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SHADOW - Sustainable Heedful Action in Daily Office Work

On social media where I’m active, there’s a community that’s giving a great deal of thought to achieving more sustainability and that wants to actively contribute to sustainable development in all areas of life.

On the other hand, through conversations with people around me, I’ve realised that many people still don't know exactly what the topic of sustainability, including Agenda 2030, is all about and also often reduce sustainability to climate protection. I also notice it in my professional life, even though many companies report on their efforts towards sustainable development in their annual reports. Yet here, too, the focus is on direct achievements. I notice that certain areas are left out – such as business travel, office workstations and the home office.

When Ulrich Holzbaur and I wrote the Quick Guide Sustainable Business Meetings and Events | Springer in 2020/2021, we discussed the value-creation chain of meetings and events on several occasions. Using various examples, we were able to calculate that it would be possible to reduce several tons of CO2 emissions with good planning. It thereby struck me that event administration and our office work is usually overlooked.

While there are repeated calls for sustainable development in every possible area, daily office work should not be left out of the equation. This applies to green IT, lean administration and so on.

The following examples, collected during the 2020/21 book project, to which many more could certainly be added, show that urgent action is needed here:

  • Hundreds of monitors in offices are on standby for months while their users work from home.
  • On returning to the office, water is offered in plastic bottle. This happens in a country like Switzerland, which has top-quality tap water.
  • Sandwich lunches are evidently selected without regard to sustainable criteria: as we all know, shrimps and coconuts aren’t available at Lake Zurich or Lake Constance.
  • The food quantities are more than generous and a far cry from zero waste, when all it would take is to send everyone an e-mail asking who’s definitely coming.
  • Let’s have a salad, even in a plastic bowl: in other situations, we're committed to a plastic-free world.
  • We stubbornly persist in sending e-mails with large attachments, true to the motto “This is how we’ve always worked,” even though there are chat-based Cloud solutions that could considerably reduce CO2. Data garbage in the inbox and in the trash could be avoided, so that the person using the notebook needn't waste time sorting away the bits and bytes.
  • Meetings are organised at locations without selecting the best “geo-midpoint” to reduce travel time for staff, air miles costs and CO2
  • Travel policies tend to take into account only the economic dimension, while neglecting environmental and social dimensions. The triple-bottom line is non-existent.
  • Devices that could have been used for another year or two have been scrapped. New employee – new devices? But of course!
  • Participants of a training course are informed of the training dates by e-mail or info board, which they then have to enter into their own calendars manually. An invitation to everyone with the different ICS entries would have saved a lot of work. Keywords: lean administration, efficiency, customer and colleague focus.
  • There are no guidelines on how office workers in home office can work in a resource-saving way (e.g. power strips for switching off the electricity, etc.).

While many companies are concerned about their clean desk policies, one searches in vain for a Sustainable Office Work Policy. It’s as if we have a blind spot regarding our own work and working together with others, and this is particularly true when it comes to using new tools to save resources. To link this to sustainability and its three dimensions, the social, economic and the ecological, we’re moving along the triple bottom line here (for more on this subject, see Prof. Ulrich Holzbaur's book Nachhaltige Entwicklung | SpringerLink (Eng.: "Sustainable Development").

 

The blind spot of sustainable heedfulness in daily office work.

To me, it’s as if we office workers or knowledge workers are looking from our desks at what we’re accomplishing with our work and achieving somewhere by digital means. Yet, in the process we fail to realise that our office work, too, has a lasting impact regarding sustainability. It's as if our desk or notebook is in the shadow, and thus beyond the focus of operational sustainability goals.

What can we do?

To bring about sustainable change in our daily office work, we need the curiosity to learn new things, the ability to reflect on our ways of working up to now and the courage to initiate changes.

Do we have time for sustainability in our daily office work?

Full-time employees work an average of about 220 days per year: over approx. 35 working years, that amounts to 7,700 working days. Each day offers a new opportunity to do something within the ecological, social and economic dimensions of sustainability.

There is certainly untapped potential here.

Where can we bring more sustainability into our daily work? And how do we do it?

In our daily work, we need to identify areas where we can do something for impact models of sustainability, such as climate protection, energy or resources such as saving air, water, preventing or reducing waste, doing something in our immediate surroundings to improve accessibility, inclusion or social justice or contributing to the well-being of staff.

Taking the sustainability strategy as a starting point, the operational sustainability goals of a company, the structures, systems, processes, resources and the practised culture should be incorporated. Furthermore, whether as managers or employees, we can discover opportunities for sustainable measures in the action areas of our workplace, in office activities, in the IT area, in mobility, in collaboration or work organisation, in lunch catering in the tea & coffee kitchen, canteen or cafeteria, or in daily business meetings and events, particularly in the case of catering, travel organisation, overnight stays, etc. Discover opportunities for sustainable action. One thing is clear: the staff of the IT, Facility, Purchasing & Procurement, Administration, Communication and Marketing functions or departments must be involved in such a development process.

