IN DEGREE PROJECT COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING,SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

, STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2019

Creating a Sustainable Campus through DigitalizationExploring Workplace Practices to Increase Employee Engagement

YUAN-YIN LO

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Creating a Sustainable Campus through Digitalization: Exploring Workplace Practices to Increase Employee

Engagement Yuan-Yin Lo

KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden

yylo@kth.se

Supervisor: Hanna Hasselqvist Examiner: Kristina Höök

ABSTRACT

There is a rapidly increasing need for companies to work sustainably. A key driver to decrease environmental impact is to raise

sustainability awareness among employees. One way to increase sustainability awareness among employees may be through

the use of digital tools. This study aims to explore different ways digital tools may increase environmental awareness among

employees at Ericsson’s headquarters in Kista, Sweden. Interviews were conducted with experts and a brainstorming session

with employees was moderated. The study resulted in a creation of three design concepts for increasing sustainability awareness

among employees. The three proposed sustainable initiatives involve using digitalization: to save food waste, to create a green

competition among colleagues and to form a community to connect people on Kista campus.

Digitalisering som verktyg för att skapa ett hållbart campus: Utforskandet av arbetsrutiner för att öka

anställdas engagemang

SAMMANFATTNING

Det finns ett ökat behov för företag att arbeta hållbart. En nyckelfaktor för att minska miljöpåverkan är att öka anställdas

medvetenhet om hållbarhet. Ett sätt för att öka medvetenhet om hållbarhet kan vara genom nyttjandet av digitala verktyg. Den

här studien utforskade olika sätt som digitala verktyg skulle kunna öka anställdas medvetenhet om miljöpåverkan. Studien

utfördes med anställda på företaget Ericssons campus i Kista, Sverige. Intervjuer med experter och idégenerering med anställda

utfördes. Studien resulterade i tre digitala designkoncept för att öka anställdas medvetenhet om hållbarhet. De tre koncepten

nyttjade digitalisering med: minskandet av matavfall, ökandet av engagemang genom en hållbarhetstävling och ett sätt för att

skapa gemenskap kring hållbarhet på Kista campus.

Creating a Sustainable Campus through Digitalization: Exploring Workplace Practices to Increase Employee

Engagement Yuan-Yin Lo

KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden

yylo@kth.se

ABSTRACT There is a rapidly increasing need for companies to work sustainably. A key driver to decrease environmental impact is to raise sustainability awareness among employees. One way to increase sustainability awareness among employees may be through the use of digital tools. This study aims to explore different ways digital tools may increase environmental awareness among employees at Ericsson’s headquarters in Kista, Sweden. Interviews were conducted with experts and a brainstorming session with employees was moderated. The study resulted in a creation of three design concepts for increasing sustainability awareness among employees. The three proposed sustainable initiatives involve using digitalization: to save food waste, to create a green competition among colleagues and to form a community to connect people on Kista campus.

Author Keywords Digitalization, Sustainability, Workplace, Employee Engagement, Behavior Change.

INTRODUCTION Concerns regarding sustainability have arisen over the past decades due to a rapid depletion of natural resources and increased use of energy consumption. On September 25, 2015, 193 countries adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the United Nations. The implementation of this agenda aims to provide future generations with a livable planet within the next 15 years [1]. Therefore, sustainability has drawn the attention of several industries [2]. Many companies have started to recognize the importance of sustainable practices and embed it across their organizations.

Given the fact that sustainability has drawn the attention of many companies, it is necessary for the companies to implement sustainable practices in their operations. Kumar and Christodoulopoulouv [3] propose a framework for companies to promote sustainability to increase the brand value. This framework indicates two different benefits of implementing sustainable practices: it can not only offer direct benefits to firms such as lower costs but also provide indirect benefits like brand value enforcement.

Environmental awareness has inspired several organizations to put the focus of the SDGs into their activities [4]. An analysis compiled by the Reputation Institute (RI), a Boston-

based reputation-management consulting firm, provides a list of companies with the best CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) reputation in 2017 [5]. In this list, Lego and Microsoft rank top two most sustainable companies by RI’s analysis. They are making efforts to push sustainability forward. Lego not only partners with the World Wildlife Fund but also launches a Sustainable Materials Center which aims to find sustainable alternatives to replace existing materials by 2030 [6]. Another example of Microsoft undertakes the initiative in urban farming. Microsoft uses digital technology in an effort to experiment indoor vertical farming at workplaces [7].

Porter and Kramer [8] explain that some companies have proposed sustainable strategies to decrease environmental impact and increase their business activities. One of the strategies is to empower employees’ motivation to promote a sustainable workplace [9]. However, the implementation of this sustainable strategy might require efforts by individuals at the company, and therefore, increasing employee engagement is helpful to drive the behavior change at workplaces [10].

