Discussion paper for the project ” Towards the Sustainable Work Place” (TSW)
By Henrik Lund, RUC (Roskilde University)
Sustainability and Work Place Development
Discussion paper for the TSW project on the use of the sustainability concept as the
pivotal point for practical activities in connection with changes at work place level
Introduction
The purpose of this memorandum is to discuss the difficulties, but also the advantages, that
may be connected with focusing on sustainability in development projects at the work place
level. No attempt will be made to give a precise definition of the word “sustainability” in this
paper. Meanwhile, the word sustainability is used in so many different contexts that it rarely
makes any sense before the author of the text has defined what it means in a given context. The
intention is therefore to give as much substance to the word sustainability as possible, so that it
makes sense in relation to the considerations that underlie the TSW project. I.e. with the focus
on employee participation, the development of skills and cooperation.
Furthermore, an attempt will be made to give some suggestions to handling this challenge in
practice, i.e. how the sustainability efforts at the work place can be concretized. This will be
done by focusing on dialogue processes as an approach by which the enterprise can support the
fact that it is the local interest and understanding of the problems connected with the lack of
sustainability which is the motivating factor for the effort at the work place. When going over
this, it is primarily the dimensions of the environment and occupational health and safety
which are used as examples.
Even though it may be difficult to grasp what is meant by the word sustainability, it is never the
less reasonable to use this term as a point of departure for the changes that are proposed in the
TSW project. The advantage of using the sustainability concept at the work place level is, that
it expresses certain needs for change which are vital and extremely urgent since some of the
sustainability efforts deal with very extensive social and global problems that are not included
in traditional strategies of an eco-friendly company or a work place that lives up to social
standards and occupational health and safety standards.
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Naturally, it is a positive sign, and luckily not a new one, that Danish companies have begun to
make improvements in the field of occupational health and safety, taking it into consideration
and being socially responsible. But the changes are often too insignificant in relation to what is
required; The development of a sustainable society. Therefore, sustainability must be the point
of departure for the development activities at objectives of the work place.
What is meant by the term “sustainability” in the TSW project ?
The efforts to promote the development towards a sustainable society is a struggle with several
frontlines and on many levels. The Brundtland Commission gave focus to sustainability
through the question of equality between generations and between the rich and the poor of this
world. If the vision of the Brundtland Commission is to become reality, it presupposes that
work is put into the development of national and international regulation, and agreements
between the social partners, so that they can help promote the efforts to create a sustainable
society. However, real improvements presuppose that sustainable solutions are found locally,
and this is where the corporate level plays a central role. The TSW project deals precisely with
the importance of the local practice on the corporate level, because it is at the work place that
changes must be carried out if you want to promote sustainability in society. The point of
departure of the TSW project is therefore based a situation where the work place constitutes the
operational level in connection with the creation of a sustainable development. The TSW
project is therefore about the social responsibility of the work places – expressed by means of
the concept of sustainability. The aim of the TSW project is, that the experiences of the local
cooperation projects can contribute with knowledge and development elements for the
regulation system and the agreement system, which again will support sustainability efforts on
the national and global levels. In this way, this is also about tying the development work at the
legislative and agreement-based level to the local practices at the work places.
The work on developing more sustainable work places in connection with the TSW project
consists of five central sustainability themes and three interdisciplinary priorities. Please see the
below diagram (“the dish mat model”).
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Vertikalt:
Knowledge, Social Responsibility, Ethical Responsibility, Occupational Health &
Safety, External Environment
Horisontalt: Finances, Skills Development, Employee Participation
Model 1.
The improvements within the five sustainability themes is the aim of the TSW project while the
three vertical priorities can be considered as the means, while at the same time constituting the
ends. For example, employee participation and skills development is considered to be a crucial
weapon in the fight for more sustainable work places, and at the same time, improvements in
these areas is an objective in itself and signals a move towards greater sustainability. The below
paragraph contains short descriptions of the five central elements of sustainability.

