The Impact of Workplace Initiatives on Low Carbon Behaviours - Case Study Report

3 COCA COLA ENTERPRISES

This case study provides an illustration of the patience required from organisations when introducing sustainable low carbon practices. This organisation introduced some infrastructure changes which helped reduce the need for people to make choices in their behaviour. They also provided ongoing and repeated communication about goals and progress to help raise awareness, break habits and sustain individual behaviour change. Key staff developed a belief in the purpose of the changes introduced, which helped them to feel confident and influence others.

Background

3.1 Coca Cola Enterprises (CCE) manufactures, sells, and distributes soft drinks for the Coca Cola Company. The workplace of interest for this case study is a manufacturing and distribution site located in East Kilbride, which has been in operation since 1964 and employs 181 workers. It operates on a continuous shift system 24 hours a day, five days a week, with three early shifts, three late shifts and one night shift. There is also a day shift of managers and operations support functions such as finance, planning and quality. There are four production lines and the plant makes 17 million cases of bottles a year. The site has a reputation for innovation in working methods and high performance within the wider organisation.

3.2 The company has a commitment to sustainability with a target to reduce CO₂ emissions by 15 per cent by 2020. This is part of the firm's aspiration to be a 'healthy' company as the firm stresses that reducing CO₂ emissions contributes to human health through improving the quality of our environment and supports a twin commitment to improving health and safety at work.

3.3 One of the initial drivers to reduce carbon emissions was the Climate Change Levy (CCL). This offers discounts to companies in return for meeting energy or carbon use reduction targets. Over time, the importance of embedding corporate values has become more important than saving money, as the company has placed more emphasis on its commitment to human health together with a its commitment to best practice to reduce energy consumption. In a recent restructuring, the role of Environment Manager was created to place even more focus on energy use reduction and recycling in one role.

3.4 CCE has benefited from external support from the Carbon Trust whose staff have conducted surveys of the site to provide support on gathering baseline data and highlighting potential areas for improvement. It has also made investments in technology to support behavioural change. The implementation of new technology or new machinery is usually conditional on a one year pay-back period. However, green technologies are given up to three years to recoup the costs. The company recognises though that infrastructure changes alone are insufficient:

'There's only so much you can do with hardware and bits and pieces. If you don't reach the people behind it, you're just wasting your time.'

3.5 The focus for CCE now is to maintain and reduce carbon consumption, waste and emissions by concentrating on behaviour change. Managers feel this is a harder task than some 'relatively easy' achievements by changing infrastructure and hardware.

'it's me now that has to do the tweaking bit and it probably is a bit harder for me as the big ones have all gone now. It's now looking at behaviour and what we do just to get little ones.'

Low carbon initiatives

Energy monitoring and reducing energy consumption

3.6 This site had started using energy monitors several years ago as a way of assessing water and electricity consumption. It has been able to share the data collected with the Carbon Trust and identify areas for reducing consumption. The monitoring systems measure how much energy is being used, where, and by which machines. This enables managers to identify when machinery has not been turned off. The monitors now produce reports automatically and managers have been able to use this information to save thousands of pounds by identifying which machines could be shut down for the weekend. Using the correct shut-down procedure is a behaviour that has had to be instilled in the staff and managers have tried to make it a habit. The weekend shut-down has become a routine on the site, so managers are now aiming to maintain consistent performance.

'If it's a couple of hundred pounds more at the weekend, we're actually now challenging that and questioning it, whereas it would have been thousands of pounds before… And that system became so good that you can tell when people are leaving lights on and it enables us to challenge that.'

3.7 Reports are sent out by email each Monday and highlight locations where energy use has been higher over the weekend than expected requiring the manager of each area to explain why has occurred.

3.8 In addition to these employee-focused initiatives, CCE has invested in infrastructure technology to help save energy. This includes voltage optimisation which reduces incoming voltage to avoid energy consumption which is not essential for running the production line. The projected energy savings range from three to 12 per cent. The firm has also installed LED lighting to replace office and walkway lighting, and motion sensor lighting; it expects that this will achieve a 15 per cent energy saving and use fewer bulbs so creating less waste.

