Awareness Creation for the Carbon Policy among Employees

Awareness Creation for the Carbon Policy among Employees

Boezeman, G.

Smulders, F.E.H.M. (mentor)
Van Meer, J.D. (mentor)
Van den Brink, F. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

2010-03-19

This graduation project has been performed at AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals in order to attain the Master of Science degree at the Faculty Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology. In this executive summery an overview of the most important information is given. AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals consists of a managerial board, which is assisted by service units, Manufacturing & Technology services and 5 sub-Business Units (sBU); Energy, Salt, Chlor-alkali, Ecosystems and MCA. AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals has approximately 1,900 employees. AkzoNobel is a chemical concern that creates products for other companies: business-to-business. It becomes more and more important to know what your input as a company on the environment is as well as the input on the environment of your suppliers. The Carbon Policy has been developed in a wide scope of sustainability and describes their short- and long-term targets and ambitions to manage their cradle-to-gate carbon footprint: the sum of all direct and indirect emissions contributing to global warming. AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals has chosen to involve all the different sBU’s to reach the 10% goal in 2015. The objective of the assignment for this graduation project is to develop an implementation strategy, which aims to introduce the corporate Carbon Policy to different groups of employees of AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals. While sometimes more information about a subject gives new insights, not everyone needs to know the same things to reach the goals described in the Carbon Policy. The employees of Industrial Chemicals differ from each other in background, work, skills and more. Therefore the employees are divided into six groups who need more or less the same information for their function. Based on the abstraction level and adaptation speed 3 clusters of groups can be formed for which a mutual toolset can be used to create awareness for the Carbon Policy. To embed the Carbon Policy in the organization extra attention has to be paid to the strategy to reach the employees working as operator or maintenance. Because these employees form together with one other group a cluster a more detailed concept for this cluster is developed. Therefore a more detailed concept for this cluster is developed. To embed the Carbon Policy in the organization, the approach of the employees towards their daily work routine has to change. Providing environmental knowledge and awareness does not automatically lead to pro-environmental behavior. The use of the HRM instruments and especially the learning conditions has to be influenced to stimulate behavior change. The choice of the right communication tools and stimulation of the communication climate can create a learning environment for the employees of AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals. Four stages where addressed in the concept From Plant to Plant. In the first stage there is a training in where group Yellow, the plant management team, train group Blue, Operations & Maintenance, by a presentation, an assignment and discussion. The second stage is the possibility to find extra information on the Carbon Policy; work related, non-work related and individual goals. The third stage was the idea phase using the (existing) suggestion box. The final stage is a groups meeting in where group Blue would come together with group Yellow and some (site-external) experts to discuss the different ideas from that location and from other locations. The concept from Plant to Plant was designed to create awareness for the Carbon Policy among group Yellow and Blue. Moreover create the opportunity to learn and develop skills for change of behavior towards a sustainable mindset. From the analysis phase guidelines for the concept were created. The concept From Plant to Plant meets these guidelines. From Plant to Plant gives a basic knowledge about the Carbon Policy among group Yellow and Blue. It creates the opportunity for group Yellow and Blue to extend their learning about the Carbon Policy if wanted. From Plant to Plant stimulates the different variables for change in intention. This predicts that behavior should change among group Yellow and Blue.

Carbon
Awareness
Sustainability

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b78cd294-55ca-42e7-89bd-d601cc2d0637

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2010 Boezeman, G.