Individuals are willing, more than ever, to address climate change. Even throughout the health and economic crisis of the pandemic, awareness of environmental issues heightened. In the workplace, employees are proactively putting climate-positive action on the agenda by requesting greener employee benefits. Here, we run through which are gaining traction and why.

Why employees and businesses are choosing green employee perks

The current climate of societal, environmental and political volatility is thrusting businesses into making defining decisions. Companies failing to make strides in sustainability and reducing their environmental impact are set to miss out in the marketplace. Data collected from the current and future workforce indicates 94% of Gen Zs and 80% of millennials feel businesses have the responsibility of tackling wider environmental and social issues. The eco-conscious trend is echoed by consumers: 90% of business leaders believe they will feel the pressure from consumers for their impact on the environment. These expectations, along with trends arising from the global pandemic, are altering which employee benefits will be most important in attracting and retaining employees. 

The pandemic induced stress on all levels, businesses were forced to pile pressure on staff by shifting their work environment and demanding flexibility. It’s now their turn to set out their own path to recovery, and perspectives have changed - employees want benefits that help tackle the challenges of today. This means, high on the list is flexibility in working conditions; support for financial and mental wellbeing; access to work through technology; and participation in social and environmental initiatives. Companies must ensure they help employees recover if they want to avoid being washed out by the turnover ‘Tsunami’. It’s predicted 50% of workers in the US will quit their jobs in 2021, disengagement and burnout being some of the main contributing factors.

Environmental-based employee benefits can deliver the engagement that many companies struggle to provide on their own. By promoting involvement in environmental and sustainability programmes within businesses, the community, and society, employees are more likely to feel aligned and loyal to their organisation and its values. 

Businesses stand to benefit too. Not only from securing top talent and engaging its workforce, but also from improved alignment to CSR policies and attracting capital investment. 25% of the total assets under professional management in the US are in sustainable, responsible, and/or impact investments and it's set to increase.

Studies show as many as half of workers intend to look for a new job this year.

Which green benefits are employees choosing?

In the drive to push down fuel-related emissions several trend-setting schemes are nudging employees towards greener commuting behaviours. That's not to say employees aren't on board. Improved health, a lower carbon footprint and discounted vehicles are a few of the incentives on offer for adopting sustainable travel perks.

Cyclescheme is an example of ‘salary sacrifice’ initiative. This scheme allows employees to purchase cycling gear at a discount (up to 39%) and spread costs over a period with an option to buy. As the cost is deducted from gross salary, employers reduce their National Insurance Contributions too. Now the scheme allows purchases over £1000 to boost sales of e-bikes for longer-distance commuters.

Creative companies have introduced schemes to encourage staff to walk, run or cycle to work through reward based systems and internal competitions. Success can be found from utilizing our competitive spirit and tendency to imitate peer behaviours. 

2. Electric Vehicles (EVs) as company cars

To scale up the number of EVs on UK roads the government has introduced the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme. Grants provide 75% of the cost and installation of a home charge point. This initiative extends to the Workplace Charging Scheme for businesses who can obtain funding via a voucher system. As company cars are eligible, expect to see more EVs chosen as company perks.

To find out why EVs are predicted to overtake conventional cars in the future, see our article electric cars, the pros and cons.

If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.

3. Climate Perks - a low-carbon holiday travel perk 

Climate Perks is an innovative scheme taking on the world’s fastest growing emitter - flights. Research has shown that 50% of people are willing to cut their flying emissions, but only 3% actually do it. Abandoning flights and opting for slower sustainable travel is proving a tall ask for those in high-pressure jobs and little downtime for holidays. 

Climate Perks has stepped in to provide a solution for employees wanting to choose low-carbon transport for their holidays but are put off by the longer travel times. They do this by helping employers offer paid ‘journey days’ that won’t eat into their precious holiday entitlement. To illustrate the carbon savings, a train journey from the UK to Berlin emits 8 times less carbon than flying. Schemes like this could be instrumental in shifting behaviours and shredding hefty carbon footprints through a simple but ingenious idea.

4. Partnerships with environmental organisations

Companies that recognise their staff’s commitment to contributing good to environmental causes are offering them the chance to establish longer-term partnerships with environmental organisations. Tree planting initiatives, wildlife trusts and scientific research groups are examples of organisations employees request funding for. Employers will want to invest or donate to the organisations capable of giving them the best environmental return on investment. Below are a few key considerations that can help examine their proposals.

If investing in a tree planting initiative, are the plantations monoculture or using non-native species? Tree planting involves a multitude of contextual factors and can have disastrous effects if done incorrectly. Read our article on tree planting done wrong where we dissect the issues.

