World Bee Day; A Great Opportunity to Motivate Your Teams about Environment

Today, May 20th, is World Bee Day – but the content in this post is ‘evergreen.’

These amazing creatures give us so much. They pollinate 75-90+% or our crops including many staples like apples and tomatoes, but bees are under stress and numbers continue to decline. Let’s not take them and the food and flowers they pollinate for granted. It’s time we gave them something back – a helping human hand, rather than ones which just takes from nature, wouldn’t you agree?

Bees, Biodiversity and the Workplace

Here’s a few workplace based ideas on how you can support bees and other essential pollinators. Involve your teams by making these actions part of your wellbeing programme. The benefits of growing wild flowers in spare spaces will create pleasure and joy around your workplace;

  • If you have grass verges and shrub beds around your carpark or open spaces, turn them into bee havens by converting these spaces into wild flower beds. For guidance on what to plant, visit websites like Friends of the Earth who provide bee saver kits.

You may have seen this being created on roadside verges by your local council.

  • If the ground around your office or industrial unit is managed, talk to the facilities manager or contractor about creating bee-friendly areas. Involving your teams in the project will mean no extra work for them.
  • There may be no green spaces around your building, but there are still things you can do. Invest in planters at the entrance and empty unused spots.
  • Window boxes around offices make mini gardens which are easy on the eye as well as attractive to insects when planted with the right flowers.
  • Encourage your workforce to get involved by providing them with seeds to take home and grow. You could even run a competition for the best photo of the results.

Benefits of Bees

There’s a raft of benefits this activity will bring to your workforce and site visitors. Think about how the presence of nature will bring a sense of wellbeing and happiness when people see them. Flowers are a great way to brighten up a dull carpark and make people feel welcome.  Happy workers and visitors is undoubtedly good for the business.

Involve Your Colleagues

Engaging your teams connects your wellbeing programme  with your sustainability programme. There are many ways to take this a step further. One idea is to integrate the planting with knowledge points. These can be used to illustrate and share information about the importance of pollinators to our food supply and also biodiversity.

Part of a Sustainability Programme

Protecting bees and the natural environment goes beyond World Bee Day. It is just one part of building Sustainability Programme.  It will be highly visual and rewarding, whilst other vitally important elements such as measuring and reducing your carbon footprint are less tangible.

For more pointers and support rolling out creation of a better environment, including understanding the benefits this brings to your business, my number is (0113) 289 2208  –  give me a buzz!

 

 

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