 

After that, different methods such as nudging, e-learning and workshops can be used to train or promote heedfulness of sustainable-conscious action in daily office work. As managers and employees, we are thereby encouraged and challenged to develop our

  • method competence (the ability to develop solutions for working efficiently and sustainably) and thus
  • professional competence (the ability to further one’s own theoretical and practical knowledge regarding sustainable development),
  • social skills (the ability to work in a team and to motivate colleagues and others to behave more sustainably),
  • personality skills (the capacity for reflection and critical thinking, time and self-management, willingness to learn),

in accordance with the principles of sustainable development.  

 

How can we identify areas of sustainable action in our daily office work?

The analysis can be done in a systematic and structured way using the Action-Impact-Matrix (see U. Holzbaur, Nachhaltige Entwicklung | SpringerLink, (title in English: “Sustainable Development”). Impact models are matched with action areas, objectives set and individual goals defined; furthermore, measures for achieving these goals are developed (turning objectives into issues). This can be done within the framework of a project with workshops, a select number of staff and a responsible project team. The process of reflecting on the work that we do together in every possible area of our daily work gives rise to guidelines for working more heedfully in everyday office life. In this way, managers and staff do their part to support the economic, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability and thus also Agenda 2030 and the 17 SDGs.

Overall, such a process could help to achieve the following:

From the perspective of the company:

  • Saving resources and costs
  • Development of a positive image through practising social responsibility

with an impact on Corporate Social Responsibility as a competitive factor

  • Creating awareness of sustainable development
  • Multiplier effect
  • The triggering of innovations

 

From the perspective of the staff:

  • Heightened awareness of sustainable development
  • Motivation with regard to professional goals
  • Effectiveness and efficiency in day-to-day work
  • Transfer of knowledge and behaviour, including in private life
  • Better teamwork through joint action

 

Transferring the concept to daily life and society in general.

Furthermore, sustainable heedful action in daily office work (SHADOW) leads to transfer effects in other areas of life and also extends into areas where exchange with suppliers or service providers takes place.

So, how do you feel about this issue? What will you do with the remaining working days of your professional life?

 

#ACT4SDG #sustainableawareness #sustainabledevelopment #SustainableHeedfulActioninDailyOffice

 

Remark on terminology - Heedfulness - context- and goal-related attention. We are aware that the term Sustainable Awareness or Sustainability Awareness is commonly used to refer to focused attention towards sustainable development. In a German-speaking context, the term "Awareness" or Mindfulness has a certain connotation, which is based on Buddhist thought. In mindfulness practice, it sometimes has an esoteric connotation. And in business, there are still many who shy away from such topics related to meditation or esoteric issues. Thus, mindfulness is often referred to as "the heart of Buddhist meditation."

The term "heedfulness" is often used in the context of organizations to examine the conduct of safety audits. It is more specific and goal-oriented, or the term is used to express aspects of ethical vigilance.[1] Christian Krägeloh also mentions the German term "Besonnenheit" in this context.[2]
In contrast to the term "Mindfulness" (also Mindfulness), "Heedfulness" stands for an attentiveness with a commitment to engage myself with emotional self-regulation and active awareness for a meaningful goal, which is given by the Agenda 2030. "Heedfulness" is contextual and purposeful.[3]
I would like to thank Chris Krägeloh, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Auckland University of Technology, for taking time to answer my questions on this topic. For me, the discussion was valuable.

[1] Krägeloh, Chris. (2020). Mindfulness research and terminology science. (PDF) Mindfulness research and terminology science (researchgate.net). Abgerufen 08.01.2022

[2] Krägeloh C.U. (2018) Mindfulness, Heedfulness, and Ethics. In: Stanley S., Purser R., Singh N. (eds) Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness. Mindfulness in Behavioral Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76538-9_5. Abgerufen 07.01.2022

[3] "Heedfulness is defined as an attitude of attentive cautionessness.”. Achtsamkeit ist definiert als eine Haltung der aufmerksamen Vorsicht.

 

About the author. After completing her studies in Basel and Oldenburg, Elisabeth Brommer-Kern worked for global teams in Germany and Switzerland in the fields of administration, organisation and knowledge management and is now a freelance consultant and lecturer. Contact with Prof. Dr Ulrich Holzbaur, at Aalen University, Germany arose through a project on the topic of sustainable event management. The idea to write the Quick guide to sustainable business meetings and events emerged from the virtual discussion. Springer-Verlag published the Quick Guide in January 2022.

Kontakt: ebk@sjpdevelopment.ch /

 

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