News Archive

UWA Business School
This May, The University of Western Australia will host the second meeting of the Greening Organisations and Work (GROW) Network.

The GROW network brings together researchers and academics from various disciplines to ask: How can we encourage individuals to act in more environmentally sustainable ways not only in the home, but also at work?

Associate Professor Kerrie Unsworth, from the UWA Business School, has been part of the network since its inception in September last year, and is organising the upcoming meeting. The diversity of GROW's members, she says, is allowing the group to take a new approach to the issue of sustainability in the workplace.

‘I think it is the international, multidisciplinary nature of the group that is most important,' said Associate Professor Unsworth. ‘It enables us to see things from different perspectives. At the same time, we all have a keen interest in increasing pro-environmental behaviours with people at work and so there are some guiding principles which stop us from getting frustrated with each other.

‘This meeting will essentially be a series of workshops where we discuss and decide upon ways forward with our research. One of the days is set aside for workshops with industry partners to understand their problems with greening their organisations, and to see where we can help. Hopefully we'll get some relationships up and running.'

The GROW network consists primarily of researchers from UWA, the University of Leeds, Griffith University, Queens University and Nanjing University. At UWA, Winthrop Professor Carmen Lawrence and Professor David Morrison from the School of Psychology are also members of GROW.  Professor Lawrence's work is centred around changing attitudes, while Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, also from the School of Psychology, is investigating how people's world views are related to their acceptance of climate change information.

Associate Professor Unsworth, meanwhile, is examining how organisations can increase their environmentally responsible behaviour. ‘My work up until now has been looking at greening organisations "through the back door" - I've been working with one resources company to help maintain their assets in order to reduce their carbon footprint,' she said. ‘Now working with members from GROW, I will also be looking at how we can subconsciously prime people's "green" identities to help improve the likelihood of them engaging in pro-environmental behaviour.

‘I think that organisations are going to have to make a public stand for environmental sustainability and to ensure that employees see that as a genuine stand and not a cynical one to avoid regulatory action. If we can link people's organisational identities to their green identities then we have more chance of them engaging in more green behaviours both at work and at home. We don't want people to start being green at work and then think that they've done their bit and don't need to do anymore!

‘I think this is an area that is growing and gaining interest from both academics and organisations. Some of the largest organisations realise that they need to do something to stop climate change. For example, GE has a "green business" arm alongside its other operations, and other companies have realised the need for a carbon tax and reducing their carbon footprint. At the same time, I believe that this is one area in which we as academics can really help by providing knowledge and research into the "people" aspect. Given the enormity and complexity of the issues involved, the more collaborative research we can do the better.'

At its initial meeting in Leeds, the GROW network identified a number of challenges for organisations, including information overload, difficulty in demonstrating the positive impact that an individual's actions can have on the environment, and regulatory uncertainty.

Now, the GROW network has begun examining ways to overcome these challenges. Possible solutions include developing consistent regulation and policy, publishing more case studies, creating a ‘league table' of environmentally sustainably organisations, changing customers' behaviour, engaging middle management, making a business case for environmentally sustainable behaviour, developing a tool kit for greening organisations, and developing a risk assessment tool that includes the cost of doing nothing.

GROW is partially funded by the World Universities Network. A UWA Research Collaboration Award, won by Associate Professor Unsworth and Winthrop Professor Morrison in 2010, is also assisting with the costs of travel and event hosting.

The second GROW meeting will be held in Perth, from 9-11 May.

For more information on GROW, see https://lubswww.leeds.ac.uk/cstsd/our-projects/grow/ .

Media references

Heather Merritt
Director, External Relations
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 8171
M: 0419 950 027
E: [email protected]

Verity Chia
Communications Officer
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 1346
E: [email protected]