Management consultancy company PwC found that while 85% of employees said it was important to integrate sustainability into client projects, only 28% had the confidence to do so.
It decided to create a more consistent "sustainability mindset" across its UK workforce.
To make the subject accessible, the company created a 40 minute e-learning module with a short animation that took an everyday product – the mobile phone – and demonstrated how sustainability could reveal risks and opportunities in areas including minerals and human rights.
The training involved an interactive 3D timeline, explaining how sustainability had gained such prominence in recent years. Videos showed clients in a variety of industries talking about how the challenges had changed their business, products, supply chains and reporting.
PwC did not make the training mandatory but, even so, 15,000 of its 17,000 staff watched it within three months.
Evaluation surveys indicated that 74% – 12,200 staff – felt confident enough to speak about it to clients; and 60% intended to include sustainability conversations as a matter of course in their client work in future.
Lynn Beavis is part of the wordworks network
The Guardian Sustainable Business Sustainability Case Studies contain articles on all the initiatives that met the criteria for the GSB Awards.