Carbon offsetting schemes are often fraught with complications that over-simplify the concept of ‘net zero’ emissions. The industry standards have been scrutinised and contested so tread carefully if venturing down this avenue. See this effective carbon offsetting article for an overview and how to avoid the pitfalls of choosing a scheme that has negative impacts.

For wildlife conservation projects, do they aim to enhance biodiversity of the area? Conservation efforts in the past have been guilty of focusing on a species in isolation and failed to consider the wider impact on biodiversity. Rewilding is a form of conservation that has gained recognition for its positive cascading effects on a myriad of species. Key to its success is achieving high environmental impact through minimal human intervention. If you are interested in learning more about how businesses can have a direct impact on restoring nature and mitigating climate change through rewilding, see Mossy Earth businesses.

Tree planting involves a multitude of contextual factors and can have disastrous effects if done incorrectly.

An employee benefit that cuts emissions for commuters down to a bare minimum is subsidies for the relocation of staff to move closer to the workplace. The scale of the initiative depends on the budget available but even those with substantial budgets, such as Facebook, have opted for this approach to develop their sustainability goals. 

To tackle the problem of expensive real estate and congestion in the region, the big tech giant incentivised employees with a $10,000 payment. Part of the conditions included buying or renting within 10 miles of their silicon valley premises. Despite the gains to be made in reduced congestion, it has raised fears of increasing gentrification of surrounding areas. Regardless of its potential flaws, this bold move will make a useful case study for companies wishing to implement similar schemes.

The abrupt switch to remote working during COVID-19 lockdowns forced entire industries to adapt to a new work environment from home. The changes have bred a new set of attitudes to work: it’s predicted that 20% of the US workforce will continue to work from home as compared to only 5% pre-pandemic. This brings some positive news for businesses where this change is feasible - productivity (of a hybrid workforce) is expected to improve by 4.6% as a result. 

In addition to the advantages for employees of increased flexibility and regaining commuting time, emissions will be greatly affected. Estimates by the David Suzuki Foundation state 250 million kgs of CO2 emissions can be saved from one million people working from home just one day a week in Canada. Such statistics make working from home a perk that businesses can leverage to engage staff and build relationships in a post-pandemic world. However, this emergent trend requires further investigation to consider how organisations will report these ‘outsourced’ emissions. This includes ‘scope 4’ related emissions from the buildings where employees live.

If a million people worked from home just one weekday a year, Canada could save some 250 million kg of CO2 emissions; 100 million litres of fuel; and 800 million fewer kilometres of mileage.

A choice of perk that gives employees a sense of significance in adopting a sustainable lifestyle. Subsidies of green energy suppliers seems a simple fix for reducing your carbon footprint, although before making the switch consider the following.

Is the “green electricity” tariff your supplier is offering 100% renewable? Do your checks to see if there is a mix with non-renewable energies. Renewable forms are wind, solar, wave/tidal, biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric.

Is the renewable electricity certified by market regulators such as REGO (Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin) or GoOs (Guarantees of Origin) distributed by the Association of Issuing Bodies?

A lot of energy is produced as non-vegan energy using animals or animal by-products through anaerobic digestion and biomass. If you want to go vegan with your energy supply, search for suppliers that publish their mix, Ecotricity is one.

The scope for personalised choices of perks that have a positive environmental impact is increasing. Below are some others appearing in benefit packages.

Home energy assessments and installations of energy efficiencies like insulation.

Subscriptions to local organic farms and markets allowing staff to eat seasonally and locally.

Permaculture and Grow your own workshops  

Sustainable and ethical smartphones and Eco-friendly laptops 

Sportswear and other ethical clothing brands. Tools like the Good on you app are making ethical shopping trendier and easier for shoppers to find brands that deliver on their values.

Businesses that reward employees with choices and flexibility to choose green perks are pragmatically addressing the main concerns and desires of their workforce. In return employees, businesses and the environment benefit. 

Other carbon-reducing subsidies available as perks

One way employees and businesses are addressing climate change is through green employee perks. Pragmatic solutions are achieving big environmental gains.

7 green employee perks with high environmental impact

Employee benefits that are propelling businesses and staff towards sustainability.

inlumi is a unique full-service provider of Enterprise Performance Management & Analytics services – from advisory and implementation to operations. inlumi have been working with Mossy Earth to help restore wilderness since 2017.

As a business, inlumi’s focus has always been on their people: The environment they create for growth and development, and the professional and personal experience of working at the company have always been extremely important. 

inlumi have a solid track record of finding innovative ways to keep their employees inspired and engaged. They've invested in education programmes, coaching, and clear career pathways. They also understand the importance of fun. Working at inlumi has never just been about the money. 

