An organization's carbon reduction target is approved by the board, published in the sustainability report and featured on the corporate website. Yet whether the target is actually met usually depends on the decisions a procurement specialist makes when choosing a supplier, an engineer makes when designing a process, or a store employee makes in their daily work. Sustainability goals stay on paper when employees do not see them as part of their own jobs.
- Most sustainability goals cannot be met unless employees change their daily behaviors and the way they do their work. That makes employee involvement not a communications topic but a condition for success that needs to be measured.
- Measuring involvement means looking at five dimensions: awareness, belief, behavior, enablement and voice. The most often overlooked one is belief: if employees do not believe the organization's sustainability commitment is sincere, involvement will not last.
- Survey data should be read alongside program participation data. Volunteering hours answer "how much?", while the survey answers "why and for whom?"
- Adding sustainability items to the engagement survey as a small module, rather than running a separate survey, reduces survey fatigue and lets you see how perceptions of sustainability relate to engagement.
That is why employee involvement in sustainability is not a communications win but a condition for success that needs to be measured. In this post, we cover the dimensions along which to measure employee involvement, example survey items, and what to watch for when reading the results.
Why measure with an employee survey?
Organizations usually track sustainability programs through participation data: How many people completed the training, how many joined a volunteering event, how many suggestions came in? This data is valuable, but it leaves important questions unanswered:
- Participation does not mean adoption. An employee who completed a mandatory training may not be applying what they learned in their work.
- It does not show why people do not take part. Are employees staying away because they are not interested, because they do not have the time, or because they do not believe the program is sincere? Each calls for a different solution.
- It does not capture behavior in daily work. The real contribution to sustainability comes not from events but from the way employees do their jobs.
- It does not measure trust. Whether employees believe in the organization's commitment does not show up in any system data.
Program data answers "how much?", while the employee survey answers "why, how and for whom?"
Five dimensions of involvement in sustainability
We recommend looking at five dimensions to measure employee involvement in sustainability:
| Dimension | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Awareness | Do employees know the organization's sustainability goals and their own role in them? |
| Belief | Do employees believe the organization's commitment is sincere? |
| Behavior | Do employees consider environmental and social impact when doing their work? |
| Enablement | Do employees have the knowledge, tools, processes and time they need to do this? |
| Voice | Can employees share their suggestions and see that they lead somewhere? |
These dimensions work like links in a chain. Belief is not possible without awareness, lasting behavior is not possible without belief, and behavior is not possible without enablement. Seeing which link in the chain is broken in your survey results shows you where to invest.
Sustainability survey questions
The items below can be answered on a 5-point agreement scale. For a module added to the engagement survey, choosing one or two items from each dimension is enough.
Awareness
- I know the organization's sustainability goals.
- I understand how my work relates to the organization's environmental and social impact.
- I receive regular updates on the organization's progress in sustainability.
Belief
- I believe the organization's commitment to sustainability is sincere.
- What the organization says externally about sustainability matches what I see internally.
- Sustainability is genuinely taken into account when important decisions are made here.
Behavior
- I think about ways to reduce environmental impact when doing my work.
- In the past year, I have made a concrete change in the way I work for the sake of sustainability.
- In our team, sustainability is part of our everyday decisions.
Enablement
- I have the knowledge I need to apply sustainable options in my work.
- The organization's processes and tools make it easier for me to make sustainable choices.
- I can make time to take part in sustainability efforts.
- My manager supports sustainability initiatives.
Voice
- There is a channel where I can share my sustainability suggestions.
- Employees' sustainability suggestions are considered and put into practice.
Link to pride and engagement
- The organization's sustainability work increases the pride I feel in working here.
Open-ended questions
- Is there something that could be done for sustainability in your own work but is not being done today?
- What would make it easier for you to take a greater part in the organization's sustainability efforts?
Open-ended answers can be the sustainability team's most valuable source of ideas. Someone working in the field often knows better than the central team where energy or materials are being wasted. We explain how to analyze these answers at scale in our post on AI analysis of open-ended comments.
How should you read the results?
If awareness is high and belief is low
This is the most important signal you can see in the results. It means employees know the goals but do not believe they are sincere. This usually points to a perception of internal greenwashing: there is a gap between the story the organization tells externally and what employees see at work. For example, while the organization announces its goal of becoming carbon neutral, employees may see unnecessary business travel continuing, or price being the only deciding factor in supplier selection.
In this case, more communication does not solve the problem; it can even deepen it. The solution is to find the contradictions employees see in the open-ended answers and visibly resolve some of them.