Zero waste to landfill policy

3.9 The site has been making steps towards reducing waste since 2006, but in 2009 it received a visit from the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment who enquired about the firm's waste strategy. Following this visit CCE made a commitment to send zero waste to landfill. Most waste is now recycled and 6.5 per cent goes to incineration to create energy from waste. Some of this has been achieved through structural changes such as providing recycling bins, but much of the change relies on the cooperation and behaviours of staff.

3.10 Two major behaviour changes were required from staff. The first was to segregate waste on site which makes it cheaper to be collected for recycling. The second was on the glass bottling line. Instead of recycling bottles that have been over- or under-filled, workers are required to empty the bottles and put them back into the production line. Managers identified that this could provide a significant cost saving:

'there's no reason why the bottle can't be emptied and re-used, which has got to be a critical behaviour change. I think we could save 80 per cent of waste glass as a reasonable, conservative figure because about 80 per cent of that loss is bottles that have just been put in skips because it's easier than putting them back on the line.'

3.11 Although the change is a simple one, it is not as quick as throwing the bottle into the recycling and managers recognised that it would require initial explanation and negotiation with staff before the behaviours became embedded:

'It's not going to be a case of, do it, this is the way it's done, it's showing them where the losses are and if we work together, if we get a commitment from them …gradually build that up, to try and build that new bit of the culture'

3.12 As well as recycling waste produced on site, vending drivers bring recyclable waste back to the site and sales staff are given recycling boxes for car boots to discourage landfill waste disposal away from the site. CCE also has a policy of dealing with waste onsite which helps to save transport costs and consumption. Plastic waste is shredded on site which takes up less room and therefore requires less frequent collection by the recycling service provider.

Fuel Efficient Driving

3.13 CCE incurs significant costs in product distribution and has sought to minimise these through changes to transport behaviours and methods. It has used the skills of a driver who undertook Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving (SAFED) training outside work and paid for him to qualify as an HGV SAFED trainer and deliver the training to the other HGV drivers. The training has also been delivered at other sites. Data collected showed potential savings of between eight and 15 per cent of fuel costs from fuel efficient driving, and in addition, the different driving style results in less wear and tear on engine parts so they need less frequent replacement. At the end of one training session with an HGV driver, the worker recorded a 25 per cent improvement in fuel economy and a reduction of 66 per cent in gear changes. Managers are also trying to change other behaviours among HGV drivers including not leaving engines idling to heat or cool the cab while preparing to leave. Drivers who are part of the vending team have also undergone similar training to help reduce fuel by changing their driving styles, plan their routes more efficiently and reduce fuel consumption through carrying lighter loads.

3.14 As part of the Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week, the SAFED qualified driver delivered a version of this training to volunteers from the rest of the workforce for use in commuting and leisure travel. Nineteen staff took part in 2010 and a further ten took part in 2011.

3.15 Drivers who are members of the sales team are eligible for a sales bonus based on fuel saving performance. Managers measure the fuel consumption of each driver using fuel and mileage records and distribute a share of team savings in fuel compared to the same month in the previous year. This incentive scheme is self-funding and has no additional cost to the company.

3.16 To accompany these employee-focused initiatives, CCE has also made changes to transport methods to reduce carbon emissions. It now uses trains rather than trucks when transporting products and has set up a backhauling system for drivers from other companies to pick up goods on their way past the site. It also invested in new fork lift trucks which have more efficient engines and energy saving tyres leading to fuel cost savings.

Process of implementation

3.17 CCE has used different methods for implementation for each of the initiatives. These include education and training, including presentations, toolbox talks^[1] and workshops within working hours where staff could contribute ideas for ways to manage waste segregation. CCE runs practical training sessions for drivers under their continuing professional development scheme and lead to a Certificate of Personal Competence.

'it's not going to be a case of, do it, this is the way it's done, it's showing them where the losses are and if we work together, if we get a commitment from them that maybe 60 per cent [of the currently wasted bottles] will be re-used in the first year and gradually build that up, to try and build that new bit of the culture.'

3.18 Feedback and encouragement, including rewards and incentives were important for some roles where expectations about rewards were engrained among particular segments of the workforce. This was particularly true for drivers.

'We need to give them the proper feedback and encouragement that if they are showing those behavioural changes then they deserve encouragement and reward for it.'

