Teams to all Services within the Council, and give them support in completing the workplace tool.