Studies have revealed that encouraging individuals to behave in a pro-environmental manner might have a positive impact in creating a sustainable workplace [11]. Lülfs and Hahn [12] indicate that employees play a significant role in driving sustainable activities by performing a wide range of environmentally-friendly behaviors at the workplace. Further studies suggest that employees have enormous potential for conserving resources, performing tasks sustainably, and taking initiatives in engaging the organization’s members overall [13]. The above research shows that employees play an important role in achieving sustainability within an organization. However, how to integrate sustainability efforts throughout the organizational levels remains a challenge [14].

Despite the fact that many organizations strive to achieve sustainability by engaging with employees to promote sustainable practices at workplaces, there is other research suggesting digitalization can help accelerate the sustainable development goals [15]. It is said that digitalization has the potential to increase sustainability and several organizations have integrated digital technology into their business activities [16]. Helbing [17] mentions that digitalization can

help increase sustainability in environmental, social and economic aspects.

However, the roles of digital tools in raising employee’s environmental awareness have only been discussed in a limited number of studies. There is a lack of practical examples that indicate how digital tools can contribute to raising employees’ awareness of sustainability at the workplace. This research aims to explore how digital tools can be used by organizations to engage employees in sustainable initiatives. The research question is considered as:

“How might digital tools contribute to increasing employee engagement on sustainability?”

The thesis is in collaboration with Ericsson, a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company, to select three potential sustainable initiatives on Kista campus. The Ericsson Kista campus is the corporate headquarter with several buildings located in Kista. The data collection will be delimited to employees at Ericsson Kista campus. The proposed activities will be conceptual rather than concrete activities including technical support for activities to take place. These activities come with the criteria which needs to be carried out by Ericsson within one year.

BACKGROUND In order to further analyze the usage of digitalization to contribute to a sustainable workplace, it is necessary to define the variables of the study. This section will briefly define sustainability and digitalization.

Sustainability The most widely adopted definition of sustainability is from the Brundtland Commission’s report [18]. This report defines sustainable development as, “development that meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” However, the definition is rather broad and most organizations seek to put much of the focus on ecological aspects rather than explicating social perspectives [19].

The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) has been proposed to illustrate a clearer perspective of sustainability [20]. The components of the TBL consist of environment, society and economy. The concept demonstrates an idea of supporting economic, social development and the significance of conserving natural resources [21]. The TBL framework aims to evaluate business performance on its impact on social, economic and environmental aspects.

The environmental aspect of sustainability will be the focus of the activities proposed in this research. Environmental sustainability defines the minimized environmental impact caused by work practices of the organization.

Digitalization The study by Mark et al. [22] points out, “how digitalization is transforming the world of work.” The implications of

digitalization for organizations vary from increasing efficiency, being sustainable and creating value.

The more accepted description of digitalization is, “…process of the technologically-induced change within the industries…” [23]. In this definition, digitalization can be understood as the proliferation of digital technologies. Another definition of digitalization is said to be, “…the innovation of business models and processes that exploit digital opportunities…” [24].

The activities proposed for Ericsson are mainly focused on the usage of digital technology. Digital technology defines electronic devices that store data. Examples of digital technology can be varied from applications to multimedia productivity systems.

RELATED RESEARCH This section will include examples of using digital technologies to create engagement, roles of employees as well as difficulties with behavior change.

Mechanisms to Create Engagement There are some studies using digital tools to increase engagement among employees at the workplace. One of the methods is to use the concept of gamification. Deterding et al. [25] define gamification as, “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.” Neeli [26] explains that gamification is intended to make the task satisfying. For example, a point system is one of the game mechanics which employers use as a reward to motivate employees.

Webb [27] mentions that gamified concepts might support companies to increase employee engagement. This type of engagement involves behavior engagement which defines the condition of employees’ behavior and attitudinal components [28]. Webb [27] points out that through the use of technologies might motivate people’s potential to get engaged. This motivation will arise when an individual is energized to perform certain tasks in a particular way.

In a study by Lockton et al. [29], the researchers examine the potential of a digital engagement platform for sustainable behavior. This platform utilizes the principle of gamification by providing a point system for users to collect and redeem for a limited number of ‘sustainable’ prizes. The participatory design process has achieved a level of engagement in which 16% of employees use the application. However, it does not suggest using the digital technology can intervene with employee’s behavior in the long run. Lockton et al. explain a longitudinal study is needed to conduct to identify whether this type of engagement affects the long-term of sustainability.

The paper by Kotsopoulos et al. [30] presents key findings for designing a gamified application to encourage employees to act towards sustainable behavior at the workplace. The research identifies that the usage of an application might increase environmental awareness among employees of energy conservation. However, this result does not suggest

whether gamification can help change specific behaviors within the workplace in the long term.