3.19 Training provided to encourage fuel-efficient driving has taken advantage of existing competitive attitudes between drivers and depots. Drivers are now keen to see who can achieve the best fuel economy and information spreads informally about how much savings drivers are making which acts as an incentive for other drivers. However, managers in some teams without a strong bonus culture had reservations about appealing solely to bonuses as a way of creating behaviour change. They would prefer workers to change their behaviour as a result of acquiring additional pro-environmental beliefs.

'The environmental argument sends the right message, because not generating waste is a source of personal pride, I think. The longevity of the site by showing the correct behaviours and saving the money at source is how, I think, you sell that message.'

3.20 Managers stressed that face to face discussion was integral to behaviour change. They talked to individual staff about how and why workers engaged in particular behaviours, for example why workers were throwing bottles into waste units rather than recycling them. This gave managers an opportunity to discuss and challenge the behaviours.

3.21 As a result, CCE gave some thought to how to make adverse behaviours more unappealing and more difficult than sustainable behaviours, by making it take longer to throw an item away than recycle it. They also tried to raise staff consciousness of environmental sustainability as an issue to think about in daily routines. One manager gave the common example of energy use that:

'if somebody walks into the office and the light's on, just try and make them think well, why is it on? Has there been somebody in? Does it need to be on?'

3.22 Lastly, managers stressed that implementation of low carbon initiatives could take a long time. For example, it took five years to achieve the goal of zero waste to landfill and absorbed quite a lot of management time to implement it successfully.

'20 per cent of my time was spent analysing wastes, waste streams, speaking to people, educating them.'

3.23 In addition to management roles in enforcing top down change, staff are able to make suggestions for improvements and an 'instant report system' is in place to enable this. Staff complete a form for reporting safety and environmental issues and includes space for suggestions of how they can be resolved. Forms are reviewed daily by the relevant managers to identify solutions and give feedback to the worker about whether or not suggestions can be implemented.

3.24 Most of the responsibility for implementation of the low carbon initiatives has been held by managers. CCE deliberately decided not to appoint individual workers as environmental champions on this site because safety representatives have taken on sole responsibility for reporting safety issues and the firm wanted all workers to take personal responsibility for environmental behaviours. Instead activities are co-ordinated by a manager responsible for environmental issues. He works in co-operation with the rest of the management team and staff and took the lead on the ongoing monitoring of energy consumption and waste generation, as well as initiatives to reduce it.

Staff responses

3.25 Managers have a responsibility to reduce costs, overheads and CCE's environmental footprint embedded in their personal objectives. This has led to easy acceptance of the importance of low carbon behaviours among this staff group. They have a commitment to these measures and champion it with their staff so they work in cooperation with the Environment Manager and are supportive of the changes, because they recognise the importance of saving money for the organisation.

'For me there's a change in my behaviour. I think about it a bit more, what I'm doing.'

3.26 Some drivers were reluctant to change their driving styles, in particular the vending drivers, who thought that it would take them longer to make deliveries. Managers were able to allay these concerns with data collected about the impact of changing driving styles on route times, and also offered the bonus to help overcome initial fears. HGV drivers did not receive incentives but managers pointed out that adopting the changed styles would reduce fuel costs when driving outside work. Drivers were initially reluctant to adopt the behaviours using company vehicles but applied the fuel efficient driving techniques they had learned outside work in an effort to save their own personal fuel costs. These behaviours then spilled back into driving styles when using company vehicles. Among other staff, there was a very positive response to the driving training sessions as part of the Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability week and staff commented that 'there was a lot of buzz in the canteen about it.'

3.27 Staff gave examples of how the initiatives at work had made an impact on behaviours outside work. One worker had just bought a hybrid car, in part because of the awareness of carbon emissions he had developed at work. The fuel efficiency training was also expected to have benefits for people outside of work.

'One employee travels 40 miles here and 40 miles back so that's a lot of money for him, plus he's getting rewarded here in work as well. It's not exactly rocket science, it's just simple things. They can go and tell their wife, their son-in-law, their cousin or whatever and everybody can benefit from it.'

3.28 Managers also hoped that the work they do on site to educate people would translate into the home life of their staff, for example through heightened awareness and adoption of recycling.

Key challenges

3.29 CCE has found it more difficult to persuade frontline staff to change behaviours compared to managers. It has taken considerable management effort to persuade staff to commit to segregating waste or turning off machinery and for drivers to change their driving style in the long-term.

