Environment Days: our employees are our ambassadors - CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa -
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Environment Days: our employees are our ambassadors
On June 5 was the UN World Environment Day and like last year we used this important date to kick off a series of HP Environment Days in Europe. Until now 18 events were held in 11 countries. Some more Environment Day events are organized in September and October. Since climate change is on the top of our agenda we specifically focused on energy efficiency this year. I would like to share the highlights of this internal initiative for employees with you to show you how important such events are.

Most of our Environment Days events include an information booth, presentations, e-waste take back events and other locally driven initiatives. For example, at many sites my colleagues were able to organize the screening of Al Gore’s movie “An inconvenient truth”.

Among this year’s highlights is definitely the “green car fair” that was held during the Environment Days outside our HP offices in the Netherlands. Our Dutch employees had the chance to get first hand information on nine different car brands and their alternative fuel models such as bi-fuel, ethanol and CNG. In Ireland my colleagues organized among other things a “plant your own tree” initiative and a photography competition.

You see that the local teams addressed the issues around environment differently in each country in order to motivate employees to get involved. As I am based in Germany, I attended the Environment Day in my office and saw myself how passionate our employees got after an introduction presentation of the challenge of global warming and the Al Gore movie “An inconvenient truth”. They immediately wanted to learn more about HP´s involvement around energy efficiency and some even signed up to join the newly founded Sustainability Network, a grassroots initiative of HP employees in Germany to address environmental issues at HP sites.

Such internal awareness and information events are highly valuable for our employees as they are the ambassadors for our company. And if they are not convinced of their company’s efforts who else would be? So it’s really worthwhile supporting such events. I am looking forward to hearing from you how you let your employees become your ambassadors on the environment.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA
Posted 07-26-2007 9:32 AM by BlogArchive
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