Ash Chapman - Global Head of Consulting at inlumi

We wanted to find something we could all engage with outside of delivering projects and working with our customers.

inlumi’s Global Head of Consulting, Ash, met Mossy Earth Co-founder Matt on a surfing trip in Portugal where they discussed the pros of rewilding as a means of mitigating climate change over a beer while watching the sunset. Ash loved the idea of connecting their work and the team to nature restoration and thus actively involving them in the fight against climate change.

As a first step, inlumi started funding Mossy Earth’s reforestation efforts. Mossy Earth became a component of inlumi’s projects, giving their clients a fun and unique dimension by having the tree planting process running in parallel. Both customers and employees gave great feedback and enjoyed this unusual combination of business and nature.

We really liked it and the message it would send our existing team and those we hire in the future.

Seeing this impact, inlumi decided to build on their partnership with Mossy Earth. They wanted to add an employee perk that would drive internal engagement and express some of the business’ core values.

As such, Mossy Earth’s Climate Action Membership was the perfect fit. Every month, teams who are signed up for this corporate membership restore wild ecosystems by funding the planting of native trees and monthly rewilding projects. Every team member is set up with a personal dashboard where they can view their monthly impact.

Building nests for Golden and White-tailed eagles

Together with inlumi, Mossy Earth crafted communications for the team to introduce the Climate Action Membership and after that all they needed to do was sign up via a link to Mossy Earth’s dashboard and they were on their way to restoring nature and fighting climate change together. Each employee at inlumi now has their own dashboard where they can follow the reforestation and rewilding efforts their employer is funding.  To date, inlumi's membership has already helped fund a multitude of impactful rewilding projects; building eagle nest platforms, tagging Atlantic salmon, saving Slovakia’s ground squirrel and restoring Alaotra Gentle Lemur habitat

Mossy Earth has become an integral part of who inlumi is and how they describe themselves. The partnership is mentioned in client pitches and interviews with potential new team members, always generating a lot of excitement.

The projects are imagination capturing. For something that happens a long way away from our desks and daily lives it becomes very tangible. We love that.

Inlumi's latest project: A Vulture restaurant

For their next rewilding project, the inlumi team voted for the construction of a vulture restaurant! 

Three species of vulture that were once found in the area are now locally extinct and endangered globally - the cape vulture, lappet faced vulture and white backed vulture. Among the threats are poisoning through contaminated livestock and a lack of wild prey. To provide a safe and reliable source of food and encourage the return of these magnificent and ecologically important species, inlumi and Mossy Earth are building a vulture restaurant where the vultures can find a safe and reliable source of food. This project is urgently needed to safeguard the future of these endangered species.

inlumi is looking for more ways to connect the partnership with Mossy Earth with the work they do. In the future, they’re planning to use client projects and set internal challenges as vehicles to sponsor rewilding initiatives, further growing a genuinely sustainable business with impact at its core. 

The team get a lot from our partnership with Mossy Earth, the world benefits a little and it gives us some great topics to post on our social channels. We love our business partnership with Mossy Earth.

Case Study: Inlumi
Engaging their team and clients with rewilding projects

Engaging their team and clients with rewilding projects

Businesses have a huge role to play in achieving a greener planet. Increasingly, employees are calling for a better response to the climate crisis from their employers. Both megatrends and microforces are pushing for climate-positive action in the workplace. A survey conducted on 2000 UK office workers found 65% of respondents were more likely to work for a company with a strong environmental policy.  In its 2019 progress report, the UK’s committee on climate change put businesses in the driving seat by stating it is primarily up to them to deliver the net-zero emissions target. 

Of the many forms of sustainability investments, rewilding is gaining worthy recognition as a reliable option in delivering concrete results and benefits for the climate, ecosystems, biodiversity, employees, and businesses. Here are 5 important reasons why.

What is Rewilding and what does it do differently?

Traditional conservation efforts have been known to focus on restoring species and habitats in isolation and have been guilty or unknowingly working whilst applying the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ – when conservationists strive to restore species or habitats to previous states which had already been altered or degraded. Rewilding differs in approach by presuming that nature knows how to manage landscapes best and there is no ‘desired state’ to reach, only a wilder one. It instead facilitates towards a healthy, resilient, and rich natural state. And so, rewilding focuses on restoring important components of nature that are absent then lets nature take over. This could mean helping to repair the following natural processes: grazing, predation, regeneration, and decomposition. For example, rewilding interventions that rebuild populations of vultures who rid the landscape of potential diseases when they consume carcasses.

1. Rewilding delivers a high environmental return on investment

The global pandemic demanded a dramatic shift in the way we work. One positive impact on the environment was the widespread adoption of remote working. As we move into a post-COVID-19 world, the need to build back greener challenges businesses to make more complex decisions on where and how to invest in sustainability to ensure the best ROI. 

