Dr. Aurora Dawn Benton: How (And Why) To Start A Green Team
Dr. Aurora Dawn Benton is the Founder of Astrapto, which offers courses, coaching, and consulting to advance sustainability in hospitality, events, travel, and other service industries. Her passion is to make sustainability practical and positive for anyone who has a passion to drive positive impact through their organizations and supply change.
Astrapto has just re-launched their online course called Sustainability is a Team Sport that helps individuals and organizations recruit, launch, and manage a green team. The course has three options: Self Guided, Guided Accountability Program, and Co-Hort Coaching Program. Learn more, and register for the course here. MUSE members and readers get 30% (courses only) by using code MUSE30 at checkout.
Participants of the course receive a step-by-step roadmap for recruiting and launching a green team, prioritizing initiatives, gaining traction, and overcoming objections.
Hi Aurora! How did the “Sustainability is a Team Sport” course come about?
When I first started Astrapto, I was assisting clients in the hospitality industry with sustainability projects, and I kept noticing the same barriers that kept these organizations from starting their sustainable journey. I decided to create a course because I had just come out of higher education, and education is my jam.
People didn’t know how to take the first step. I kept seeing fear of getting it wrong. People thought, “What if we take the first step, and it's not the right one? What if we get called out for not being good enough?” Many people already had an idea of the problems that needed to be solved, but they felt either inadequate, or unsupported. There were reasons like, “I don't have permission to do that.” They never asked for it. Or, they just assumed, “That's not my job, so I can't do that.”
On top of that, there was no official “sustainability person” at these organizations, so it's slipping through the cracks. Who’s responsible for sustainability when there’s no budget or bandwidth? The initiatives themselves tend to be the low hanging fruit, and these are the same everywhere: energy, water, and waste. There's great resources out there to accomplish conservation in those areas, so it's a question of how to connect the dots, and get the information to the right people. People who were put in charge of sustainability are typically the building engineers. And while they’re great at what they do, they aren’t necessarily the best people to recruit or lead volunteer teams.
So after these observations, I created this course on how to start a green team. And some hotel people went through it and loved it. Even some certified green hotels loved it because it helped them get organized, and set up a strategy, set goals. They said, “We were doing this stuff, but we didn't really have a plan.”
And then it ran as a college elective, and that’s where it really passed the test. College students who work in hospitality, hotels and restaurants are often working part time, or even if it's full time, they're not in “positions of power,” because they’re undergrad students. So, they are the front desk clerks, servers, concierge, things like that. They started green teams, and even though their grade didn't require them to actually do any initiatives, the vast majority of them did.
Most of the students came back and said, “At first my manager was like, ‘Okay, because you have to do this.’ And by the end of the course, my manager was coming to me with more questions and responsibility and asking me, ‘Can we try this? Can we do that?’” and these young professionals were able to accomplish things they never thought possible. They said “I got to know people in other departments that I'd never even spoken to.”
I get chills even when saying these things, because it happened over and over again. It works. It's amazing how it improves company culture, teamwork, employee bonding, not to mention, improved recycling rates, reduced food waste, and more. For example, one person did this at his church, and got the finance person to switch to low-flow toilets, because he did the math, and showed how much water they would save.
Sometimes when I bring up green teams, people are kind of like, “Yeah, but that's so 2000s. We did that.” But it’s like, are you still doing it? Sustainable initiatives aren’t a box you check, and move on. Did you do marketing one time and give up? I don't think so. You do that every single day. A green team has to be the same way you treat marketing and operations, and everything else, it has to be an ongoing and persistent thing.
The green team to me was solving all of these problems that I kept seeing. It was solving the problem that we don't have the budget for a sustainability consultant, much less as a full time sustainability person. Because a green team should be cross functional, it was solving the fact that every single department had some opportunity to be greener, deliver more positive social and environmental impacts.
What are some challenges to starting a green team? What are things that keep people from starting a green team?
Going back to what I said earlier about fear. Most people don't want to be the first one. And so here's where we really reach a challenge. I actually just had a conversation a few days ago with somebody who has been in the events industry, and asked me how to transition to a career in sustainability. And I said, “Well, you should start a green team where you work because that's putting money where your mouth is. You may be thinking about going back and getting a Master's degree. But with this, you’re gonna be able to put some bullet points on your resume.” I could sense that there was a little hesitation.
I said, “Your assumption is that sustainability at your company is something you're not allowed to touch. That's someone else's job.” And her eyes got big like, “Yes.” I hear and see this all the time. People think they need to get a Masters degree, or have a certain title to work in sustainability, and that’s not true.
I’m launching a new version of the green team course this week. I took all the learning and all the experience from the first one. And I've revamped it, and added a lot more resources, and a 95-page workbook with activities and discussions, and all the things you need to walk through it step-by-step. I tell people, “Listen, this course has 19 lessons, We don't even get to team recruitment until lesson 11. You can kick off your team any time you want but I find most people still have that fear that they can’t or aren’t allowed so I spend 10 lessons building your foundation, confidence, and knowledge. So you can put together a business case, understand the stakeholders, and understand how to pitch the strategic and corporate culture value of a green team before you even talk to another person about it.
