Albert Einstein famously said that in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. Sixty-six years after his death, climate change is the biggest challenge facing us all. And in that challenge lies a huge opportunity for your business to show true leadership for climate change and corporate social responsibility.

Chances are you already have a plan in place to reduce your organisation’s carbon emissions. For large or publicly listed companies, it’s no longer a ‘nice to have’, it will soon be an expectation for you to report your carbon emissions and savings that your company is making.

So you’ve got the foundations. Now let’s ramp up the results.

The opportunity you’re missing

You’re already doing great work as a business. But how much further could your net zero plans go if your employees, channel partners or customers were also fully engaged in the program and you were tapping into their growing desire to do their bit for the planet?

The Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study found 88% of millennials feel their job is more fulfilling when they have the opportunity to make a positive impact on social or environmental issues.

In fact, an employee carbon program can create a real point of difference for job seekers and is increasingly becoming a strategy for attracting and retaining key talent. A recent survey from HR software company ELMO found 71% of Australian GenZers and 52% of millennials would refuse to work for a company they felt wasn’t taking action to address climate change.

At the same time a Unily UK survey found 83% of people see climate change as a major concern, but don’t know where to start making changes.

So what are you doing to involve these key channels in your organisation’s net zero plans and enabling them to help make a positive impact?

By taking your employees, channel partners and customers along with you on your carbon reduction strategy you can accelerate your results and influence positive change. Empower these individuals to measure their footprint and reduce what they can, reward their achievements and win by taking a strong environmental leadership role.

A new way to carbon neutral

Carbon Intelligence’s Carbon Commitment Report noted that 66% of employees would support a bonus incentive scheme to cut carbon use at work. Despite that, few organisations have targets and goals for their staff, channel partners or customers to cut their carbon footprint – and few people are aware of how they can reduce their impact.

It’s an untapped area. Or it was.

Here at Hachiko we’ve launched a new, industry-leading Carbon Neutral Reward program to help organisations educate and reward individuals for their positive actions to reduce carbon emissions. Those positive actions could be in the workplace, but they can also be in their private lives. After all, with work from home, the home is the new office.

We’ve partnered with CarbonClick, a leading enviro-tech company who make meaningful climate action simple and transparent for businesses to help speed your journey to net zero. It’s a program to enable individuals to measure their footprint, learn about how to make changes to reduce their impact and be rewarded for doing so.

The program also provides the reward option to offset a portion of an individual’s carbon footprint. Every offset contribution can be instantly tracked and traced directly to meaningful reforestation and clean energy projects with wide social benefits, such as restoring ecosystems and creating sustainable green jobs.

And, because you’re educating your program members on the issue and how they can positively impact change – and rewarding the right behaviours – it can also be seen as a positive corporate investment and socially responsible.

Carbon emission reduction is a reality for all businesses. Why not do something to accelerate your plans and put your organisation at the front of pack, demonstrating real leadership through a wide-ranging approach to tackling climate change?

See how you can be a leader for climate change or view our short video.