January 30, 2019
Nick Xenos is the Executive Director at the Centre for Greening Government, developed to help the federal government reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.
For Nick and his colleagues, educating and engaging Government of Canada employees is an important part of meeting this greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal. That’s why he and a team of enthusiastic champions organized a Smart Office Challenge with their branches. The results were incredible – with more than 500 employees taking part.
How did they do it? We asked Nick a few questions about how they managed to make it such a big success.
Q: Who was responsible for leading/organizing the Smart Office Challenge at your workplace?
A: The team consisted of the following individuals:
- Nick Xenos, Executive Director, Centre of Greening Government, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (Sustainable Development Champion & Event Lead)
- Mike Giles, Director, Corporate Administration, Department of Finance Canada (Event Lead, TBS-FIN Green Network)
- Tyler Tackman, Manager, Facilities Management, Department of Finance Canada (Event Coordinator, TBS-FIN Green Network)
- Jacob Topic, Analyst/ Advisor, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (Event Developer & Organizer)
- Poya Saffari, Analyst, International, Security and Justice Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (Event Developer & Organizer)
- Pierre-Luc Pilon, Natural Resources Canada (Event Developer, Coder & Web Administrator)
- Sabrina Whelan, Team Leader, Procurement and Materiel Management, Department of Finance Canada (Event Coordinator, TBS-FIN Green Network)
Q: Why did you decide to host a Smart Office Challenge with your workplace?
A: We had activities planned around Canadian Environment Week and were looking to encourage employees to reduce their carbon footprint. Some of the activities that came up, and discussions with Frances at HP Canada and Amy at WWF-Canada helped evolve our thinking and hence we made it into a friendly competition, to encourage employees to form habits to reduce their carbon footprint in a variety of ways.
Q: What types of activities did you run for your Smart Office Challenge?
A: We ran five activities:
- The paper reduction challenge – we encouraged employees to print even less than they do and make better use of technology, if they could! We tracked the week before the challenge to develop a baseline, and then tracked the stats at the end of the week to compare. There was quite a reduction!
- Smart commuting challenge – Employees got a different number of points depending on how they got to work and how ‘green’ their commute was.
- Waste reduction challenge – where employees got points depending on how much they wasted, encouraging them to use reusable containers for their lunches and snacks, and reusable mugs for their coffee, tea, or water.
- Power down challenge – where employees got points depending how much they powered down – their laptops, their monitors, other electronic devices, etc.
- Green meeting challenge – where employees got points based on their paper vs. technology use in meetings, their encouraging participants to make use of teleconferencing and videoconference, and how they got to their meetings.
Q: What was your favourite part about organizing an employee engagement campaign like this?
A: Organizing the challenge allowed the organizing team and I to raise environmental awareness across 2 departments. It was fantastic to see the creativity from the organizing team, the high level of employee engagement, and the feeling that we were actually able to make a change, no matter how small or large.
Thank you to Nick and his amazing team for organizing such an impactful and creative employee engagement activity with their workplace!
Inspired by this story? You can organize a Smart Office Challenge with your workplace by visiting wwf.ca/smartoffice.
