Involving staff members is essential to the success of any effort to enhance your team’s environmental performance. Consider convening a meeting with NRDC personnel present or sending a memo to all staff members informing them of your team’s environmental goals. Also consider forming an eco-committee of interested staff members to help oversee and implement your team’s efforts and to provide new ideas and feedback to relevant departments.

Feel free to excerpt the following sample memo, and review some of our other ideas for increasing staff involvement.

I’m writing to let you know that the Dodgers are launching a team-wide effort to improve the environmental performance of our team and stadium operations. As you might know, our day-to-day operations, from energy and water use to the paper we purchase, can have a significant impact on the environment. By carefully focusing on these impacts, we should be able to reduce them, helping the environment and our bottom line.

The strategic objectives of our Environmental Initiative will be:

• Reducing global warming pollution
• Protecting biodiversity
• Conserving, recycling, and purchasing ecologically superior paper
• Energy efficiency and renewable energy
• Promoting recycling
• Efficient water use
• Using less toxic products
• Promoting fan and sponsor awareness and education

We’ll begin this effort by creating an Eco-Committee that includes representatives of the various departments. The team will lead a company-wide diagnosis of our current environmental performance and draft an Action Plan, complete with specific recommendations, for consideration by senior management. We will review the plan together, suggest changes or additions, and then begin implementation.

This is an important effort for the Dodgers, not just because it can save us money, but especially because it can make an important contribution to the environment. By reducing our own contribution to environmental problems we can be better corporate citizens.

I believe our environmental initiative will also enhance employee morale and provide community relations benefits as well. I hope that as we devise and implement our plan we will be able to foster a top-to-bottom commitment to environmentally intelligent practices of which we can all be proud.

In short, I hope our environmental initiative will be helpful to us on many fronts, and I hope you’ll join in this effort enthusiastically. Thanks very much.

Involvement of senior management is essential to the success of any team’s greening effort, but it is not sufficient on its own. When attempting to enhance environmental performance, companies should involve employees at all levels of the organization. One of the best ways to promote the participation of employees is to form an eco-committee composed of interested staff. An eco-committee can be a valuable component of your team’s effort to enhance its environmental performance. It can be a source for new ideas and motivation and can serve as a link between upper management and individual departments.

Since all operations engender some type of environmental impact, eco-committees should be made up of staff from all departments at various levels to ensure comprehensive and diverse input. Involving stadium operations staff is critical to ensure the maximum use of non-toxic cleaning products; involving front office employees is essential to ensure that procurement policies, office recycling, and paper reduction efforts are carried out; the participation of upper management is necessary to ensure that sustainability is a priority throughout the organization. An eco-committee should meet regularly to discuss progress, goals, and strategies. In addition, it should periodically provide updates to upper management.

• Distribute reusable coffee mugs or reusable shopping bags along with a memo or brochure explaining your team’s initiative
• Offer a monthly raffle or prizes for participation in your team’s eco-committee, or for offering suggestions on how to improve environmental performance
• Provide clear and very visible signs at recycling, printing, and food stations to promote compliance with the team’s eco-practices