Creating a Sustainability Literate Workforce

Date: Tuesday 11 June 14:00 – 15:15 BST

Extreme weather events; critical change to earth systems; biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; and natural resource shortages rank as the top four global risks over the next ten years, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024.

Though these risks are increasingly recognised by businesses, demonstrated by growing numbers of corporate sustainability commitments, and the increasing incorporation of sustainability into core business strategies, sustainability teams remain under-resourced and siloed, and therefore unable to drive the organisational change needed. These risks present enormous challenges for both businesses and society as a whole. Solutions to these challenges requires organisation wide cooperation and innovation, with all roles prioritising sustainability actions and enablers.

By engaging, educating, and inspiring employees across organisations to act on sustainability issues, companies can build upon the efforts of professional sustainability teams and rise to these challenges. Supporting employees to understand the role they can play within their job and society will be critical in ensuring sustainability forms a part of an organisation’s culture.

To support companies in fostering a culture of sustainability to achieve their sustainability targets, the UN Global Compact Network UK is hosting a session that will look at the different avenues and methods for educating, inspiring, and enabling action among all employees, regardless of their role.

Objectives

• Explore employee engagement strategies to educate, inspire, and enable employees across the workforce to understand their role in supporting company sustainability targets.
• Introduce the ‘Dialogue for Growth’ programme and how it can support participants to educate and influence internal stakeholders to deliver corporate climate action.