Sustainable Lifestyles in the Workplace (Bogota and Marrakesh)

The overall project objective is to support companies and other employers such as the UN and government entities, to develop and implement workplace initiatives and activities to enhance better environmental practices and more sustainable lifestyles for individuals. The specific objectives are to: contribute to awareness and understanding how sustainable lifestyles can be integrated in the workplace; how the workplace can then contribute to sustainable lifestyles; and to develop and share specific environmental and lifestyle domain related interventions and examples of their implementation and messaging. 1) Scoping Studies - 2018 2) Research - 2018 3) Stakeholder Engagement -2018 4) Initiatives implementation -2018 5) Communication - 2018 Project outcome: Urban employers are able to design and implement sustainable lifestyle initiatives and activities in the workplace that enhance and reinforce citizen sustainable lifestyles, resulting in lower carbon resource use and a better quality of life for individuals. The studies completed during this project will enable a better understanding of sustainable lifestyles by providing a global snapshot of sustainable lifestyles. In addition, outlining the regional context and engaging local stakeholders will better inform future projects. Results from the implementation of local initiatives can be analyzed to enhance understanding of how sustainable lifestyles can be achieved on a local scale. These results can then be interpreted, by UN Environment, global stakeholders, and local groups, in comparison to the global scoping of sustainable lifestyles and initiatives to understand how to translate global efforts into a local context and vice versa. This analysis, comparing initiatives at the local level with those concerned with a global scale, enables the identification of gaps and target areas that need more focus for enhancing the understanding and implementation of sustainable lifestyles. Tangible impacts on the local level will be UN Environment engagement with local drivers of change and involvement with local businesses to foster awareness and capacity-building facilitating the adoption of sustainable lifestyles and workplace practices, while honing sustainable lifestyle communication techniques. This project requires research, implementation, analysis, stakeholder development and engagement at different scales. Interested stakeholders therefore have many areas where they could become involved with this project. Interested partners could contribute to research on the local context for sustainable lifestyles, through identification of potential workplaces for project implementation or enhancing the project team's understanding of local cultural context and effective and available communication channels. Stakeholders could facilitate the dissemination of key messages through avenues such as social media, thereby building project exposure and creating good will for its support among the local populace. If there is a local buzz for the project then engaged stakeholders may be more forthcoming to help with project objectives and provide information. Hotel management and owners could contribute their work space to be included as a pilot for the project, thereby enhancing the sustainability of their workplace and well-being of staff. Once the project has finished, we will have valuable frameworks and a global scoping study covering sustainable lifestyle initiatives. Further, there will be two regional scoping studies. These can be used by stakeholders to compare global and regional level initiatives, their successes and failures, providing the opportunity to translate relevant initiatives at the global level that are not being championed into a regional context. At project completion, stakeholders could utilize the findings to instill sustainable lifestyles and practices in workplaces where they have an impact. These stakeholders could widen the scope of the project's impact through replicating its frameworks and conclusions for further implementation, increasing awareness of sustainable lifestyles and enhancing workplaces to be more sustainable.