Another study by Lehrer and Vasudev [31] investigates the potential of using a web-based social network to promote energy awareness among office workers. This social network is intended to enable employees to track their own energy-related activities, share and interact with other colleagues’ activities. The research indicates that social media application might help affect energy-saving behavior positively. However, the study only provides a prototype through iterative design without conducting experiments with target groups to verify the application.

Role of Employees at Workplace Schwartz et al. [32] indicate that most studies focus on domestic context of sustainable practices to reduce levels of personal carbon footprint. However, there are very few studies exploring the role of workers in energy conservation. Schwartz et al. have conducted research in which how a smart metering technology can support sustainable energy practices at workplaces [33]. From the research by Schwartz et al., it shows that employees might have potential to support sustainable initiatives at the workplace if they receive the adequate support.

The study by Schwartz et al. [32] points out that energy consumption has become the core factor in several industries. In the workplace, most companies focus on investing in energy-efficient equipment or optimizing production processes. However, there is no relevant evidence suggesting that employees currently play a role in sustainability practices. Thus, the researchers have conducted a series of participatory action studies to evaluate how to increase employee engagement in energy conservation. This research analyzes a new smart metering technology which is used to observe employee’s contribution in sustainable energy practices. The result of the research demonstrates the potential of workers to support sustainable behavior at workplaces.

Another study by Paillé et al. [34] highlights the importance of employee engagement in achieving the corporate sustainability. The above research shows that employees play an important role in sustainable initiatives to promote energy awareness at workplaces.

Difficulties with Behavior Change Leygue et al. [35] mention that one of the restrictions on enforcement of employee engagement on sustainable practices is that most employees find no personal benefits accrue. Rioux and Penner [36] also indicate that the extent to which employees are more willing to commit to sustainable initiatives depends on the motivations such as if it relates to their aim of a job.

The study by Katzeff et al. [37] addresses findings from two different types of prototypes for visualizing energy use, which can be used in different workplace settings. Design probes were explored to find out how visual feedback for

electricity use has an effect on employees at workplaces. However, the research indicates that it is much more difficult to affect people to act towards more pro-environmental behaviors in a workplace. The paper mentions that implementing new eco-feedback artifacts into different work environments reveals challenges, especially meeting the needs of personal comfort but also reducing energy consumption.

METHOD This study aims to find out three potential sustainable activities on Kista campus to increase employee engagement and raise their sustainability awareness with the usage of digital technology. Double diamond is applied in this thesis to discover insights into the problem, to define the area to focus, to develop potential solutions and to deliver solutions. In order to discover insights into the problem, qualitative research is chosen to have a deeper understanding of current sustainability work at Ericsson campus and employees’ views on sustainability. The data collection process is divided into two stages: semi-structured interviews and a brainstorming session. The interviews with experts, who work with either sustainability or digitalization, is performed. After identifying insights from experts, a brainstorming session with employees, who do not work explicitly with sustainability or digitalization, is conducted. All the ideas generated by the brainstorming session are prioritized based on the criteria: these sustainable activities on campus should be able to use digital technology to increase employee engagement and create a positive environmental impact, which have a one-year time plan for Ericsson to implement. After the prioritized process, three sustainable initiatives are chosen followed by the design process. The purpose of the design process is to add more details of each initiative and visualize the concept.

Expert Interviews The purpose of interviews with experts is to explore the current situation of sustainable activities on Kista campus. I interviewed employees from different departments at Ericsson. These employees would be referred to “experts” as they work with either sustainability or digitalization. The goal was to get a comprehensive understanding of different perspectives and ideas of Ericsson campus as a sustainable workplace. In total, I interviewed 10 experts (5 men and 5 women) ranging from the departments of Real Estate, IT, Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility, Research and HR. The interviews were semi-structured, which Bernard [38] describes as a method for exploring participants insights, opinions, and expectations about a given subject. The process of the interview came with a predetermined set of questions, with additional follow-up questions depending on the interviewee’s answers. The interviews were audio recorded with the approval of interviewees. Additionally, these 10 experts were assigned a label from E1 to E10 in order to be quoted anonymously.

The viewpoints and feedbacks provided by participants helped to facilitate the evaluation of the sustainable concept, which developed a new way to observe an in-depth exploration of a topic about which is unknown [39]. After conducting the interviews with experts, I had a broad picture of the current sustainable development at Ericsson and was able to detect some areas in need of sustainable improvement.

During the idea development process, I had an informal interview with one employee working at the restaurant, which was located on Kista campus. The purpose of this interview was to further assess the possibilities of one of the proposed initiatives. The details of this analysis are presented in the Results section.

Brainstorming Session A brainstorming session was conducted as the main method for generating ideas for sustainable activities on campus from the employees’ perspectives. This method aimed to inspire employees to come up with creative ideas with a specific question. Osborn [40] mentions that a brainstorming session contributes to coming up with individual generation of information and ideas, which further gathers into evaluation and selection.