If belief is high and behavior is low
If employees believe in the cause but do not apply it in their work, the problem most likely lies in enablement. Processes, tools or performance targets may be making the sustainable choice harder. For example, in a structure where a procurement team is measured only on cost savings, employees cannot choose the sustainable supplier even if they want to.
Look at the breakdowns
- Unit and role: In roles with high sustainability impact (procurement, production, logistics, design), behavior and enablement scores are especially important.
- Work arrangement: If there is a clear gap in awareness between office and field employees, review your communication channels. Our post on the internal communications survey can help here.
- Manager effect: If scores on "My manager supports sustainability initiatives" vary widely across units, you need to work on the role of managers.
You can find ways to compare breakdowns in our post on segmentation in employee surveys.
Look at the link to engagement
The biggest advantage of asking sustainability items within the engagement survey is that you can see how perceptions of sustainability relate to engagement and pride. Especially for younger employees, the organization's social and environmental impact can be an important part of their bond with the organization. We also discussed this in our post on why Gen Z does not respond to employee surveys. To see how much sustainability items influence engagement, you can use key driver analysis.
Reading it alongside program data
Placing survey results side by side with data from sustainability programs gives you a stronger picture:
| Program data | What it shows when read with the survey |
|---|---|
| Sustainability training completion rate | Is "I have the knowledge I need" rising in units that completed the training? |
| Participation in volunteering events | In units with low participation, is "I can make time" also low? |
| Number of suggestions from employees | In units with few suggestions, how does "my suggestions are considered" score? |
| Unit-level energy, waste or travel data | Are environmental indicators also improving in units with high behavior scores? |
Make these comparisons at unit level to protect anonymity, and do not report small groups. See our post on anonymity in employee surveys for details.
How it relates to sustainability reporting
The social dimension of sustainability reports also covers an organization's relationship with its employees. In Turkey, the Turkey Sustainability Reporting Standards (TSRS), along with international reporting frameworks, place growing emphasis on how organizations address employee-related topics and stakeholder views. Employee survey results can provide supporting data in these reports on topics such as employee engagement, training, gathering employee views and sustainability culture.
Before using survey results in reporting, however, keep two things in mind: determine which indicators to report, and how, according to the standard your organization is subject to; and do not change the items every year, so that measurement stays comparable across years.
Common mistakes
- Measuring only awareness. However high the answers to "Do you know our sustainability goals?" are, they do not show whether employees believe in them or act on them.
- Ignoring social desirability. Sustainability is a topic where employees know the "right answer". Personal behavior questions such as "I pay attention to recycling" can produce better results than reality. Focus instead on concrete items about organizational enablement. We cover this bias in detail in our post on survey response bias.
- Focusing only on individual behavior. Whether employees use paper cups in the office is a small part of the organization's real impact. Asking about behaviors tied to the work itself (procurement, design, processes) is more meaningful.
- Not sharing the results. Asking for employees' views on sustainability and then not sharing the results weakens the belief dimension.
In short, employee involvement in sustainability should be measured not only through event participation but across the dimensions of awareness, belief, behavior, enablement and voice. The most critical signal is low belief alongside high awareness. Adding these items to the engagement survey as a small module and reading the results alongside program data is the most practical way to see whether your sustainability goals are staying on paper.
Frequently asked questions
How do you measure employee involvement in sustainability?
An employee survey measures awareness, belief in the organization's commitment, behaviors at work, whether employees have what they need to act, and how well they can voice their ideas. These results are then read alongside program data such as volunteering hours, number of suggestions and training completion rates.
What questions should a sustainability survey include?
Items such as "I know the organization's sustainability goals", "I believe the organization's commitment to sustainability is sincere", "I can take concrete steps to reduce environmental impact in my work" and "There is a channel where I can share my sustainability suggestions" each measure a different dimension.
Should sustainability questions be asked in a separate survey?
For most organizations, adding a sustainability module of 5–8 items to the engagement survey is enough. This reduces survey fatigue and shows how perceptions of sustainability relate to engagement and pride. A separate survey can also be run at the start or end of a comprehensive sustainability program.
What is internal greenwashing?
It is a clear gap between the sustainability story an organization tells externally and what employees see at work. Employees are the first to notice this gap; high awareness combined with low belief in survey results is the typical sign.
Can employee survey results be used in sustainability reporting?
Survey results can provide supporting data for the social dimension of sustainability reports on topics such as employee engagement, training, participation and gathering employee views. Which indicators to report, and how, should be determined by the reporting standard the organization is subject to.
