Empowered To Act: How Businesses Can Help Employees Lead The Charge On Climate Change

Julie Starr • May 31, 2025

Climate change is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, and it’s affecting the way we live, work, and plan for the future. While governments and industries shape policy and innovation, the real force for sustainable change often lies in the collective action of everyday people. And where do most of us spend a significant portion of our time? At work. Business leaders today have a powerful opportunity, not just to reduce their organization’s carbon footprint, but to inspire their teams to become informed, empowered agents of environmental change. This doesn’t require mandates or grandstanding. It requires creating space, providing tools, and nurturing a culture of ownership and purpose. Here’s how businesses can help employees build agency to tackle climate change, genuinely and sustainably.


Start With Values, Not Directives

Agency starts with alignment. When employees understand that their company’s sustainability goals are tied to shared values, like community well-being, health, and future resilience, they’re more likely to engage on a personal level. Instead of rolling out top-down rules or guilt-driven campaigns, bring your team into the conversation. Share why sustainability matters to your business and how it connects to broader human goals, like clean air, secure food systems, or thriving local economies. Make it about people, not just emissions. Use internal communication channels, leadership messages, and real-world storytelling to link climate action to shared values. When employees see climate action as a part of who they are, not just what you do, it becomes meaningful—and motivation follows naturally.


Create Learning Opportunities, Not Just Compliance Training

If your climate initiatives are hidden in policy manuals or one-time eLearning modules, they’re unlikely to spark change. Education is key, but it must be experiential, relevant, and ongoing. Consider lunch-and-learn sessions with environmental experts, interactive carbon footprint calculators for daily life, or documentary screening nights followed by open discussions. Think beyond the office too, offer book clubs focused on climate-related reads, or partner with local organizations for employee volunteer opportunities. Better yet, invite employees to lead the learning. Give space for those passionate about sustainability to share what they know. Peer learning builds community and creates a ripple effect that spreads across departments organically.


Connect Individual Actions To Bigger Impact

One of the most disempowering aspects of climate change is the feeling that individual actions are just a drop in the ocean. Businesses can change this narrative by connecting small choices to larger collective impact. Set up systems that track and report collective wins: pounds of waste diverted, miles of carpooling saved, or gallons of water conserved. Then celebrate those achievements, not as corporate milestones, but as team victories. Use dashboards, office signage, or intranet features to make the invisible visible. Seeing tangible outcomes from everyday actions builds a sense of contribution—and with it, the desire to do more.


Give Employees A Say In The Sustainability Journey

Employee agency grows when people feel they have a voice. Instead of dictating a sustainability plan, co-create one. Hold climate idea challenges or “green hackathons” where employees pitch solutions. Whether it’s optimizing energy use, reducing packaging, or reinventing business travel policies. Reward creativity and follow through on the best ideas. You could also form a cross-functional sustainability council, with real influence over decision-making. This gives team members an active role in shaping initiatives, while creating a feedback loop that keeps strategies grounded in reality. When employees are part of the design process, they’re far more likely to become ambassadors of change.


Empower Everyday Decision-Making

Sustainability shouldn’t be a side project, it should be embedded in everyday workflows. This means equipping employees with the autonomy and tools to make eco-friendly choices in real time. For instance reaching out to a micro market vending provider could help you influence your team’s footprint by controlling the offering. A vending space filled with locally sourced, low-waste snacks sends a clear message: “We care, and we’re helping you care too.” Similarly, empower team leads to make sustainable choices in how they host meetings, manage print resources, or design events. Encourage departments to set their own sustainability goals aligned with the company’s mission, giving them ownership of their climate journey.

The more decisions employees can make sustainably without bureaucratic friction, the more natural and authentic their climate action becomes.


