Celebrating Climate Week: Okta’s Dynamic Work Sustainability Guide
As Okta’s Global Workplace Sustainability Manager, I’ve been able to marry my two passions: my family and reducing environmental impacts. As a mom of two, I’ve appreciated how Okta’s Dynamic Work strategy has empowered my work to limit overall environmental impact, and to help our employees reduce their impacts at home.
Within my time at Okta, I’ve been fortunate to work on a number of important climate commitments. Specifically, our initiative that all new Okta offices must be both LEED and WELL Silver certified, our commitment to 100% renewable electricity for office and employee work from home, and setting science-based targets.
As employees continue to work from wherever makes the most sense to them (including, most obviously, their homes), we’ve reached out to them in new, creative ways to achieve our overall sustainability goals.
For example, we created The Dynamic Work Sustainability Guide for employees to bring sustainability from our offices into their own personal environments and daily lives. This comprehensive guide focuses on six areas: food, energy, waste, water, transportation, and wellbeing.
The theme of this guide is to first help employees reduce their consumption, and then move on to more sustainable sources. One example shows employees how they can reduce their energy consumption by investing in energy-efficient solutions, such as putting in LED lights or adding insulation to their home. For electricity that must be consumed, we provide employees with resources on how to opt-in to residential renewable energy; and for both our offices and employees working from home, Okta purchases renewable electricity certificates (RECs) from renewable energy generators. This allows employee electricity usage to be supported by 100% renewable electricity. For waste, we encourage employees to reduce by using reusable items versus single-use options (such as Tupperware and beeswax wraps versus Saran wrap) and to use items made from recycled content to drive recycling and reduce landfills.
The overall goal of this guide is to build new habits through small, repeatable actions that can be impactful over time. In my home, my 3-year-old son has learned which of our products go in the compost, which go to recycling, and what goes in the trash. He loves to help sort the recycling, and we talk about how items can be reused.
To celebrate the launch of our guide, we used Climate Week to host an internal, virtual event. We asked employees to post photos of themselves implementing climate-saving actions in their own homes. The engagement was amazing, and we loved seeing our people learn about their own carbon footprints, and celebrate their wins in making meaningful reductions in their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
We are so excited to share the Dynamic Work Sustainability Guide and hope that more people and organizations will take action to reduce waste and GHG emissions. It’s one powerful way to leave our world a better place for future generations.