3.30 In order to reduce the amount of landfill waste, CCE has made progress each year by a mixture of embedding desired behaviours and introducing new methods. Progress was made by re-emphasising the need to recycle and moving the recycling bins to more convenient locations to minimise effort for workers. Managers now lock the general waste compactor outside the hours when it is supervised by the cleaner so that it is not used for disposing recyclable waste. The site has also continued to provide training and education for all staff as improvements to recycling and waste disposal are brought in and to support drivers to maintain efficient driving techniques. These changes have helped to make desired behaviours as easy as possible.

3.31 Communicating new ways of working can be a challenge for managers, but having a sense of personal commitment appears to improve individual perceptions of their own power. One manager spoke of 'believing' in the environmental message that he was trying to get across which made him confident that he would be able to 'sell' the message.

3.32 CCE also found that choice of language and measurements that workers can relate to was important. For example, leaving the lights on at the site at the weekend uses the same amount of energy that would power a family home for three months. Units of measurement are chosen to reflect domestic power use, which also helps to emphasise the scale of power consumption:

'If you say that's four megawatt we've used this week, they just look at you like you've got three heads. If you actually say it's four million watts, give big numbers and they go, hmm.'

3.33 One of the main challenges that CCE now face on this site is maintaining the work that they have done already. There are not as many 'big wins' left to achieve so the firm is focussed on maintaining behaviour change regardless of levels of production activity. Analysis of energy consumption shows that when production increases, unnecessary energy use occurs and waste is generated. Managers believe that this occurs because agency staff are brought in to supplement the existing workforce, and these workers are not as familiar with the behaviours required. Using permanent staff and line managers as the 'eyes and ears' of the environment manager has helped to tackle incorrect behaviour straight away.

3.34 Teams also bear the consequences of lapses in behaviour. For example when production staff contaminated a waste bin with material that could have been recycled, the manager asked the team to re-sort the waste properly. The team did not want to have to do this again so they will now challenge anyone seeking to dispose recyclable waste to landfill bins.

3.35 Incentivising teams has required a process of trial and error. There is a risk that competition across shifts could drive negative behaviours which would not benefit the site as a whole. There is little point in one shift scoring well on all three performance indicators at the expense of others. CCE tries to address this by communicating best practice between shifts and workers enjoy the competitive dimension of implementing best practice techniques.

3.36 CCE does not 'name and shame' individuals as managers have found that being singled out by management for leaving lights on can cause lack of co-operation. They report problems instead to team leaders who place collective responsibility across the team.

'We tend not to go right down to individuals because it can be counter productive sometimes when you start highlighting an individual by name. It sometimes has a negative impact on them; I'm not touching anything in future.'

3.37 The plans to introduce motion sensitive lighting within all office space should also eradicate this problem.

3.38 An additional barrier faced at this site was in implementing the weekend shutdown. Some machinery did not start properly after the shut down which made staff reluctant to turn it off again. By monitoring the weekend's energy consumption, managers became aware of the problem and overcame it by carrying out maintenance work to ensure the technology functioned correctly.

3.39 It is sometimes difficult to release staff to take part in voluntary initiatives. For example, it was difficult to accommodate higher numbers of staff in the fuel-efficiency commuter driving training as their roles had to be covered while they were training.

3.40 CCE recognises that it will not be possible to achieve zero waste entirely since some materials on site cannot yet be recycled. These include foil crisp packets and paper hand towels. The firm is required to use the latter to meet an ISO quality standard for food hygiene in manufacturing. These waste materials are sent to waste-to-energy incineration.

Evidence of impact

3.41 This site successfully achieved its goal of sending zero waste to landfill in 2011. In 2006 the firm sent around 200 tonnes of waste to landfill, which reduced to 103 tonnes in 2007, 83 tonnes in 2008, 63 tonnes in 2009, and 23 tonnes in 2010. Since January 2011, CCE has sent no waste to landfill and achieved 99.3 per cent recycling; 0.7 per cent being used to generate energy.

3.42 The site has also successfully reduced energy consumption. For example, the site will produce 17 million cases of drinks in 2012, using 2 million fewer kilowatts of electricity than in 2011, although it is not clear how much of the reduction is attributable to infrastructure versus behavioural change.