Offer Climate-Friendly Benefits

One of the most impactful ways businesses can support climate agency is through thoughtful benefits that align with a lower-carbon lifestyle. Consider incentives for public transit, biking, or EV usage. Provide reimbursement for energy-efficient home office upgrades. Offer paid volunteer days for environmental projects, or match donations to climate-focused nonprofits. Even offering flexibility in remote work can significantly reduce commuting emissions, while also boosting employee satisfaction and retention. When the structure of work supports sustainable living, employees don’t have to choose between personal values and professional life. Instead, the two can harmonize.


Lead By Example, But Stay Human

Leadership’s behavior matters. If executives say one thing and do another, like flying first-class to climate conferences while pushing paperless policies, it erodes trust and diminishes morale. But leadership doesn’t have to mean perfection. Transparency and sincerity go a long way. Share your own climate learning curve. Talk about the changes you’re making, the challenges you face, and why it matters to you personally. This creates a culture of progress, not perfection. One where employees feel safe to try, fail, and grow in their own climate journey.


Highlight Purpose Over Pressure

Tackling climate change can feel overwhelming. Instead of stressing urgency through fear, focus on opportunity through purpose. Position climate action as a chance to be part of something meaningful: to innovate, to lead, to protect what we love. Show how employees’ actions support something bigger than themselves. Whether that’s cleaner communities, healthier families, or a thriving planet. This purpose-driven approach motivates far more deeply than doom-driven appeals. It taps into the human desire to contribute and connect—core ingredients of true agency.


Make Sustainability Fun And Creative

Sustainability doesn’t have to be serious all the time. Creative, playful engagement builds energy and makes climate action feel approachable. Host “green your desk” competitions. Run upcycling workshops during team-building days. Encourage departments to compete for the lowest energy use or create art from recycled materials.Gamify environmental goals with rewards that reinforce the message (like reusable swag or tree-planting donations). When climate action is fun, it stops being a burden, and starts being something people want to do.


Build A Legacy

Ultimately, the most powerful way to build employee agency around climate change is to invite them into something bigger than themselves, a legacy worth building. Frame your organization’s climate journey as a shared adventure. What kind of future do you want to help create together? What kind of company do you want to be remembered as? Give people something to belong to. Something they can be proud of. Because at the end of the day, most employees don’t want to just clock in and clock out. They want to be part of something meaningful. And helping to shape a more sustainable, just, and resilient world? That’s about as meaningful as it gets.


Supporting employees to lead on climate doesn’t mean preaching or pressuring. It means cultivating a workplace where values, purpose, and action are in sync. Where every person feels they matter, and that what they do makes a difference. This kind of cultural shift isn’t just good for the planet. It builds trust, strengthens engagement, and sets your business apart as a place where people, and the future can thrive. Let’s move beyond mandates and toward movements. Your employees are ready. Let’s help them lead.

5 Everyday Items That Can Quietly Boost Your Brand

By Julie Starr • July 17, 2025
The best branding doesn’t always come from big campaigns or expensive graphics. Sometimes it’s the smaller stuff that leaves the biggest impression. Things people actually use, touch, or carry with them. That’s where your brand can quietly make its mark without needing to shout about it. If you’re only focusing on social media and business cards, you’re leaving a lot on the table. Here are five overlooked ways to get your name out there that feel natural, useful, and more personal. Thank-you slips If you’re already sending out orders, there’s no reason not to include a short thank-you slip. You can easily get these made through any decent online print shop , and they’re usually pretty cheap to run off in small batches. Just a simple note that says thanks, maybe with a reminder to follow you online or a cheeky discount code for next time. It’s quick, thoughtful, and makes the whole order feel more finished. Customers notice that kind of detail, especially when everything else they buy online comes with zero personality. You don’t need a complicated design either. Just something clean with your logo, a message that sounds like you, and maybe a social handle. The point is to give them a reason to come back or remember your name without it feeling forced. Branded zip pouches If you sell physical products, offer services, or run events, small zip pouches are surprisingly effective. Think of the kind you’d use for stationery, receipts, or travel bits. You can get your brand printed on the side and hand them out with purchases or include them in welcome packs. People keep them because they’re actually useful. They get tossed in handbags, school bags, or glove boxes and your logo just keeps turning up. Cleaning cloths for glasses or screens This one works brilliantly if you’re in tech, health, beauty, or anything involving screens or eyewear. A simple microfibre cloth with your branding on it can go a long way. Everyone needs one. Whether they use it for glasses, a phone screen, or their laptop, it’s something they hang onto. It’s not the kind of thing people throw away, and that means your name sticks around too. Receipt envelopes You might already use little envelopes to hand over receipts or business cards. Branding those envelopes is a small change that makes a big difference. Instead of someone getting a scruffy bit of paper in a plain sleeve, they’re handed something that feels a bit more finished. You can even add a message inside. Doesn’t need to be anything dramatic. A simple “thanks for visiting” or “see you next time” is enough to add a personal touch. Wet wipes or mini hand gels If your business is in hospitality, food, or anything hands-on, branded wet wipes or pocket-sized hand gels are surprisingly popular. People actually use them, especially at festivals, food stalls, pop-ups, or kids’ events. They end up in handbags or cars and stick around longer than you think. They don’t scream “marketing” either. They’re practical, and when done right, they make your business feel thoughtful. That’s what good branding does, it shows you’ve thought ahead.

