To invite everyone to take action we need to diversify our workshops to be inclusive of all audiences. Being flexible with the ability to tailor your sustainability workshops is essential to ensuring all participants leave feeling inspired and motivated. 

We have compiled some of our thoughts to keep in mind when preparing for your next workshop.

Beginning of the journey vs those someway along 

It’s important to get a feel for the understanding the group has before jumping into your workshop. Determine your starting point by asking attendees a few questions at the beginning of your session or in a pre-workshop survey.

Here are a few examples you could use:

• Do you know the carbon footprint of your business?
• Do you have a carbon reduction plan?
• Do you talk to your suppliers or clients about their sustainability efforts?
• Currently, what is your biggest challenge with taking action?

Adjust the complexity of your content depending on the pre-existing knowledge and progress of the group. Cut the lingo in your baseline content to ensure it’s digestible by all audiences. Pull answers from more knowledgeable attendees during the session to activate peer-to-peer and multimodal learning (more on this later). 

A group of small businesses

When delivering to a group of diverse small businesses it is important to keep your workshop relatable and transferable to all industries. Having a generic session plan that is flexible allows you to go with the flow on the day and concentrate more time on topics that the group expresses more interest in or challenges with. 

It’s a good idea to have a few industry specific examples on hand, so all businesses understand how they can take action within their context. For example, we often get asked what a ‘good’ carbon footprint for a company of their size and in their industry looks like.

Internal Training

With internal training, you should align your content to the organisation’s values, goals and mission. Do your due diligence before showing up on the day, so you know exactly where to focus your time and dive into the areas that are most important and relevant to the organisation. 

For example, are they looking to achieve BCorp status? Are they under pressure for EcoVardis or other supply chain requirements? Who are their main customers? Who are their stakeholders – will they be required to report more on this in future? 

If an organisation is in corporate supply chains, it’s more likely that they will need a robust story of action to tell about the operations in the business. If they are looking to work more with B2C customers, it may be more storytelling around the product itself which is useful.  

Ideally, use a framework that allows people to come to their own solutions while still having specific examples and prompts at hand. Your client likely knows what they need to do to decarbonise – it is your job to build the confidence to bring them to this answer and realisation themselves.

Engaging people in the pub 

We believe that taking a more informal approach is going to get you further than lecturing people who are trying to escape their real-world stressors! That’s why our People, Planet, Pint events are so popular.

It can be awkward to transition a casual chat over a beer to a more structured discussion, but having a small interactive sustainability game or activity on hand can help you reach new audiences that may typically be turned away from formal workshops. For example, in our Small99 Action Box we’ve developed a mini game that gets people thinking about carbon emissions of familiar activities. This small card game is great at sparking discussion and leaving people wanting more after.

Online vs in person

In a forever digitising world, it may seem like utilising online tools to deliver your workshops is the best approach. While digital tools have their place and can add great value to your workshops, we find that participants are more focused and leave feeling empowered when we take a hands-on approach. 

Studies show that using multisensory and multimodal learning techniques can enhance people’s memory retention and recall. Here are a few ways to use this approach in your next workshop:

• Include problem-solving activities that get attendees thinking on their own or collaboratively, to activate more brain regions. Providing space for independent thinking and group discussions is essential regardless of whether you’re in person or online.  
• Use multiple modes of teaching, by having attendees write down their thoughts, talk with or teach others and visualise their next steps. This is especially successful when delivering in person, as you can provide attendees with physical materials which adds a tactile element to their learning. 
• Group or peer-to-peer learning can activate social learning, which can be done by encouraging those who are more knowledgeable in the group to teach those just starting out. When delivering online, include breakout room activities to facilitate this and be sure to ask your attendees to share their personal experiences. Often someone has already worked through a challenge that their peer is currently facing. 

There are many ways you can tailor your workshops, but we hope that this acts as a good starting point. 

Through the Small99 Action Box, we have engaged all types of audiences, from using the Higher or Lower game with relative strangers at the pub, to full day internal team training. Using the pack as a baseline, we adapt and modify content on top depending on who we’re talking to and have found that even sustainability professionals leave with new ideas. The bonus is that Small99 Action Box is a peer-to-peer activity with lots of problem-solving activities where participants are stimulated to learn in different ways.

We’re sure you have some unique ideas yourself so we can’t wait to see the bespoke and impactful workshops you deliver!

The Small99 Team