9 participants (6 women and 3 men) took part in the brainstorming session to discuss potential activities on campus. These participants who joined the session had not worked explicitly with sustainability or digitalization. Given the fact that employees on campus would be affected by those potential activities in the future, it was necessary to take their opinions and insights into consideration when proposing these activities.

The objective was to generate as many ideas related to the specific topic as possible. The brain-writing method was chosen to conduct the brainstorming session. This session was divided into two parts: a ten-minutes individual brainstorming and a group discussion brainstorming.

During the one-hour session, I started by stating the problem statement and provided post-its and pens on the table. The problem statement was: how to use digital tools to create a sustainable Kista campus? Each participant was given ten minutes to write down ideas individually on the post-its. After the individual brainstorming time, all the participants were asked to present their ideas and put the post-it on the whiteboard. While the participants were presenting their ideas, other people could comment on it and exchange opinions with each other. I was clustering post-its into the same category on the whiteboard. During the process of clustering these ideas, I identified themes while the participants discussed and commented on each idea. The group discussion continued and became the second part of the brainstorming session as everyone gave their opinions and concerns for ideas and I took notes on the whiteboard during the discussion.

These 9 participants were assigned a label from P1 to P9 in order to be quoted anonymously.

Design Process Thematic analysis was applied to analyze the interviewees’ perceptions, opinions and insights towards sustainable activities on campus. The aim of this method was to discover dominant themes with respect to the concept. As Guest et al. [41] describe, thematic analysis is “…counting explicit words or phrases and focus on identifying and describing both implicit and explicit ideas within the data, that are themes.” During the process of analyzing data, coding was chosen to characterize and summarize key words from interviews and the brainstorming session. Saldana [42] sees codes as “…repetitive patterns of action and consistencies in human affairs.” An inductive approach was applied to search for themes within textural data, which implied that themes would not be formulated before data analysis.

In order to organize ideas and opinions generated from a brainstorming session, an affinity diagram was chosen to further categorize ideas into the same group. The evaluation process was needed to scrutinize the possibilities and risks of each activity to implement. The final three activities were formulated based on a prioritization process. The idea development was based on the four criteria requested from Ericsson: proposed sustainable activities should involve digitalization, employee engagement, environmental impact and a one-year time plan execution.

RESULTS This section will present key findings of the research. The findings include the possibilities and risks of potential sustainable activities as well as the idea development process. Three proposed activities are also provided.

The Possibilities of Sustainable Activities This section will provide the three possibilities of sustainable initiatives that employees believe are necessary to integrate when designing sustainable activities in the workplace. The three possibilities include unleashing the potential of digital tools to change behavior, improving communication to increase awareness, and driving engagement to facilitate interaction.

Unleash the Potential of Digital Tools to Change Behavior During the interviews with the experts, 7 out of 10 interviewees mentioned that digital tools played an important role in driving a sustainable workplace to change behavior and raise more environmental awareness. Some people saw digital transformation as a process to digitalize the work, unleash the potential of tools and use the technology in a smart way. Thus, these interviewees shared positive viewpoints of the link between digitalization and sustainability. One of the common responses was: “IoT [Internet of Things] can enable office that connects people and devices. I think the society is changing by using the digitalization tool, we can probably reduce the footprint by the usage of tools.” (E2)

When asked any specific reasons for using digital tools to promote sustainable practices to engage with employees in the workplace, some participants expressed different opinions on this matter. One participant commented that digital tools might help save an amount of time and create a “self-service” attitude: “Since labor is so expensive, everything is about self-service. It would be effective to create a better self-service attitude on the campus.” (E4)

However, another participant commented that the usage of digital technology might be more effective if the sustainable task was easy to achieve and tangible for employees: “If you can do something that is tangible based on the technology, it will create a positive feeling.” (E9)

Some participants gave examples of using digital tools to raise sustainability awareness on campus. Examples included using a digital platform and an application to further encourage sustainable practices in the workplace. As one participant said: “There is an app that encourages taking the stairs instead of elevators. This can get people keen on achieving certain aspects.” (E5)

Additionally, one participant commented on the privacy of using a digital platform or an application to perform sustainable tasks. A response during the discussion was: “Maybe some personal anonymous measurement tool you can have on the web, so employees can interact and perhaps calculate their own environmental profiles.” (E7)

During the brainstorming session, several employees commented on the usage of an application or a website to promote sustainable activities in workplaces. Some participants suggested using a gamified concept to encourage pro-environmental behavior with an application. The competition idea suggested the concept of gamifying the sustainable activity, which gave employees an incentive to pursue sustainable practices. One of the examples was: “The app to collect points when you take the train instead of car, this will encourage people to behave in good way.” (P3)

Other participants in the brainstorming session proposed having a digital platform to suggest ways to decrease one’s carbon footprint. The digital platform can quantify the user’s carbon footprint from daily activities and suggest ways to reduce the user’s carbon footprint. One of the examples can be shown: “An app or web to do self-assessment for sustainability. The purpose of the app is to quantify how sustainable you are to raise more sustainability awareness.” (P4)

Another participant commented on examples of using the digital technology. One of the examples can be seen as follows: “Maybe a platform to sell, exchange and share things on campus. The platform will be a good way to communicate among employees.” (P5)

The employee’s comments during the brainstorming session showed that the usage of digital technology might help drive sustainable behavior and simplify daily tasks at workplaces.