Knowledge; This theme deals with development, presentation and the sharing of
knowledge, which are preconditions for sustainable growth in the enterprise, and also
fundamental for the development of the work place. For example, knowledge is a
prerequisite allowing the work place as a whole to become oriented towards the necessary
changes towards more sustainability.

Social responsibility; I.e. a work place with socially sustainable work, and which assumes
a social responsibility, both internally in the company, in relation to the employees and
externally, in relation to society. The external aspect is particularly about becoming
involved in social issues and problems in society, and to try to create room for those that are
excluded from the labour market. Internally, it is about showing consideration for the
employee as a whole person, having a family life and other concerns that are not workrelated, as well showing consideration for the different needs of the employees which arise
as a consequence of the different stages in life.

Ethical responsibility; Deals with the ethical responsibility of the work place in relation to
the sustainability issue. Sustainable ethics at the corporate level may entail including human
rights in development aid by using value based investments etc.
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
Occupational health and safety; Meaning sustainable work which is consistent with
occupational health and safety standards, includes personal development opportunities
based on togetherness, without experiencing a physical or psychological burn out, and
including a well-functioning cooperation between partners and finally, employee
participation involving a high degree of skills development and meaningful responsibilities
for all employees. In this connection; Including the manufacture of products and services
that are meaningful to the employees, and which promote the quality of work while
enriching their lives.

External environment; I.e. an eco-friendly, sustainable production and delivery of services
of a high quality, and which are relevant to society, (i.e. the production must be consistent
with a sustainable consumption). This involves a production which has a sustainable
consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources, avoiding to create more waste than
nature can absorb and protecting biodiversity.
The three interdisciplinary priorities of the TSW project; Finances, skills development and
employee participation can be described in the following ways:

Finances; Deals with companies that are financially sustainable and where the profitability
ensures the continued operation and development of the individual company. This
constitutes the foundation for the work with sustainable innovation. The financial
dimension of a sustainable work place also includes contributions to the surrounding society
through wages, taxes etc. which contribute to bringing about social goods that cover
sustainable needs.

Skills development; The skills development that the TSW project seeks to obtain is closely
connected to the question of employee participation. I.e., a form of skills development
where the focus is given to the development of skills that may contribute to the
transformation processes towards a more sustainable work place. In this way, it is not only
about qualifications, but also about the opportunities of the employee to participate by being
given certain powers. Skills development should therefore be understood in a broad sense of
the word, as the ability to, and the opportunity to put qualifications into practice at the work
place in a different way. Different situations in the work place projects that involve learning
are the point of departure for the development of skills. I.e. all the situations within the
realm of the TSW project activities where people work with education, the exchange of
experiences, and cooperation on developing a more sustainable work place.

