We believe the people component of sustainability operates in concert with environmental and governance factors in areas relating to social determinants of health, wealth and wellbeing.
Many employers believe it’s important to take action to inspire, motivate, engage and upskill employees in line with sustainability goals. Combined with the greater emphasis on sustainability strategy, these efforts also influence employer brand and culture, total rewards, employee engagement, and skills and work initiatives.
Companies that embrace climate and governance strategies and meaningfully embed them into their culture, programs and employee experience achieve greater levels of employee engagement and performance.
To better understand the connection of people and community to the other principal elements of sustainability, consider the potential impacts of climate change on employee wellbeing. While wellbeing is considered a social factor of sustainability, it impacts and is impacted by environmental and governance factors.
There are four pillars of wellbeing: physical, emotional, financial and social. All four may be impacted by environmental and governance strategies. For example, climate change could affect people’s health or financial wellbeing through severe weather events, extreme heat, air pollution, changing ecologies, and increasing water and food insecurity.
These factors reinforce the need for strong governance, as employees with poor emotional or financial wellbeing may be more inclined to take risks and ignore governance protocols.
We have identified five key issues that contribute to the people and community element of sustainability:
Wellbeing
How can your organization support physically and emotionally healthy, financially secure and socially connected employees to deliver on sustainability commitments?
Employee safety and security
How can you ensure the safety and wellbeing of employees, their families and the communities they operate in and serve?
Justice, fairness and equality
How can you uphold human rights and labor standards and unlock the full human capital potential through a fair work environment and programs for all employees?
Employability and social mobility
How can you drive continued employability and upward social mobility by equipping employees with the skills (up/re/cross) needed for tomorrow’s workplace?
Workforce resilience and stability
How can you ensure a healthy pipeline, maintain sustainability of and efficiently deploy talent and skills so that employees can engage in work and be productive without burnout and extreme stress at work? How can you ensure the workforce is protected from and resilient to the effects of climate change?
