Building Sustainable Humans and the Carbon Action Initiative.

I have been busy working as the chair of WAO, which is a community non-profit set up to educate, inspire and enable New Zealand communities to move towards a regenerative future. Part of this work has involved a regional roll-out of the Carbon Action Initiative - a project focused on helping businesses and schools target zero carbon emissions.

The Carbon Action Initiative is about sustainability in all it forms, and I was fortunate enough to have been asked to speak to the attendees about human sustainability.

I had an amazing time interacting with over 20 businesses, helping them understand the values and purposes of their business and establishing why they are wanting to become more environmentally friendly, ecologically sensitive and environmentally stable. 

Everything businesses need to achieve this is based on the integrity of what the business stands for - are they serious or are they green washing? I feel so fortunate to be in a role where I can help business owners deepen their integrity by developing their values and establishing progressive plans to move forward. 

This work results in creating passionate, value-driven businesses that have a positive impact on the environment and the humans involved.

During these conversations the topic of working remotely came up a lot, and how difficult this is to navigate. Hiring staff, team building, running projects is all happening on screen and it can be difficult to create relationships, build trust, and build a thriving business. The general consensus seems to be that virtual offices and remote working are causing a loss of identity for individuals within a team. 

Traditionally, in an office setting a manager can learn and understand what energises their team and what causes energy leaks, but when everyone is working remotely, this challenge of discovery escalates hugely. Working remotely over screens, there is less chance to effectively communicate, empower and support staff, so having a way to understand yourself as a manager, and the members of your team is crucial.

Enabling Remote Human Sustainability

Part of what I do is enable leaders to understand their staff, not just from an attitude or psychological standpoint, based on self-perception and self-reporting, but to understand their staff at the biological level - to objectively understand their make-up and behaviour. 

I have recently started working directly with some of the Carbon Action attendees to help them build human sustainability in this new world of remote working. The core of this work is helping individuals to gain a personal awareness of themselves, by understanding their unique biological code and requirements - as Socrates said “to know thyself is the beginning of wisdom”.

This process of objective knowledge helps us build human sustainability. It helps us understand what we each need the thrive, it allows us to live and work in a way that is true to one-self but also aware of the difference of others and to balance the two sets of needs.

If you are interested in how to create a sustainable workforce, full of thriving individuals working together, I’d love to talk.