Employee participation; Employee participation should be understood as the practical
involvement and participation in the management of the work place projects. Employee
participation is therefore associated with the formal work place democracy and the
cooperation between the management and the employees. This can, for instance, be done by
giving the employees a greater extent of competencies and authority in connection with the
TSW work place projects than they traditionally have had in connection with corporate
development projects. Employee participation is thus about the real opportunities of the
individual employee of participating in decision making concerning the development of the
enterprise towards a more sustainable work place.
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The common denominator of all three sustainability themes and the vertical priorities is, that
they are very suited for acting as a pivotal point in job development and democratization
processes, which support the process towards a more sustainable work place. The dish mat
model can be comprised with the following specification of what makes up a sustainable work
place;
A sustainable work place sees itself as being part of society and therefore, the production is
planned so that it makes allowance for society’s need for social/ occupational health and safety
and environmental concerns in connection with the work process. Working towards a
sustainable work place is exercised through a democratic and ethical attitude to the products,
actions and company strategy of the enterprise in relation to society’s needs for a sustainable
development.
Society and the Work Place – Sustainability in Practice
A sustainable work place – in the environmental and occupational health & safety – sense of
the word is an answer to how companies can integrate social, ethical, ecological, financial,
technological, cultural and environmental considerations in their daily operation in a way which
is oriented towards the work place in its entirety.
On the face of it, this may seem abstract, confusing and “long haired”. In practice, it can be
reduced to a question of establishing preventive measures of which sustainability is the pivotal
point for a number of lively and self-supporting activities in daily life at the work place. These
activities should be oriented towards the interaction between the long term development needs
of the company and those of society.
The idea behind the TSW project is therefore that sustainability cannot only be seen to by, for
instance, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the experts used
by the companies, when it comes to issues associated with sustainability. The road to a
sustainable work place must, first and foremost, be a matter for the people that are at the work
place- Therefore, the employees must have the possibility of participating with their
knowledge, wishes and suggestions, so that they actually become improvement- and
transformation-players in the work place projects. This is the idea behind a sustainable work
place. The reasoning is based on the fact that sustainable development is created through valuebased changes that are difficult to obtain through changes in regulation and through the use of
experts alone, because it is primarily about attitudes to work and life in general.
In any case, in practice, it can be perceived as a difficult task to use sustainability as a pivotal
point for the development of, for instance, environment- and health and safety efforts, but it is
not impossible. The challenge consists exactly in the fact that sustainable approaches are
preconditioned by taking all considerations into the assessment of how to go about matters.
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The consequence of traditional strategies that lack a comprehensive view of things may be that
you simply convert the problems to other problems. For instance, if the company introduces a
management system for occupational health and safety with a view to solving a number of
health and safety issues, this lead to an number of new, external health and safety issues.
The efforts to obtain a work place that is sustainable in terms of environment and occupational
health and safety therefore differ from traditional strategies for the development of companies
that live up to environmental and occupational health and safety standards in that they include
more considerations in the change processes, and in a way that gives a more comprehensive
view of the process.
The focus on sustainability also means that the changes that have been initiated go further than
the individual company. Traditional ways of working with environment and occupational
health and safety issues are often so closely linked to the needs of the company that the
perspective on a sustainable development of society is lost. Sustainability thus poses far greater
challenges to the work place than simply taking environment concerns in the day-to-day life of
the company.
Pivots, values and dialogue processes
A sustainable work place recognizes the need to integrate society’s needs with the company’s
business goals and the work (organization) . However, society’s needs keep changing.
One of the greatest challenges connected with the changes that precede a more sustainable
work place is thus, that the effort is constantly challenged by unpredictable processes and
dynamics, questioning the reasoning behind the existing patterns.
Whether it be in the field of skills development, social responsibility, solving environment
problems or preventive health and safety work, new knowledge, which calls the existing
practice into question, is constantly being generated. Therefore, the effort to obtain a more
sustainable work place cannot be reduced to a mere question of finding the right management
system or tool for solving the sustainability problems of the work place.
In continuation of the above, it must be concluded that the “sustainable work place” is a
dynamic term. It does not signify a permanent state. In other words, a “sustainable work place”
is something that you can have to a greater or lesser extent. It would be absurd to define a
“sustainable work place” as something which can be measured or certified in the same way as,
for instance, environment labels or a certification of occupational health and safety.
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The “sustainable work place” is therefore not a unequivocally measurable entity. The reason for
this is, among other things, that you cannot isolate or identify all the influences or variables that
have an influence of the ability of the work place to contribute to the sustainability efforts of
society in a positive or a negative way. The result is, that in practice, it is difficult to associate
the efforts to traditional indicators. It may be sensible to work with sustainability indicators, but
the effort must come from an entirely different point of departure.
Since it is not possible to find measurable indicators to show whether the processes that have
been initiated contribute to the development of a more sustainable work place, it is necessary to
find some pivots and basic values instead. These may serve as a unifying core for the various
transitional activities to create a more sustainable work place. These pivots and values for the
sustainable work place must be associated with, or seek confrontation with, for instance, local,
national and global efforts to obtain greater sustainability. These core values and pivots must be
able to function as a practical foundation for setting priorities, and as a point of reference for
the efforts and the development projects.
Examples of pivots in relation to the concept of the sustainable work place

Products or services that are useful to society and which have their raison d’être and
existence in a consistent, sustainable society.

A sound financial basis for the continued operation and development of the company.

Employee participation and democratic cooperation.