Rewilding degraded landscapes can be one of the cheapest and most effective ways to mitigate climate change. An extensive study published in the journal Nature, points out that by restoring only 15% of degraded lands in critical areas, 30% of carbon from the post-industrial revolution can be locked away. In addition, biodiversity has the chance to recover, with this restoration there is the potential to save 60% of species expected to disappear. 

Opportunities exist to restore areas with immense carbon-capturing capabilities such as peatlands, wetlands, savannahs, oceans, and natural forests at a fraction of the cost of other sustainability investments. With only a mere 1% of finance dedicated to fighting the global climate crisis going into restoring these habitats, great ecological gains can be made from pursuing this avenue.

2. Rewilding not only repairs biodiversity damage, but it also enhances it  

Companies wishing to assess and reduce their impact on natural capital – natural assets like geology, soil, air, water, and life - often come into difficulty in determining the scale of their impact. This is especially the case if supply chains are complex and significant impacts occur further upstream where raw materials are extracted. One way to start addressing this is to invest in projects which have a Net Positive Impact on biodiversity; they create an overall better effect on the variety of life on earth. 

One such example is the reintroduction of keystone species – those that have a profoundly positive impact on their ecosystem – back into their natural habitat. Take the European Bison as an example, their movements on the land control the overgrowth of certain vegetation; they provide food for insects and fertilizer for plants with their dung; and their carcasses feed a variety of animals. 

Conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems are cost-effective, scalable ways to increase the planet’s resilience to temperature rises, natural disasters and other climate extremes, and humanity’s ability to adapt.

3. Rewilding brings transformative and tangible change

The urgency driving employees to demand more corporate action on sustainability can in part be explained by the lack of transformative and tangible change they witness in everyday life. Vivid and compelling messages of ecological destruction, as depicted in Sir David Attenborough’s A Life on our Planet, are hitting people across the globe leaving them fraught that not enough is being done. The successes generated by rewilding projects are inspiring people with visual evidence that humans can convert landscapes devoid of life into ones flourishing with it. From large-scale rewilding such as the reintroduction of wolves into the Yellowstone National Park (US) bringing back a host of wildlife and reshaping the landscape, to the Knepp estate (UK) which changed from a failing intensive-farm to a natural habitat where rare species are now found and wild-meat is produced. 

Businesses can directly fund rewilding projects that deliver measurable results in the fight against climate change in a spectrum of areas including, 

monitoring and protecting vulnerable biodiverse species from extinction

boosting natural carbon sinks and the quantity of carbon they sequester

improving soil erosion and natural water purification 

provide natural breaks that protect against wildfires

reintroducing species like the beaver that build natural defences against flooding

4. There is an over-reliance on carbon-offsetting to mitigate against climate change 

One of the most popular ways businesses seek to reduce their impact has been to offset their carbon emissions. While there is definitely value in carbon offsetting, especially in the scale-up of energy efficiencies, the lack of transparency, accountability and concerns raised over the credibility of international standards has tainted carbon-offsetting schemes and their perceived effectiveness.  This is particularly the case with forestry protection schemes where additionality is difficult to demonstrate. A scheme has ‘additionality’ if it can prove that the amount of carbon captured wouldn’t have happened without the scheme’s contribution.  However, cases have arisen where offsets are sold to prevent deforestation, but there weren’t ever any plans to deforest or deforestation occurs in another forest instead.

Growing agreement amongst conservationists and scientists now suggests businesses must look to avoid, reduce, and rehabilitate before even considering carbon offsetting. The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) stresses the importance of implementing change in this order so companies do not "sidestep on-site environmental protection and management". In addition to the avoidance and reduction of emissions, businesses are turning to rewilding to play a proactive part in the restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity. Those who partner with rewilding organisations in conservation efforts can reap the rewards (outlined in the next section) and can showcase the good that can be achieved together. This partnership also has the potential to lead to more environmentally conscious approaches being adopted within businesses themselves further down the line.

5. Improved employee engagement and productivity

In the face of the climate crisis,  more people are experiencing a sense of helplessness. Research conducted by Yale University highlighted that over 40% of Americans feel helpless about climate change.  Rewilding can address this by offering a narrative of hope and connecting people with tangible initiatives designed to build back a better natural world. Given that millennials represent the bulk of the workforce, the success stories of rewilding can go a long way in meeting their need to see meaningful change. The impact on an eco-conscious workforce for businesses contributing to rewilding projects includes improved employee engagement, fulfilment and ultimately productivity.

Businesses are investing in rewilding projects and seeing high returns in employee engagement, biodiversity health and mitigation of climate change.

5 reasons why businesses are backing Rewilding

A new environmental story is emerging. One founded on optimism and belief in genuine change on our planet. And businesses want to be a part of it.

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7 green employee perks with high environmental impact

Case Study: Inlumi

5 reasons why businesses are backing Rewilding