Sustainable Education

Education and understanding are important components for reaching organizational goals, Faye firmly believes. It moves people from awareness and knowledge to skills and expertise.

"Talent comes from all kinds of experiences. Diverse thinking influences a lot of what we achieve around sustainability. So our job is to help leverage the diverse thinking that is critical to achieving our triple bottom line goals."

Through efforts the past few years that included an employee diversity series, LEED Version 3 webinar training, continuing education units on sustainability, speakers and the launch of a highly interactive course on design thinking, Faye and her team provide ways Steelcase employees and stakeholders can deliver even greater sustainable solutions and add value for customers and communities. It all fits into the larger goal of "providing information for all, in a way that benefits us all." As just one indicator, during the past year hundreds of Continuing Education Units were delivered and more than 400 people were trained on LEED Version 3 alone.

Communication is a fundamental part of the education process. By exchanging ideas, sharing insights and celebrating wins, Steelcase is able to extend the reach and impact of successful sustainability efforts within and far beyond the company.

The trend toward technology-enabled learning is a now-generation way to support sustainability by reducing travel and paper use. A big success story was product launch training for Steelcase's node™ seating for classrooms. It was accomplished in an entirely virtual, fasttrack format. Instead of doing dealer site visits that spread over 3-4 months in locations across North America, it was all done online in just three weeks.

Through both methodology and content, Faye sees learning as a way to have a fundamental impact on company culture.

"Education inspires people, it arms them to generate new ideas. And people's ideas make a better world." ■