The form of a digital tool could be either a website or an application. The participants were keen on using the digital technology to raise eco awareness among employees on campus, such as visualizing their individual carbon footprint with the help of a tool or creating a gamified point system to collect points by performing certain sustainable tasks. However, participants were also concerned about the tangibility, privacy and feasibility of a digital tool for employees to use.

Improve Communication to Increase Awareness Most people during interviews and the brainstorming session mentioned improving internal communication as an essential step to increase sustainability awareness among employees on campus. The following comment revealed that people believed effective communication might help promote sustainable activities: “The company should have the obligation to promote sustainability, more training on employees of sustainability and how to make a company an attractive workplace. In order to achieve this, the internal communication is important.” (P7)

However, one employee argued that there were sustainable activities occurring on campus. The problem was that employees were not well-informed of these initiatives. One participant said: “Most employees are not informed. They are not aware of what [sustainable] activities happen on campus. To improve the communication among employees is the most important.” (P9)

During the interviews, some experts suggested several ways to help improve the communication within an organization. One interviewee indicated that it was crucial to make a connection between employees and a company to make them aware that they could contribute to promoting sustainable activities on campus. One common response was: “The important component is you can see there is a connection between you and the company. You feel that you provide some value to the company.” (E9)

Another interviewee said that spreading environmental awareness among employees makes employees realize how huge an impact they could contribute through a small but tangible activity. This could not only change the perception of employees but also improve the internal communication. One participant during the interview said: “Minor impact that is easy to understand. That has to be quite tangible for people that is easy to adapt to. Then you can start to drive the behavior.” (E4)

Others during interviews and the brainstorming session commented on ways to raise awareness in a company. Three people discussed several ways to facilitate internal communication about sustainability at workplaces. One participant said: “We can develop a learning program, so people do take the personal responsibility to be more sustainable.” (E5)

In conclusion, most people pointed out that improving internal communication was essential to drive sustainable

practices at workplaces. To raise more ecological awareness, the company should help employees understand that they can help contribute to an environment through a small activity. Additionally, the company could hold some regular campaigns to promote sustainability.

Drive Engagement to Facilitate Interaction The majority of people during interviews and the brainstorming session revealed that employee engagement could be a key driver to promote sustainability at workplaces. One employee mentioned the importance of motivation to drive sustainable activities: “Motivation and incentive are important to change people’s behavior. How to reach people and make them connect to sustainability?” (P9)

People also suggested that a lack of motivation was the major reason for failing to promote sustainable practices among employees. To smoothly drive engagement with employees, two interviewees suggested using an interactive way to trigger, empower, and motivate employees. A common response was: “Sometimes to get the full impact, you need to find something that triggers the employee.” (E4)

During the brainstorming session, several employees proposed different ideas for engaging with employees. The ideas included forming a sustainability community on campus: “Having a sustainability team on campus would help facilitate the progress of sustainable activities since there is few networks on campus.” (P7)

The above comments suggested that a community could help increase motivation among employees in the workplace. The idea of forming a sustainability team could help gather like-minded community to promote and follow up these sustainable activities on campus.

When discussing the issue on campus in needs of improvement, 3 interviewees pointed out that the dining area had high potential to change. One common response was: “We could have a pre-order function to avoid the food waste, sell [overproduction] food for half price.” (P3)

The Risks of Sustainable Activities This section will present the three main risks that have been identified during interviews with experts and the brainstorming session with employees. These three risks might appear if the activities lack of priority, organizational support and cost-efficiency concept.

Priority Several people expressed their concerns about current challenges of practicing sustainable activities on campus. Their concerns could be potential reasons that hindered progress of promoting sustainable initiatives. How to prioritize the task is one of the main concerns among employees. One common response was: “That is the challenge. You have so many other priorities. Sometimes it is a big challenge in a company because people have different focus areas.” (E4)

Except for the task priority, one interviewee showed concern about the responsibility of driving sustainable practices on campus and following up the activities: “You start to get into the problem, who is responsible for this? Is it HR, sourcing or Real Estate? Sometimes you have the grey area who will really drive this.” (E4)

The above remarks from interviewees revealed that most people were overwhelmed by their daily tasks at workplaces. It was difficult for them to think about other tasks such as sustainable activities. Another current challenge was how to identify the responsible party who would drive these sustainable activities on campus.