College students are on a fast track, because their grade depends on it. So even if they're afraid, they have to bite the bullet and do it because the grade depends on it. But when you're more like, “Oh, I think I might do this,” then you’re more apt to kick the can down the road. And so I think accountability is a key. Whatever it takes for you, as the reader of this, to take that leap and just have that first conversation, hold that first meeting, and not be afraid to just approach it. Sustainability is a journey, not a destination. It's okay if it’s not a perfect meeting right away. It's okay if you don't solve every problem. Nobody's asking you to solve every problem. Just hold a meeting or invite people to have lunch and talk about it. That's how it starts. Don't overthink it, don't overcomplicate it, just take it one step at a time.
What about the younger generations, they want to make these changes, right?
From teaching students for more than a decade now, I know that Millennials and Gen Z want purpose driven work. And while that may be true in their hearts, it’s not always the most realistic thing for them to be prioritizing when it comes to getting and keeping a job. And this is true in the majority of the world, we're talking about the 99%, not the 1%, right? And so those people need confidence, they need the nudge and the belief that they can drive the change, because they already believe in the cause for the most part.
There's also an assumption that people in this generation automatically know and understand social and environmental issues. At the end of the course, I would ask them what they got out of the course, and 99% said “I had no idea. Wow, I learned so much about sustainability that I never even realized and never even knew.” We can’t take for granted that the Gen Z are going to just magically save the planet, because they care, and want purpose driven work. The older generations need to create jobs and opportunities that allow the younger people to manifest that purpose driven work. Not everyone is going to create their own companies or their own social enterprises, so how are we going to empower those people? And to me, the green team is the way to do that.
How do we start out once we have the first green team meeting set up?
One of the first exercises that I have my students do is role play a naysayer. How could you get a person rejecting the ideas to have empathy? This exercise is so powerful, because it also draws out the hesitations they probably have in their own hearts and minds. But now that they’ve voiced this rejection, or this fear, it's not as scary. It's still something we have to talk about, it's still a problem to solve, but it becomes less of a monster.
And people start to see that they are not alone. Now, there are other people who care, and are doing this with you, and there is safety in numbers. At the end of the day, the executive level, the owners, the investors, the power brokers, the powerful stakeholders, must at least support and agree, even if they don't have emphatic passion. They have to recognize that the risk and compliance factors related to sustainability are undoubted. And they are here to stay, and executives should avoid getting caught in a place where they're unprepared to deal with those demands and consequences.
A green team is an affordable and low risk way to start a journey into sustainability. It’s not realistic for most midsize businesses or franchised businesses with smaller staffs and smaller budgets, to think they're going to start a sustainability department. But they can start a green team.
And if it comes to this, it’s a natural evolution to develop and select the person who's going to become the first full-time sustainability hire out of that group. The best possible scenario is someone who's already loyal to your organization, someone who already understands the politics and the products, and has a proven track record of making stuff happen becomes the sustainability manager.
What kind of thinking or mindset should be avoided?
The sustainability messaging that is blame and shame, that the sky is falling, the planet is dying, and it's never enough. I'm not saying there's not a time and a place for that kind of advocacy. But for a lot of other people, I think we still have to invite them into a conversation instead of shaming and blaming and turning people off with harsh, esoteric, or gloomy talk.
How do we approach our clients with sustainability?
Of course we need to keep our clients happy, and many times we need to tread lightly. That doesn't mean we can't try to get the message across. And there's a million different ways you can sell shampoo, or a car, right? I think understanding the nuances of how to sell sustainability is a skill set.
People often want to incorporate sustainability by using a checklist. I can give you a checklist of the top 10 things you can do to be more sustainable. But that doesn't guarantee that you're actually going to say something to your client. Instead we need to change the mindset. You have to be able to think on your feet. With green teams we are consistently having these conversations and exploring. If people are joining organizations like MUSE, and they're having these conversations on a regular basis, it's exercising that muscle, so we can be ready to speak up when that moment comes up. A checklist of the top things to reduce carbon, waste, energy, and water is important, but we also need professional development, camaraderie, and the confidence to have conversations with the client.
I guarantee you that if you build that courage in that person, you’ll be able to say other things to the client that are going to add strategic value to the event that may not even have anything to do with sustainability. It’s a win-win. It's part of a creative and innovative mindset, and a more relational partnership-driven approach.
What are some reasons (excuses) why companies don’t have a green team?
One common excuse for not having a green team is turnover. I say, “Did turnover prevent you from cleaning rooms? Or prevent you from serving breakfast, or from booking rooms?” I don't think so. I give tips on how to deal with turnover and how you can avoid the disruption of the team when you have turnover. It's really about treating it like an official department of the business.
I'm trying to make this as formulaic as I can. Of course you can be very organic and dynamic with your green team. But if you don't know what to do, or where to start, then do each little step in the workbook, and you'll have a green team. Over 120 launched green teams prove it works. So just follow it step by step. I recognize in the early days, the green team may have little permission or power to really do anything. At first, you may not be able to buy new recycle bins, install new signage, or change light bulbs. But there are two things that they can start with: Every person on the team can research and share information. It could be to find your favorite five minute YouTube video and show it at your next meeting. It could be to form a WhatsApp group and share sustainability blogs . Whatever it is, everyone on the team needs to be responsible for learning something, and teaching someone else what they learned. Because I know that if that's all you do, you will start to make a difference.
And the other thing any green team can do is a volunteer outing. This gives you the practice of organizing a group of people to do something, going out and actually impacting your community, whether it's a beach clean up, or serving at a soup kitchen. Take photos, get stories, and share with your co-workers and then watch what happens. More people will want to be involved. And then before you know it, you're installing recycling bins and more! It’s amazing how those little steps add up, and create ripples of impact.
