CorpComms Magazine

The stark white staff reception area at BT's London headquarters had a distinctly green tone for one day last month as the phone giant hosted its second CSR fair.

Among the forest of flat-screen televisions and broadband handsets, stalls offered everything from mouse mats made from circuit boards to rubber balls for washing machines that clean clothes without detergent.

Representatives from Eurostar, waste disposal company Biffa and Trees for Cities also attended, while a lecture by energy group E.ON on sustainability and global warming attracted an audience of almost 100 BT staff.

Emma Williams, CSR communications manager at BT, says the idea for the fair - and its sister environmental fair - came from research that showed staff were receptive to learning about issues that could be adapted for their home life. 'We found there were no barriers at all,' Williams explains. 'We were also wondering about how to take BT's CSR activities to the next level, and to offer staff the opportunity to see a lot of alternative technologies.'

Shortly after a brainstorming session on this subject, a representative from Nigel's Eco Store, an online shop offering everything from bamboo-fibre towels to solar radios, cold-called Williams. 'It was bang on time,' she recalls. 'My kettle had just died and I asked whether Nigel's had anything to replace it.'

It did. Williams floated the idea of a CSR fair, and Nigel's Eco Store was the first company to sign up. 'It was interesting because it offered energy-saving gizmos that were not mainstream at the time,' Williams says.

The store also signed up for BT's Green Basket, available on the company's intranet, which offers staff a discount on a range of environmentally friendly products. Each of the 16 stalls at the CSR fair is also a member of the Green Basket. 'The members of the Green Basket must have a link with sustainability,' explains Williams. 'We have found that, since Eurostar was included, many BT employees have preferred to take the train rather than fly to Paris and other destinations.'

This change in behaviour is apparent in staff's personal and working lives, which is also the key to the success of BT's CSR strategy. 'If staff members learn about recycling, for example, they bring those habits into the office,' says Williams, who adds that feedback from the 500 staff who attended the fair was 'really fantastic; they loved it'. Last year the fair, which is open to all BT staff, was also repeated in Swindon, although there are currently no plans to do that this year.

And which stalls proved to be favourites with BT staff? Terra Plana, which makes shoes from recycledl leather and bicycle tyres, 'offered great deals and went down well', according to Williams, while the stand-out product was Bye Bye Standby, a plug-in product that cuts power to electrical devices not in use.

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