Climate Anxiety Is Affecting Your Workforce. Here Are 5 Effective Ways to Address It.

After a summer rife with wildfires, heat waves, and flooding, the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly relatable and tangible to us all. If you've ever found yourself experiencing fear, guilt, anger, frustration, or helplessness about our changing environment, you are far from alone. This well-documented mental health phenomenon has come to be known as “climate anxiety.” In a comprehensive poll conducted by Ipsos, more than half of all people polled from 31 countries worldwide report that they worry regularly about climate change.? Globally, there is also strong agreement on the need for corporate action, with a substantial 68% saying that businesses that are not actively working to combat climate change "are failing their employees and customers."

With depression and anxiety increasingly affecting well-being in the workplace, leading to trillions in lost productivity, recognizing how eco-anxiety is impacting the workforce is critical to supporting staff well-being, building a corporate culture of sustainability, and also creating business growth. Here’s how proactive organizations can tackle this issue, empower and support employees, and even boost the bottom line by considering the intersection of sustainability and well-being.?

1. Turn Awareness into Action

The good news is that it's not all bad news. Headlines that promote doom scrolling and fear can make us feel like a dystopian future is written in stone. But technology and solutions for reversing climate change already exist and more are coming. A bright green future is possible. But we need to believe it to see it. It may seem contradictory, but learning more about climate change and, specifically, the actions individuals can take to help mitigate it can alleviate eco-stress. By helping your staff clearly understand the science and threats, as well as the opportunities, of climate change, you can help them shift from awareness into action and from fear to hope.

Educating staff about climate change and sustainability in general, your organization’s environmental and sustainability efforts and strategies, and how they can participate in positive change is a smart way to help encourage wellness when it comes to climate anxiety in the workplace. Company-sponsored trainings, seminars, workshops, events, and so on are a terrific place to start.?

2.? Make Every Job a Climate Job

Staff may feel frustrated or powerless if their duties aren’t directly related to sustainability. But just because they don’t work to directly procure renewable energy deals or in supply chain management doesn’t mean they can’t be part of your organization’s sustainability solutions. Help them understand that everyone has a role to play in making the workplace a greener place. By identifying and applauding accessible, meaningful actions that they can take, you can help activate and empower individuals, lower their climate anxiety, and reduce the carbon footprint of the business, too.

For example, if your company offers commuting assistance programs, communicate the financial and sustainability benefits of using public transportation, electric vehicles, and carpooling for both individuals and the company. Explain how virtual meetings and fewer business flights help reduce scope 3 emissions, save the company money, and give employees back more time. Simple behavioral changes can make an impact, as well, such as encouraging the use of recycled paper, turning off computers at the end of the workday, or deleting unnecessary documents from the cloud. Allow staff to come up with their ideas, too, say, setting up a composting program in a cafeteria. Encouraging people to participate, helping them understand which actions move the needle, and allowing them to take ownership is key.

3. Support Your Champions

You almost certainly have employees who are already passionate about sustainability and taking action in the workplace or outside of it. Identify these champions and enable them to be ambassadors for sustainability in your organization. These may be people in sustainability roles, but just as likely, they are your green team leaders, the curious people who ask questions at sustainability events, or the ones who cheerfully show up and recruit others for service days.

Find opportunities to amplify their messages – highlight them in a quarterly newsletter or social media post, for example –?and celebrate their work. Create opportunities for them to connect with others who share their passion. Find a way to honor your green employee resource groups or committees, or help launch them if they don’t already exist. Creating platforms for staff who already care about sustainability issues and are taking action is a great way to make their voices heard, share experiences, and combine efforts to achieve common goals.

4. Create Opportunities for Shared Experience

Taking action –?and making it a shared experience – can be a great tool for easing eco-anxiety.? In particular, collective activism –?that is, taking action alongside like-minded individuals –?has been shown to reduce climate anxiety and depression. Dedicating work hours to causes that benefit the environment helps staff feel good about their workplaces and see tangible results that have lasting impacts in their communities. Developing volunteer opportunities and events that align with environmental causes or organizations your company supports can help turn anxious staff into engaged employees –?and plant the seed for further engagement. Have a remote workforce to include? Many non-profits offer digital volunteerism opportunities that put your staff’s knowledge-based skills, such as data analysis or graphic design, to good use.

5. Flip the Script on Climate Change

Traditional environmental tropes of destruction and finger-wagging don’t get people excited about joining in. We all know that the stakes are high, but no one wants to be part of a movement that runs on dread. Instead, make it your mantra to scratch the doom and gloom and instead embrace the bright spots. Celebrating meaningful and approachable individual actions (see: commuting sustainably, virtual meetings, etc. in #3 above), broadcasting organizational success stories and goals, and encouraging everyone to start taking action is how businesses can relieve stress, encourage participation, and build momentum at the intersection of sustainability and wellness in the workplace.?

There is a bright green future just around the corner. To reach it, we need all hands on deck. When we flip the script on climate change, employees see a hopeful future filled with opportunity and their role in getting there. We all have a part to play in making a positive impact on the environment in both our personal and professional lives. In order to succeed, businesses must invest in their climate efforts at an operational level, but also in building happy, healthy workplace cultures that encourage mental wellness, negate despair, and maintain productivity that’s good for the planet –?and, coincidentally, the bottom line.?

This article is written by Katelynn Young on behalf of The Carbonauts.

Inspired to learn more about the connection between climate change and mental health? Join The Carbonauts on October 10 at 1:30 pm ET for a virtual discussion with expert panelists examining how eco-anxiety is affecting employees and performance across diverse industries. Apply to register here.

Want to learn more about how The Carbonauts can engage your workforce and increase climate literacy via workshops and other custom content? Contact Graham Hill .