3.43 The company initially saved 10 per cent fuel when it introduced energy efficient driving to HGV drivers. In the year up to December 2011, delivery drivers had saved 2111 litres or 4.8 per cent of normal fuel consumption, which saved the organisation £2,132.11. The sales team delivery drivers saved 635 litres (9.3 per cent) over one month, at an average fuel price in 2010 of £1.01 which gave a bonus pot of £641 worth around £50 to each driver.

Critical Success Factors

3.44 The critical success factors identified for the low carbon initiatives at CCE include:

Values

3.45 Instilling shared environmental values in individual employees or across teams was deemed to be essential for initiatives to succeed. This includes a need to persuade staff of the value of changing their behaviours.

Workplace Culture

3.46 Tapping into existing workplace culture where a sense of competition is present - the site has a sense of collective pride and strives to be the best, beat targets and be innovative. The use of incentives must be carefully considered and fit existing cultures of the relevant work groups, without alienating other groups in the organisation. Motivating staff and management through rewards should ideally work in parallel with values-based change.

Communication and Information

3.47 Putting information in language people understand/can relate to - this is not always easy to do, but it makes the information more powerful in its impact.

3.48 Giving staff information to motivate behavioural change and show its impact helps to persuade them through raising awareness of costs and benefits, including, for example, the negative consequences of not recycling. For example, giving information to drivers about how much fuel they are saving and how little extra time it takes helped convince them to alter behaviours.

Infrastructure

3.49 Staff must be given the right tools or facilities to make behaviour change easy e.g. through location of recycling facilities.

Organisational Brand

3.50 Building an environmental brand - information from newsletters and magazines illustrates what the company is doing to be more environmentally conscious throughout its workplaces.

External Support

3.51 External support through the supply chain network has been helpful in generating new ideas for waste reduction. CCE has benefited from support from waste disposal and recycling contractors to suggest improvements. CCE has also used the Carbon Trust to conduct audits and help create action plans.

Future Plans

3.52 This site intends to make further progress to reduce its carbon emissions. One aim is to maintain consistently low energy use. The zero waste to landfill policy has successfully reduced waste production and increased recycling but the site intends to continue its efforts in these fields. Managers will re-emphasise the 'reduce, re-use, recycle' mantra and focus on reducing the amount of materials the site consumes. It also seeking to reduce the road miles associated with processing recycling and waste. One plan to address this is to use glass crushers on production lines so that waste glass takes up less room and does not have to be collected as often. New sizes of cardboard baling machines are being acquired and a new recycling contractor will be used so that the waste can go straight to recycling, rather than involving an extra journey to be re-baled. There are plans to use no cardboard in trays of bottled drinks. This has required some technical development to make sure the bottles are stable without trays. Managers are also considering the feasibility of sending some waste products to pig farms.

3.53 CCE is also starting to share experiences of good practice with a local whisky plant, which has benefited from the support of Scottish Enterprise and has involved mutual learning visits and is also extending to joint product marketing.

Key learning points

• Major change and achieving a zero waste to landfill policy has taken five years to achieve, because changes made have been sustainable for the long-term. Organisations need to be patient and committed to achieve changes on this scale: 'don't be too ambitious. Don't try too much at one time… And be patient. It doesn't happen overnight; we've been at it for years. Some things are easier than others.'
• Ongoing and repeated communication through line managers is important to raise awareness, break habits and sustain individual behaviour change among staff.
• Investment in technology such as motion sensitive lighting can help remove the need for people to make choices.
• Connecting higher level corporate values with perceptions of appropriate role behaviour for individual workers requires an ongoing education process.
• Development of personal beliefs in the purpose of change among key staff such as line managers is helpful in improving their confidence and belief in their abilities to influence staff.
• Make use of the spillover effect of behaviour change at work to home and also from home to work.
• Customising motivational arguments for change to make them compatible with workplace and individual team cultures is important and can involve a process of trial and error. Cost and benefit arguments may need to illustrate personal rather than organisational benefits to front line staff and environmental targets may need to be aligned within performance management systems.
• Reducing barriers to behavioural change through making it as easy as possible to adopt the desired behaviour is helpful in tackling individual objections to change.