How Student-Led ‘Energy Audits’ Are Cutting School Costs (and Lighting the Way Forward)

By Julie Starr • July 14, 2025
What happens when students stop waiting for adults to fix things and start conducting their own energy audits? Money gets saved. The lights get switched off. Data gets analyzed. And a quiet revolution in sustainability begins—inside schools that once overlooked their own inefficiencies. Across the globe, student-led energy audits are proving that change doesn't always need to come from a policy shift or a major capital budget. Sometimes, it begins with a clipboard, a spreadsheet, and a group of curious minds asking: Why are the hallway lights on at noon when sunlight floods the building? The Energy Detectives These audits aren’t science fair projects. They’re rigorous investigations, often done in collaboration with facilities staff, local environmental nonprofits, or even engineering mentors. Students go from classroom to classroom measuring electricity usage, checking for phantom loads , and identifying where heat is escaping in winter or air conditioning is leaking in summer. One high school in Ontario saved over $12,000 a year after its Grade 11 physics students ran an energy audit and suggested simple changes—LED upgrades, motion sensors in bathrooms, and smarter heating schedules. They didn’t just propose ideas. They pitched them with spreadsheets, thermal images, and payback timelines. It worked. Learning That Pays Off—Literally Unlike textbook learning, these audits blend real-world math, environmental science, economics, and persuasive communication. Students aren’t just learning about sustainability. They’re doing it. And the savings add up. From dimming overlit hallways to reprogramming HVAC systems that run all weekend for empty buildings, students are surfacing blind spots that administrators often overlook. In some districts, their findings are influencing energy policy. Elsewhere, the audits have inspired school boards to hire sustainability coordinators—often alumni of the student programs themselves. There’s something poetic about a school funding new books or laptops from money saved by students who found out the vending machines didn’t need to be plugged in 24/7. Why This Matters More Than Ever With education budgets tightening and utility costs rising, every dollar saved is a dollar that can go back into classrooms. And here’s where it gets interesting from a family finance perspective, too. If you’re a parent setting aside money for post-secondary savings, every bit of school efficiency helps. Fewer energy costs might mean more programming, better STEM facilities, or even bursaries. That raises a broader point: when families save for their children’s future, they often look into RESPs (Registered Education Savings Plans). And many wonder—is a RESP deduction available on my taxes? While contributions themselves aren’t deductible, the gains grow tax-free, and students often pay little to no tax when they withdraw the funds during school. A Movement Worth Replicating These audits aren’t just an exercise in environmentalism. They’re leadership labs. Students learn how to spot inefficiencies, speak up in board meetings, and make a business case for change. They don’t just flip switches—they shift mindsets. And they carry these habits into adulthood. The result? A generation growing up not only with climate anxiety, but also with tools to tackle it.