Organizational Support Some people stated that receiving full support from top management would accelerate the progress of sustainable initiatives. The joint collaboration with different departments would also help drive the activities: “Managers and employees should be in the same line to promote sustainability. Having support from managers is crucial to achieve this.” (P9)

The comments above showed that the involvement of executive management and effective collaboration from different parts of an organization were key factors to promote sustainable initiatives on campus.

Cost-efficiency The third risk raised by employees during interviews was the scale and cost of implementing sustainable initiatives on campus. One interviewee mentioned that the scale and cost of a new activity made it difficult to implement: “It cannot be underestimated the size and the volume of the cost. If you start to do one thing, suddenly it impacts almost 12 to 13,000 people.” (E4)

However, another interviewee held a different opinion on this matter: “One thing that we need to take in account is that what is good for sustainability is good for economy. If you’re reducing an amount of waste, you’re reducing a cost of raw materials.” (E6)

To summarize the comments from employees above, some people were concerned about the cost and scale when it came to proposing sustainable initiatives. Other participants indicated the link between economy and sustainability. If the company strived for achieving sustainability, the cost would also decrease .

Ideas Development In this section, the process of prioritizing ideas will be discussed. Examples of dismissed ideas will also be shown to explain why and how these ideas are discarded.

In total, there were 33 ideas generated from the brainstorming session. The prioritizing process is divided into two stages: first to cluster all the ideas into different categories and then dismiss ideas which do not meet the predetermined criteria: digitalization, employee engagement,

positive environmental impact and a one-year time plan execution. The final process is to put each idea into priority one to three and select the most feasible three sustainable initiatives of all.

The categories of ideas vary from administration, climate change & energy, food & recycling, green building, transportation, and awareness & engagement. The process to put ideas from priority one to priority three is based on whether these activities have a positive environmental impact, how long do they take and cost to implement by estimation, how much the activity is interacted with employees and how much the digital tool is used in these activities.

In the transportation category, ideas include having an Ericsson-branded bike sharing system, providing electric bicycles, Uber and carpooling on Kista campus. However, none of these ideas proceed to the final selection because of the concern of feasibility. Ericsson does not have the updated data of how employees travel to the Kista office. The concept of an Ericsson-branded bike sharing system is to provide bicycles for employees to hop-on and hop-off when traveling to each building on Kista campus. However, this idea is disregarded considering the distance between each main office building is walkable. It does not make too much environmental impact if the employee chooses to walk or use a bike on campus.

Another category like climate change & energy is also dismissed due to its feasibility and longer time plan to implement. Ideas under this category include installing solar panels on the rooftop, energy measurement metrics and sensors of heat, lighting and ventilation to switch on and off depending on the employee’s presence at workplaces. However, these ideas are dismissed as Ericsson does not have ownership of the buildings as well as the sophisticated process and longer time to be executed.

Dismissed examples under the category of green building include optimizing workplace space by minimizing the personal workplace, aquaponic system, vertical garden, urban farming with a compost system, and robotics to sort out recycling on Kista campus. The concept of an aquaponic system is to grow fish and plants together in one integrated system. The plant filters the water for the fish while it observes the nutrition generated from fish waste [43]. A vertical garden involves using a technique to grow plants on a vertical panel [44]. Urban farming describes the concept of installing sensors in the plant or using a hydroponic system to grow the office’s plants at workplaces. The compost system to recycle used coffee grounds or food scraps can also be used in urban farming. These ideas are eliminated due to the sophisticated process and longer time plan to implement.

After the process of the idea development, the final three proposed sustainable initiative are chosen.

The Proposed Sustainable Activities This section will describe the final three sustainable initiatives after evaluating the interviews with the experts and the brainstorming session with employees. The description of each activity will focus on the concept rather than the details of implementation.

Rescue Food Waste Following up on the analysis from participants’ insights about sustainable activities, food waste appears to be one of the concerns on campus. In order to better understand the current situation of the food waste management by restaurants, an interview with the restaurant staff is conducted. During the interview, the staff mentions that the restaurant has a three-year vision to reduce the food waste by 10% in the first year, and 5% in the following second and third year. The restaurant has categorized the food waste into three categories: the food waste generated by customers, the food waste from overproduction and the waste from others. There is approximately 300 kilograms of food waste from overproduction and 250 kilograms from customers per week. The current situation of waste caused by overproduction shows that there is room for improvement

Drawing from the analysis of the interview with the restaurant staff, it is recommended that the restaurant sell surplus, untouched and edible food at a discounted price. This activity aims to reduce food waste by selling edible food items that would otherwise be thrown away. The process of purchasing the food box can be divided into two alternatives: one is through an application to receive a notification and the other is to purchase the food box at the restaurant directly. There is a similar application named Karma already available in Stockholm. This application aims to connect several restaurants and grocery stores with customers to purchase unsold food at a lower price [45].

