When organizations invest in sustainability but still fail to reach their goals, it is often because they are missing one crucial ingredient–stakeholder and tenant engagement. At Great Forest, our 30+ years of experience has shown us that educating people to become active participants and champions in your sustainability journey is the secret to success. No business or building can achieve sustainability goals without the active involvement of its various stakeholders.
Why Stakeholder and Tenant Engagement Matters
Your tenants and employees directly affect waste generation and the overall environmental impact of your building and business. The truth is, even the best sustainability efforts will fall short if there is no buy-in and support, or if individuals aren’t properly informed or motivated to participate. Engaging stakeholders ensures that they not only understand their role in contributing to sustainability, but that they also understand how they will all benefit from this.
Stakeholder and tenant engagement foster accountability, create lasting change, and bring tangible benefits such as reduced costs, improved efficiency, and progress toward Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) targets. Plus, many certification programs, like LEED, offer points for engagement efforts such as “education and guidance to encourage tenants to comply.” Above all, successful stakeholder and tenant engagement means that building owners and facility managers will not have to shoulder the entire responsibility of ensuring compliance and reaching sustainability goals on their own. It will be a team effort. And that is always more effective.
So how can you engage? Here is what stakeholder and tenant engagement can look like in practice.
The Pillars of Effective Stakeholder and Tenant Engagement
1. Communicating a Culture of Sustainability
Leadership sets the tone. When management actively supports sustainability initiatives, it communicates to tenants and employees that they are serious about driving change. For example, one business wanted to reduce plastic water bottle waste. Instead of just installing water fountains, the company also bought reusable water bottles for every staff member. This paid off not just in less plastic waste, but the move sent a strong signal to employees that their company was willing to invest in a solution to HELP THEM be less wasteful. The giveaway was an effective engagement tool to foster participation and empower employees to become part of the solution.
2. Education and Training
For many building owners and managers, compliance with sustainability regulations and achieving waste reduction goals are top priorities. The challenge is getting staff and tenants to comply and adopt sustainable practices, especially when they involve a change in behavior. This is where education comes in.
Education is a cornerstone of stakeholder engagement. Outreach could include custom workshops, hands-on training, webinars, presentations, or handbooks and guides that outline policies and procedures. Tenants and employees need to understand how their behaviors impact waste reduction and other sustainability efforts. They need to be instructed on what materials can and cannot be recycled, where to place waste, and how to participate in programs like organics composting. Proper training should also extend to janitorial crews, kitchen staff and other back-of-the-house personnel, whose actions can make or break sustainability efforts.
3. Walkthroughs and Reviews
One of the first steps we take when working with a building or business is to conduct a thorough walkthrough. During these assessments, our experts identify opportunities to improve sustainability practices not just in the common areas. We often work with building owners to conduct sustainability reviews for tenants and provide recommendations regarding waste reduction, recycling, and purchasing.
Often, our reviews uncover simple yet effective changes that can make a big impact. For instance, we might find that bins are not clearly labeled, leading to contamination of recycling streams, or that tenants are unaware of available organics programs. For example, one of our walkthroughs led to recommendations that a tenant switch from using single-serve coffee machines to more sustainable “bean to cup” machines. This resulted in less waste and cost for both the tenant and building.
These walkthroughs offer a chance to engage and educate tenants directly to address issues head-on. Individual tenant reviews add up to increased overall building efficiency, and that’s a win-win for everyone working under the same roof.
4. Engaging Partners and Vendors
Don’t overlook your vendors. Alert them to your sustainability goals and partner with them to find solutions to reduce waste and improve the sustainability of incoming materials. One hotel in New York worked with their vendor to supply pineapples without heads. Eight pieces of headless pineapples could fit in each shipping carton instead of six regular pineapples. The hotel’s kitchen reported that it was not only able to reduce fresh waste by 1.1 ton throughout the year but also cut down on packaging waste.
5. Showcasing Successes
One of the best ways to promote stakeholder and tenant engagement is to showcase and share successes. Did you reach a recycling milestone or obtaining LEED certification? Go ahead and share the news in newsletters, year-end reports, and more. And don’t forget to acknowledge and reward stakeholders for their contributions. Your success is their success. This helps build long-term commitment and engagement, and encourages continued participation. Success is motivating and engaging.
Keeping the Momentum Going Throughout the Year
Sustainability is not a one-time effort—it’s a continuous process. Follow-up assessments and refresher trainings are key to maintaining momentum and addressing new challenges. Keeping stakeholders regularly informed about updates, new policies, or best practices ensures ongoing engagement.
Think about launching a sustainability newsletter, or a regular monthly challenge that draws attention to sustainable champions in your building or business. In some buildings, we display fun facts and sustainability tips on mini screens right where tenants and staff find themselves everyday–in their building elevator! Special events such as “lunch and learns” and Earth Day celebrations also help spread the message. All these touch points throughout the year keep the conversations going to ensure effective stakeholder and tenant engagement that will reap returns.
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