Stimulating work and social sustainability

Sustainable use of resources and minimized environmental strain.
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The orientation towards the surrounding society is best handled by focusing on an internal
dialogue process which is established by a number of recurrent activities. The dialogues can be
used to tie society’s need for sustainability to the activities at the work place by discussing and
asking how the company can contribute to the sustainability efforts in society. A concrete
example might be, for example, that an employee raises the issue of energy consumption in
Denmark as a sustainability issue. The question is then what the company can contribute with
in that area. Can it, for instance, use a more eco-friendly source of energy. Perhaps the answer
is no, because, at present, it might be an investment that is too costly, but perhaps you can
change all bulbs so that you only use energy saver bulbs, and look at whether a change in
practices could bring down the energy consumption. Another example might be to bring up the
high unemployment rate of the ethnic minorities and the lack of integration as a sustainability
problem. Perhaps you can conclude that the work place cannot contribute to solving this
problem. The most important thing is that the sustainability themes, which one or more of the
employees at the work place find important, are dealt with – but not necessarily solved.
Table 1. Examples of sustainability themes which may form part of the dialogue process
Knowledge/Skills
development
Environmental
Sustainability
Social / Ethical
Sustainability

Vocational training

Resource consumption

Globalisation

Continuing education

Emissions/waste

Social justice

Lifelong education

Product development


In-house training

Transportation
The development of
the local community

Development
opportunities

Health/quality of life


The socially inclusive
work place
Emotional health and
safety at work

Polarization /Exclusion

Environment /health
and safety at work

Working life and social
life

Personnel policy

Knowledge sharing

Educational policy
Even though it is primarily a question of making room for the problems to be discussed, it is
naturally also important to see some results from the process, but it is important to keep in
mind, that the work towards a sustainable work place is a long term process. First and foremost,
the dialogue is to pave the way for a process of modernisation in the company, in which the
long term social, environmental and financial considerations are not set aside due to immediate
financial and production-related concerns. Efficiency and profitability can go hand in hand with
the work towards a sustainable work place, but it presupposes, that the company has a broader
perspective than simply next year’s annual accounts. For example, an improvement of the
company’s productivity can be linked to a wish for efficient use of resources. A development in
productivity can also contribute to giving regard to society’s needs in accordance with a
sustainable development.
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The dialogue process must lead to an active prioritization of the efforts to create a more
sustainable work place. The setting of priorities will primarily take place through the setting of
general aims and values for the company’s work towards greater sustainability. In this
connection, employee participation contributes to creating motivation and a feeling of
ownership in connection with the changes that must be carried into effect. It is important to
bear in mind, that a statement of aims and corporate development which is based on
cooperation and dialogue generally presupposes the confidence and patience of the employees,
and the positive participation of the employees is preconditioned by the employees being
comfortable with the reorganization process. Similarly, an equal and democratic dialogue
between management and employees support the process of change developing from the
inside/the bottom of the hierarchy with support from the top which has been proven to give the
best long term results.
Tools
Once a general value base and a statement of aims have been negotiated and defined through
dialogue then you have a strategic tool for a dynamic reorganization process. After this, there is
time for pragmatism. Pragmatism is necessary because the sustainable society, in which all
work places are sustainable, is not right around the corner. The most important thing is to start
with something which triggers the involvement of both employees and management. Then, it is
important to work with one or more issues which allow for visibility and which can generate
results. This may seem simplistic, but there are actually a number of businesses who introduce,
eco-management, among other things, in order to obtain environment certification, even
though, to start with, they already had control of the environment issue. In this way, a change
process is initiated, through which you do obtain a certification, but the real improvements are
insignificant or non-existent altogether. This type of change processes can be extremely
discouraging for the employees, because no visible results are obtained.
The approach in connection with the selection of concrete issues to take up can only be decided
on at the individual work place, but it is crucial that the employees take part in all its phases.
Hereafter, and only then, can it be relevant to include various tools. I.e. tools that can support
the sustainable modernisation of the work place, at which registration, reporting and action is
carried out in accordance with the issues that have been prioritized. Which tools to use is
entirely dependent on the area around which the effort is centred and the conditions at the work