An existing application, COOR My Workplace, shows the daily food menu. The design concept is to integrate the discounted food box function into the existing application. Therefore, employees interested in buying the surplus food box at a discounted price can subscribe to it to receive the notification. Employees can log into the current application to choose a pre-order function to pick it up by themselves or choose a delivery. Another initiative is to raise the awareness of customers when it comes to selecting a meal, it is suggested that the restaurants can add information about the carbon footprint of each meal choice on the menu. See figure 1 A) as a visualization of the concept.

This activity aims to engage employees by raising their environmental awareness while selling extra food at a discounted price. The estimated time for implementing this initiative is less than a year. This sustainable initiative is proposed to provide positive environmental impact and engage with employees in a sustainable manner.

Earn Your Sustainability Badge through a Competition The analysis from this research reveals that most participants conceive that engagement might help motivate employees to drive behaviors at workplaces. With the aid of a digital tool and game mechanics, promoting sustainable behaviors among employees might be effective. Therefore, the design concept of this activity is to capture stimulating attributes of gamification to trigger employees to act towards pro-environmental behavior at workplaces.

The concept of the idea is to gamify tasks that are related to environmental aspects to drive behavior. The task can be related to pro-environmental behavior. Examples of tasks vary from ordering the surplus food at the restaurant, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, bringing a personal mug rather than using a paper cup, or taking public transportation to the office. The rules of this concept are divided into three stages: leaderboards can create a friendly competition to engage more people to participate among different departments. The user will be awarded points for completing the task. When collecting certain points, the user will receive a sustainability hero badge as a form of recognition to promote sustainable practices. In the end, the team which achieves the highest point will receive a reward. See figure 1 B) as a visualization of the concept.

The form of a sustainability competition can be using an application. The application includes a feature to visualize the individual’s personal carbon footprint when entering the necessary information. Furthermore, users will receive suggestions on how to decrease their personal carbon footprint based on the analysis of the data. The user can invite other colleagues to take part in the green competition to receive the point. The aim of the concept is to encourage

more people to complete sustainable tasks with the green gamification method.

This competition application combines the element of gamification to raise sustainability awareness among employees. The implementation of an app is estimated to be less than a year and the aim of this initiative is to help decrease employee’s carbon footprint through an interactive application.

Sustainability Community Platform The third activity proposes the idea of using a digital platform to form a community on campus. The digital platform has several functions: to form a sustainability team, to volunteer for a sustainable mission, to search for a carpooling partner, and to sell or exchange items among users. It is suggested that a digital platform can help improve internal communication and drive community interactions to have a positive impact on sustainability on campus.

The basic idea of a platform is to build a connection to link people with different needs. Additionally, the platform also aims to motivate more people to become involved in sustainable practices at workplaces. For instance, if the user would like to find the carpooling partner, they can enter information that matches carpooling partners from the platform. Another example is users using the platform to sell, exchange or share items to promote a sustainability community. See figure 1 C) as a visualization of the following concept.

This initiative aims to create a platform for employees on campus to engage in different sustainable activities. The platform is designed to enhance engagement and interaction among employees. The implementation of the digital platform is estimated to take less than a year.

Figure 1. Visualizations of A) Food Waste (left image), B) Sustainability Challenge, and C) Community Platform

DISCUSSION This section will analyze each proposed sustainable activity separately. The possibilities and risks of each concept will be discussed further.

The concept of “rescuing food waste” aims to use digital tools to provide additional information of unsold food at a discounted price. This initiative is intended to raise awareness among employees and enable them to purchase leftover food box which they could not before.

However, the form of digital tools has not been decided yet. Participatory design research needs to be carried out to determine which digital tool has the strongest influence among employees. The ways of promoting this sustainable initiative is another important concern to determine whether employees are aware of this activity on campus. Another concern is to collaborate with the existing app, Karma, to help raise sustainable awareness on Kista campus. There is a risk that the activity will not achieve the expected outcome if the initiative is not followed up on properly.

Parallel to the previous research, one of the main challenges for promoting sustainable activities is to engage with employees at the workplace. The paper by Thøgersen and Crompton [46] discusses the spillover effect of personal or private-sphere behavior change. Motivation tends to increase when adoption of a particular behavior occurs. However, one of the limitations of this spillover phenomena is the slow process of engaging people with sustainable consumption pattern [47].

The second initiative “Earn your sustainability badge through competition” aims at creating a friendly competition among employees in an attempt to increase employee engagement and sustainable awareness. The concept uses gamification to provide an incentive for employees to accomplish green tasks. Employees can not only track their personal carbon footprint but also interact with their colleagues through the digital tool.

