Employee participation and cleaner technology: learning processes in environmental teams

The approach to pollution prevention in Danish industries in the late-1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s met criticism, because the cleaner technology projects focused too narrowly on technical solutions implemented by experts. The objective of the project “Employee Participation in the Implementation of Cleaner Technology” was to develop a more active role for employees in the environmental activities of companies. Based on practical experiments in five Danish firms within different industrial sectors, the project concluded that employee participation can have a strong effect on changing working routines, affecting behaviour and increasing environmental consciousness. The project found that the firms' employees had a comprehensive understanding of environmental problems and solutions, including health and safety aspects. Furthermore, the employees in the environmental teams were able to improve the firms' environmental activities (e.g. setting up environmental policies, targets and action plans, implementing new procedures and technologies).