Citizens often demonstrate strong environmental awareness in their daily lives – for example when shopping, traveling, or separating waste. Yet people also act as employees within companies. The role that environmental behavior plays in the workplace has been examined in a concept study conducted by imug, the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW), and ConPolicy – Institute for Consumer Policy, commissioned by the German Environment Agency.The aim of the study was to develop a survey instrument capable of capturing the environmental awareness of both employees and companies. Based on an initial literature review, a pilot survey was carried out.
The newly published final report presents first insights from this pilot survey: employees provided differentiated assessments of their companies’ environmental performance but rated them only as average overall. At the same time, environmental aspects play a role for many when choosing a new employer. Notable differences emerged particularly between sectors and company sizes. With this study, an important foundation has been laid for systematically and representatively measuring environmental awareness in companies in the future.
You can access the final report here.