May 2, 2024
Welcome Back! 🌍
This week, we’ll explore a growing business risk disproportionately affecting the latest wave of graduates: climate anxiety.
So, what is climate anxiety?
Climate anxiety is the “heightened emotional, mental or somatic distress in response to dangerous changes in the climate system”.
It is often caused by watching the “impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations”.
The difference between climate anxiety and other forms of anxiety is said to be the scale of the stressor and the lack of obvious mitigation: climate change can feel like an insurmountable threat at times, and exposure therapy can be difficult to identify.
Why is it important for businesses to address climate anxiety?
The last few years have seen a dramatic cultural shift in perception towards climate change:
62% of people in the UK worry about climate change.
Young people ages 16-25 (the next generation of workers) are significantly more likely to have climate anxiety.
Climate anxiety threatens the state of employee health and well-being, which in turn affects company productivity.
Reported impacts of climate anxiety include a sense of powerlessness, work demotivation, and lost focus.
Businesses that listen and respond to their employees' concerns on climate change can mitigate risk and enhance employee well-being, resilience, and productivity.
Our employees must be educated on the future of the climate, but there are measures we can take to inspire confidence rather than extinguish motivation.
4 Actions you can take with your business to reduce climate anxiety in employees:
1) Provide mental health resources to your employees.
Mental health awareness programs curated for your company can help educate employees on symptoms to be aware of among themselves and coworkers. Similarly, managers can be trained to support staff members who may be struggling. Read more here to learn about how improved mental health improves productivity.
2) Keep your internal communications real, but positive.
Employees need to be informed of the reality of the impacts of climate change and what your organisation is doing to address it. However, sitting and listening to the negative events can be challenging. At the end of an internal sustainability event or training, follow up with reflections and discussions about what can be done to reduce the impact of climate change, rather than just negative issues. Inspire hope in your team and end with actionable steps they can take.
3) Help your team focus on actionable goals / set climate KPIs.
Find ways for employees to be involved in your organisation’s sustainability strategy. An example of this could be related to training: your organisation may have an overall goal to train 100% of staff in climate change or sustainability by 2025. This larger goal can be made more actionable for an individual if this training is given to them as a simple KPI. In other words, you can break down a large strategic goal into bite-sized and actionable tasks for your employees to help them focus on what they can control.
4) Take actions that support mental health and the planet at the same time.
Why not combine mental illness prevention with planet-saving fun? Nature can generate positive emotions such as calmness, joy, and creativity. Being outside can also help people build a connection with nature that instils an urgency to protect it. Plan outdoor meetings or activities, such as local litterpicks, to promote mental health and combat climate anxiety simultaneously.
So, what’s next?
Make sustainability and climate change training accessible and easy to comprehend with Vyra.
Vyra’s purpose-built platform makes it simple for sustainability managers and teams to upskill key business employees in critical sustainability topics with CPD accredited courses.
Vyra solves this challenge for growing mid-sized and large organisations that must comply with sustainability regulations in critical industries.
Get access to Vyra’s training solution for you and four colleagues today, completely free of charge.
Experience the difference.