Environmental awareness on the up but employees demand still greener pastures: Survey
Sydney, 25 August 2008: Over a third of Australian businesses show an extremely low degree of environmental awareness, with over half (58.7%) of employees saying that environmental issues are never discussed at their company, according to a survey of 1,768 employees by LinkMe.com.au, Australia's leading online career network.
Whilst environmental awareness is considered to have increased, over a third of companies (34.6%) do not aim to be as environmentally friendly as reasonably possible and only 15.6% make any effort to measure the level of greenhouse gases they emit.
"Environmental awareness is on the up but many businesses are yet to actually implement the simplest of green policies throughout their businesses," says Campbell Sallabank of LinkMe. "The overwhelming consensus is that business will only be held accountable for the impact they make on the environmental future of Australia if legally bound to do so."
According to 34.7% of respondents, the single most effective measure to truly drive environmentally friendly workplaces would be to impose legal obligation on 'green' standards and force business take responsibility for our green future.
"Some other potential steps that might improve these statistics were suggested by respondents and included companies receiving a free visit from a green consultant to best advise on measures to take (31.9%)," says Sallabank. "Government grants (25.6%) and tax cuts for lowered greenhouse gas emissions (23%) were also seen as potential solutions by employees."
The simplest of steps, such as turning out the office lights and computers after work can make a huge difference. Over 40% of employees said their organization has participated in this year's WWF Earth Hour initiative which encouraged the world to switch off their lights for just one hour.