place. It is often necessary to remain sceptical of the tools as they have often been developed
with an ideal manufacturing enterprise in mind and will therefore be unfit for a small business
with five employees doing clerical work, who wish to work with an environment project which
has a reduction of paper consumption as its aim. Similarly, it may be relevant to asses the
ability of the tools to contribute to skills development among the employees and the relevance
of the tool in relation to employee participation.
Moreover, it is essential to asses whether the purpose of the tool is to support the internal
process of the work place in relation to a target area or whether you need a tool which can
document the effort externally in relation to the external players of the company or its
surroundings in general.
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Some examples of evident tools which are typically mainly used for purposes oriented towards
the public, are; integrated management systems, quality-, environment-, occupational health
and safety management systems – including certification arrangements, various marking
systems and LCAs (life cycle analyses). The new kinds of accounts, particularly knowledge-,
social-, ethical-, green-, health & safety-, holistic accounts and sustainable accounts. These
tools can also support internal processes, but are mainly aimed at documenting the effort, and
will typically include traditional quantitative measurement indicators. I.e. measurable indicators
which show whether or not there have been improvements in the focus areas.
There are also a number of tools which primarily attempt to support the internal process. The
work of the TSW with the tool “Knowledge Index” is an example of this. Within the field of
occupational health and safety, there are, for instance, a number of IPS-tools (Identifying,
Prioritizing and Solution finding) and the statutory Work Place Evaluation can be highlighted
as a particularly good tool for giving focus to the local aspect of the development in
occupational health and safety. When it comes to the organization of vocational training and
skills development, the list is overwhelming: Competencies 2000, “Training & Development”,
SUM, SUM EXPRESS, Kasko, VEPS, AIDA, The four steps, etc.
The social index of the Ministry of Social Affairs is an example of a tool that focuses on the
internal process while still being suitable as an external reporting tool.
As a general rule, the tools of the different focus areas often emphasize very different things
depending on who has developed the tool.
Conclusion: Contact the consultants of the TSW projects when in need of advice on tools.
Sustainability Indicators and Internal Process Indicators
If the work place chooses to involve one of the above mentioned tools, or similar tools, for at
selected focus area in connection with the work place project, then it is important to keep in
mind that they are not general enough to give a full and complete picture of whether the work
place is moving towards more sustainability. As earlier mentioned, the work towards a more
sustainable work place is first and foremost connected to a value based development of the
work place. It is evident, that a value based development of the work place cannot be fully
uncovered with the help of traditional measurement indicators, because you cannot measure
qualitative developments. Whether or not the tools focus on processes or measurement
indicators, they are each only oriented towards simple dimensions of sustainability. In other
words, the tools alone cannot capture the conditions that are crucial in defining whether a work
place is generally moving towards greater sustainability.
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Many attempts have been made to measure sustainability by bringing indicators from the
financial, social and environmental fields together in new ways, and then calling them
sustainability indicators. This approach does not change the fact that the definite value based
development of the work place is overlooked.
Therefore, it may be relevant to involve some process indicators which can be used for
discussing, evaluating and possibly reporting on the development of the work place in the
“soft”, value based areas which determine the success of the sustainability efforts.
Examples of process indicators with the focus on a value based development towards
sustainability:

Does the work place have any visions that it strives for and which are associated with some
of society’s needs for change, including a vision for the development of high-quality
products and services which contribute positively to the sustainability efforts ?

Does the work place manage to involve and develop the human resources in the company ?
Is the cooperation characterized by a positive attitude to the human resources ?

Do the employees have any real influence, and do they participate in decision-making ?

Has work been put into developing an equal and democratic dialogue between management
and employees ?

Does the work organisation move in a direction towards a high degree of competencies and
meaningful responsibilities being given to employees ? Is work put into developing a good
emotional work environment for the employees ?

Does the company contribute to the sustainable development of the local community ?

Is the work with the social, financial and health & safety related issues of the company
moving in the direction of an integrated and comprehensive, preventive effort ?

Is the cooperation developed so that the broad and general participation of employees is
ensured and developed alongside the employee participation through shop stewardship ?
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