Deliver a global warming awareness workshop for ALL of your staff, worldwide.

 

Objective

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To maximise your business's potential for making a positive difference to spiraling rates of climate change, by directly involving individuals in the reduction of the methane and nitrous oxide gases emissions they are unwittingly complicit in creating.

 

Approach

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Beginning with your employees, influence as many people as possible, worldwide, to commit to making changes in their dietary habits.

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NB. It cannot be emphasised enough that the purpose and approach of the workshop should not be to simply inform. It will not have succeeded unless real change results, and therefore all that follows is written in pursuit of that objective.

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Desired outcomes

 

• All staff commit to eating a plant-based diet at least once a week. (The minimum targeted change).

• A minimum of 20% of staff members commit to more than the minimum targeted change.

• Staff members influence 10% of those in their Dunbar’s number group.

• The company garners significant media attention regarding the content and purpose of the initiative.

• Other organisations in your sector and businesses in other industries are motivated to launch similar initiatives or collaborate with you in this one.

• A significant global groundswell of change results.

• A tipping point is reached.

• Emissions of nitrous oxide and methane are significantly and meaningfully reduced.

• Rates of increase in global warming are maintained below 1.5 degrees.

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The objective is not to inform. It is to influence.

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The workshop design and the facilitation techniques used must be geared towards bringing about personal change, not simply educating.

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It would effectively be an exercise in selling the attendees on personal change.

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The workshop should be an informal, physically attended event,  lasting no less than, but no more than two-three hours, including and preceded by either a breakfast or lunch, at which (unannounced) all plant-based foodstuffs are served.  

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The workshop would be in part a presentation of facts, in part a conversational examination of the issues.

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It should be delivered in a culturally sensitive manner and be tailored towards the local attendees.

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The event would be non-threatening, yet challenge attendees to explore their own choices, understand their impacts, and lead them to a desire to commit to change.

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Attendees would be left with a sense of purpose, having undergone an experience that makes a material difference to both their personal lives and the future of the planet.

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Content

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Workshop content should include, but not be limited, to the following.

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• The extent of the problem the world faces in broad terms.

• Supporting evidence (delivered in soundbites).

• What the business is already doing.

• An exploration of what the individual may do.

• What happens if ‘we’ do nothing?

• Debunking the mythology of climate change.

• Exploration of “What’s in it for me?”

• How the individual can really make a difference.

• Making a personal commitment.

 

This would be delivered via

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• Prerecorded, region specific, audio-visual input

• Other presentation aids

• Anecdotal input from the facilitator

• Targeted questioning

• Evidencing data

• Open debate

• Discussion groups

• Q&A

• Commitment seeking

 

Ensuring commitment

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At the end of the workshop, all participants should be asked if they wish to commit to making a difference.

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If they are in agreement, they should be asked to sign a document something similar to Terra Carta, but with a method of indicating how many days per week they will commit to eating only plant-based meals and foodstuffs.

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Whilst this would be entirely voluntary, it may be supposed that the process they have been through, the ethos that has been created, and the degree of peer pressure that they will experience, will help to facilitate participants becoming signatories.

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The signing to a commitment process has two principal advantages:

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1. It enables quantifiable measurement of the impact of the initiative.

2. It provides a vehicle for ongoing follow through.