Breaking the Stereotype: Green Teams Are Key to Sustainable Impact
There is plenty of scepticism around Green Teams, but they’re more valuable than ever.
I’m not sure about you, but I’ve seen a lot of scepticism around the impact Green Teams actually have. That they don’t create real change, but act as a “fluffy engagement piece” (a term I’ve heard far too often!); an activity for staff to feel like they’re contributing to sustainability at their workplace.
Green teams are often launched as volunteer, grassroots driven groups. This surface-level appearance can limit their ability to influence the decision-making process with leaders. They often lack leadership support too, meaning funding requests or projects don’t get the visibility or backing they need.
Some companies might feel pressured into launching a green team, resulting in a box-ticking exercise to show they “care” about sustainability.
However, when you have a team of volunteers who care deeply about the cause they’re trying to drive within their workplace, but they get slammed doors, unanswered emails, or false hope from leadership, all you’ve created is a burned-out workforce who are frustrated and even, resentful. Their push to do better is ignored by the people who could embed real change. Change that’s needed and change that will ultimately positively impact the business.
Bridging the Gap: Why Green Teams Are Essential for Real Impact
While central sustainability teams focus on corporate policies and reporting, their ability to drive behavioural change at scale is limited - especially when it comes to Scope 3 emissions. A company can introduce remote work incentives or cycle-to-work schemes, but without employee buy-in and grassroots advocacy, uptake remains low.
This is where Green Teams become more than just an engagement piece. They serve as on-the-ground sustainability representatives, fostering peer-based influence and ensuring that corporate initiatives resonate with employees. Instead of policies feeling like distant mandates from HQ, Green Teams translate them into actionable, relatable changes within teams, offices, and supply chains.
They’re part of that crucial feedback loop to ensure the messaging is accurate, inclusive, and understood.
Green Teams Host More Than Events
In my role with Amazon, as I’ve discussed before, I started as that purpose-driven volunteer - I saw the areas that needed to change across the warehouse I worked in. I didn’t know how to change things; I just knew that I wanted to.
The program was very much a “go do sustainability” with little guidance and direction. When I reflect back on that time, I fully appreciate that ambiguity gave me the opportunity to research and discover what needed to be changed. I certainly wasn’t the exception – many other volunteers at their own sites were in the same position and found new pathways to drive sustainability. Listening in on those monthly calls was inspiring! So many people were creating real change and real impact!
Having a supportive leadership team is the catalyst for change.
My volunteer role started with a site lead who didn’t believe in sustainability, which led me to sneak around to drive these changes, constantly feeling pushed back, and told to ‘stay in my lane’.
Getting a new site lead changed the story. He was fully committed, fully supportive, and backed me 100%. That support for me and my team meant the rest of the leadership team took note. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed to take something from “could do” to “completed”.
Not only that but to have the support of senior leadership was empowering. I went from thinking my role there was a temporary stop gap until I found something better, to somewhere that I wanted to invest my time and energy.
From a manager’s perspective, who doesn’t want an employee who is that committed and dedicated to their role?
Facilitating Change
As the program grew and I moved into that program manager role, it changed my perspective of the role of a sustainability ambassador.
Particularly in a warehouse environment where there are so many processes, so many people, and so much movement – a green team shouldn’t be the owners of a project.
Take a single-stream recycling process. If the ownership of that remained with the green team, then its entirely dependent on that green team (which, in some cases, was one person). If that person/s was off-sick, on holiday, tied up with their paid job – that process stops dead. No-one is following through on it.
However, if the green team acts as a facilitator of change – they work with impacting departments to identify inefficiencies, they speak to the centralised sustainability team, work with vendors, and negotiate the possible changes to improve that process, they empower far more people to drive that change.
In this instance, the item needs to be segregated from the general waste bin (which is costing the company over £500 a month to dispose of just for this waste material). There is one department that is generating that waste therefore, they should have ownership of that segregation process. Once the waste material has been segregated, then it needs to be stored somewhere which involves the Change Management team, and housekeeping need to know what bins they can and can’t take, or where it should be stored. From there, the dock team needs to know when to expect collection, how its meant to be transported out, and when it needs to be moved to the dock bays for it to be moved on to the truck.
Teams on each process need to be educated on these changes – not just the how, but the why.
All these teams impact this process, so you can clearly see that a Green team should not own it. But they absolutely have a key role in facilitating these changes and bringing each department together.
Without insight from Green Teams, central sustainability teams are making decisions in a vacuum. How can they expect real impact without engaging the people driving day-to-day operations?
When positioned correctly, green teams provide the crucial bridge between employees and leadership, ensuring that sustainability initiatives don’t just exist on paper but are actively embedded in daily operations.
They’re the driving force for awareness and engagement for all staff; they’re your on-site educators; they empower teams through facilitating conversations, pushing projects forward, and being the voice for sustainability and for their workplace.
If businesses want real sustainability progress, they can’t afford to dismiss Green Teams as “fluffy engagement.” Instead, they should invest in them - providing leadership backing, clear roles, and structural support to make them effective. That’s how Green Teams move beyond awareness-raising and become powerful drivers of real, measurable impact.