How My Net Zero and LiveTiles are unlocking the green power of employees

Is sustainability the responsibility of the individual, or big business? According to LiveTiles and My Net Zero, it’s both; and they’ve found a way to make it easier for everyone.

‘Net zero’ is the target of negating the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

At Microsoft, we’re proud that we have been carbon neutral across the world since 2012 and are committed to being carbon negative by 2030.

My Net Zero is a wholly owned subsidiary of LiveTiles. They are working together to help the world get to net zero; and it’s not just in the boardroom or at home – it’s both – and Microsoft technology is instrumental in this.

My Net Zero is a pioneering organisation, sitting comfortably in the gap between environmental sustainability and employee engagement. It offers a practical pathway for organisations to support climate-conscious employees to get involved, be a part of the solution, and accelerate the world’s path to net zero.

My Net Zero’s Climate Engagement Tracker shows that over 75% of employees are motivated to take climate action personally to combat environmental sustainability challenges. However, the data also shows that often people don’t know where to start.

“We connect people with planet and technology to tackle what is undoubtably the biggest challenge of our lifetime.” Karl Redenbach, Founder and CEO LiveTiles

Empowering employees to accelerate the world’s path to Net Zero

You may ask – why employees? Organisations hold the key to activating their employees through leadership, culture, communications, employee benefits, support, incentives and the sense of belonging. This then drives greater employee engagement and contributes to incremental environmental action. With climate action and employee engagement as two key global challenges, the opportunity is now to support our peoples’ concerns, drive incremental support to the planet, and report additional ESG outcomes.

My Net Zero is building the bridge by providing employers with consulting advice, products and a global and flexible tech platform designed to connect, engage and support their employees in positive climate action.

It’s a win-win. The organisation works towards their ESG goals while helping the employees become more actively engaged. The closer the employees get to net zero in their own personal life, the more they will share with and inspire their networks. Helping organisations activate this sphere of influence is what My Net Zero calls ‘Scope X’.

“If employers can engage their employees, who then share this with their friends and family, the opportunity to use organisational structures to reach a significant part of the global population is massive – and that’s where we see the chance to make a real impact on the emissions gap.” Tim Hodgson, Founder & CEO, My Net Zero.

Unlocking individual barriers to climate action not only supports the planet but also empowers people to become a part of the broader solution, engendering greater feelings of hope, and a reduction in eco-anxiety. This assistance is a key employee engagement strategy in a time when the state of the climate is a key concern of 82% of employees[1]. “Our work to date has found that climate change fear and frustration are much higher in individuals that are less engaged in personal climate action,” says Tim.

How Microsoft Teams, Azure and AI are contributing to My Net Zero’s mission

One of the tools My Net Zero offers is the Climate Engagement Tracker. The Tracker is the first step on a journey to listen to, involve and support employees to deliver on their personal climate action aspirations, leveraging and aligning to existing organisational plans.

The data from the Tracker provides the foundation for a series of workshops to develop a tailored and impactful Employee Climate Action Plan for each organisation. Microsoft technologies are helping drive the services that My Net Zero provides, with Microsoft Azure machine learning and AI helping to make the most of that data.

“The great thing about Microsoft products, particularly Teams, is that it’s very accessible to everyone. We can deliver our road map technology and engagement tracker through the Teams platform. It’s backed by Azure, and we’ve got machine learning and AI that we’re building into the software, that will allow us to be able to track trends and provide a benchmarking tool.” Karl Redenbach, Founder and CEO LiveTiles

Social responsibility is good for business

Expectations around ESG are starting to skyrocket as the effects of climate change become more apparent. Customers, stakeholders and future partners are going to be looking for more than just an ESG policy, but evidence of real goals and real actions. This applies both to companies, but also the partners they want to work with.

LiveTiles and My Net Zero encourage partners wanting to work in an environmentally responsible area to simply get started. “Whilst it can be a daunting and confusing space, and every business is on a different part of the journey, all businesses can make an impact. There are usually some quick wins, alongside longer-term opportunities. Taking time to build a plan that is relevant to your business is critical, ensuring impact is front and centre of all decision making”, says Tim.

Start at home, Karl advises. “Partners can start in their own backyard, their own families, their own people – these discussions can’t just be held in the boardroom. Then hopefully that transitions into practices and profits that you may not have thought of otherwise.”

What’s next?

The team from LiveTiles and My Net Zero are both hopeful and excited about the future.

“My vision is that we have a platform where people feel they belong, like they’ve got support, that simplifies everything that they need to do, and also drives a bit of accountability,” says Tim.

“We want to help create better connectivity between government, corporate and people – get into a ‘one planet, one team’ mode and start supporting each other. People and corporates need to be working together, and governments also need to support corporates to be able to help their people,” adds Karl.

Karl notes that we do not have the luxury of time on this issue. “The time is now; we don’t have time to mess around. That’s why if we can work with companies and get companies to get their people on board, those people can start to get their communities to take action too.”

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[1] My Net Zero Climate Engagement Index