Do you put your feet up on the tables at home, too?

Sorry for the silly title, but felt like a good summary for a survey that we published the results of this week.

Since we get a wide range of responses when we talk to employees and customers about the environment, we thought it would be interesting to try to get to their underlying opinions. The first result was that most people want their company to be eco responsible - 73%. That’s the good news.

But those same people were then quick to admit that they fail to engage in basic energy conservation activities at the office, while they readily do it at home. As an example, 52% said they turn off lights when they are done using a room at the office, while 92% said they’d do it at home.

When asked why the difference in behavior, the respondents were given a range of options. The most common by far was “Not sure” (so you can understand why we didn’t put that in the release - not very conclusive!). My guess is that its a combination of feeling like its someone else’s problem, and not seeing any direct payback (more money in the budget?) for changing behavior, but that’s just a guess.

Companies are only as good as the people who make them up. This poll made it clear that there is an eco-gap at the office, and that its not a matter of knowledge, but of willingness and motivation. Send me your thoughts - I’d like to understand this better.