However, the definition of “green task” has not been decided yet. Privacy appears to be an issue to consider how the digital technology handles employee’s data. There is no direct evidence suggesting whether the competition can raise more awareness among employees. Even though the result of this research shows that employees at Ericsson believe the form of gamification such as competition might help engage with employees at workplaces. These employees hold positive attitude towards the usage of digital tools to engage people to raise more sustainability awareness. The long-term effect of this activity needs to be further assessed.

The third activity “Sustainability community platform” aims at providing a digital platform to connect employees with different needs related to sustainability. For instance, employees can use the platform to find a carpooling partner. This initiative will not only help raise more awareness but

also help Ericsson to gather latest data on how employees travel to the office.

However, the form of the digital platform has not been decided yet. How the company handles employee’s personal data is another concern of implementing this initiative. Whether the digital platform can change people’s behavior or raise more sustainable awareness is still questionable.

In the previous research, Lehrer and Vasudev [31] discover that a digital forum might increase employee engagement by providing a social media network for workplace occupants and managers to discuss issues related to workplace environment. The platform is said to shape attitude and behavior of an employee and the aim is used to encourage sustainable workplace practices [51]. In conjunction to driving engagement, active communication is also said to accelerate the behavior change [52]. Effective communication in the workplace should take employee’s personal motivations into account so that communication can match with employee’s motivation to stimulate engagement [53]. In regard to driving engagement with improving communication, it can be inefficient if organizations focus on the wrong motivations [48][49].

However, there is no direct evidence showing that the usage of digital tools can help engage more employees act towards more sustainable at work in the long term. One question is raised in the research of Lockton et al. [29], the design of using a point system to change attitude and awareness of employees is still questionable. Lockton et al. indicate that the measurement of the degree of employee engagement and motivation depending on the points system is still arguable.

The reason behind the difficulties in pushing behavior change at workplaces is that employees find no direct connection with them. Employee’s motivation in taking initiatives in promoting sustainable behavior might be linked with the fact that whether they obtain any benefits from energy-saving actions or not [56]. For most employees, day-to-day activity is likely to be affected by differences in social contexts, including a worker’s role, rules of conduct and standardizing expectation [57]. Changing human behavior requires a deeper understanding of the behavior first and determines the motivational factor to address the current circumstances [58].

Therefore, Siero et al. [56] demonstrate that one of the efficient way to raise employee engagement is to incorporate sustainability practices into his or her daily life. The progress of promoting sustainable initiatives will be easier if employees find their connection to contribute to the company on sustainability matter.

Limitation of the Method The method in this thesis mainly focuses on the opinions of the experts and employees. The result of the study could not be generalized to the large population, which implies that the data collected from the study could generate another result with a larger sample size.

When applying qualitative data in a thematic analysis framework, there are chances of misinterpretation. The process of coding and categorizing data can be influenced by the researcher’s personal experiences and knowledge. Some data can be misunderstood in a way that is not meant by the participants at the semi-structured interviews and the brainstorming session.

Future Research The study only proposes a rough idea of sustainable activities based on the analysis of qualitative data. However, more investigation needs to be carried out to add more details to the activities. The scenario workshops will need to be conducted with employees to get further feedback and recommendation of the activities.

Future research can focus on participatory design process as a longitudinal study would be needed to assess the effects of the three activities in the long term.

CONCLUSIONS The study aims at examining how digital tools can contribute to raising sustainability awareness among employees at workplaces. Through semi-structured interviews and a brainstorming session, three possibilities and risks of sustainable activities are identified. The final three sustainable initiatives are proposed after a prioritized process. The proposed three sustainable initiatives include selling overproduction food at a discounted price, an application to encourage sustainable behavior through a competition, and a digital platform to form a community based on the needs related to sustainability.

However, these sustainable initiatives are only seen as a stepping stone for Ericsson to make more progress towards SDGs in the long run. In order to have more environmental impact, it is necessary for an organization to focus on embedding the sustainability into their business models, operations and supply chains. This thesis is delimited to push sustainability forward within a workplace in order to set as an encouraging start for a whole organization to achieve SDGs in the future.

In conclusion, a greener workplace might help the company decrease employees’ ecological footprints, raise environmental awareness, and increase its brand value. By incorporating sustainability initiatives and employee engagement into the organization might have positive impacts on a company and its employees. However, the long-term effect of these proposed sustainable initiatives is still questionable and how these initiatives will affect employees needs to be further analyzed. In order to better promote these sustainable activities on campus, effective internal communication about them, and support from top management throughout the organization are necessary in order to be successful.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the valuable contributions of everyone who was involved in the progress of the thesis.

Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor at Ericsson, Louise Rehbinder, who assisted and supported me during the whole thesis. Sincere appreciation to my supervisor and examiner at KTH, Hanna Hasselqvist and Kristina Höök, who provided support and guidance when most needed. Lastly, I would like to thank every participant at Ericsson, the thesis would not have been completed without their time and engagement.

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