Fortune 500 Firms Divulge Employee Engagement CSR Strategies

by | Aug 23, 2013

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MillerCoors logoA MillerCoors zero-waste brewery and McDonald’s “Best of Green” contest, in which employees come up with ways to reduce restaurants’ environmental footprint, are among the ways Fortune 500 companies are engaging employees in their commitments to sustainability, according to a white paper by Workforce For Good.

Workforce for Good: Engaging Employees in Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility shares insights from a series of interviews with 17 leaders in sustainability and corporate social responsibility at Fortune 500 companies to find out how they engage their employees in sustainability and CSR.

Companies interviewed include: American Family Insurance, Brady Corporation, Briggs and Stratton Corporation, Jones Lang LaSalle, MillerCoors, Rockwell Automation, McDonald’s Corporation, Humana, Frito-Lay, Patrick Cudahy and Marathon Oil Corporation.

Getting over the final hurdle to zero-waste-to-landfill status at MillerCoors’ Trenton, Ohio, brewery was actually staff initiated, the report says.

Just three years ago the facility reused or recycled more than 98 percent of its waste. This figure soon climbed to 99 percent. But it came down to employee Kelly Harris deciding to close the gap for the final pieces of waste to be eliminated from the facility’s stream.

Harris made it “very simple” to get people involved, by, for example, using color-coding and signage to explain recycling and reuse policies. Within a relatively short time frame, Trenton was zero waste, according to the white paper.

Harris then challenged other breweries to match Trenton’s efforts. MillerCoors now has five zero-waste breweries.

McDonald’s has applied this mindset to recognizing “Planet Champions” in different areas of the world and to recognizing “Energy All Stars” in the US. Using the frame of a competition with the biennial “Best of Green,” employees come up with ideas for increasing energy efficiency or decreasing waste in restaurants, for example. The best ideas are recognized and the employees behind those ideas are held up as role models within the organization and given a monetary award.

 

 

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