Become an Organizational Conservationist

Every workplace has polluters. They’re the ones who waste time, dodge accountability, and create stress for everyone around them. Just like pollution in the environment, their actions corrode morale, productivity, and profitability. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve all contributed to organizational pollution at some point. I know I have, despite my best efforts.

When we show up late or run meetings without purpose, we’re polluting the environment. When we use up an employee’s talent without helping them grow, we’re leaving the soil barren. When we avoid conflict or delay fixing broken processes, we’re dumping waste for someone else to clean up.

This pollution doesn’t just stay at work—it seeps into everything. We bring the stress home to our families. It slows us down, makes decisions harder, and leaves everyone more exhausted when we are at work. Worst of all, it often goes unnoticed, even as it erodes our impact and profitability.

Organizational pollution, like environmental pollution, has unseen consequences. But the good news is that, as with the environment, we have options to clean it up.

Three Approaches to Workplace Pollution

When it comes to addressing pollution, we have a few ways forward.

1. Regulation

Imagine if we treated workplace behavior the way we regulate environmental harm. What if, at every performance review, we tracked not just numbers but also how well someone contributed to a healthy work environment? What if we promoted the people who developed others and penalized those who made their teams miserable?

Regulation works—it’s why we have cleaner air and water today. But it’s also hard. It requires the leaders of an organization to care enough to enforce it, and let’s face it, that’s a tall order in many places.

2. Shame

Shaming polluters is another option. Picture flyers in the company cafeteria calling out the manager who’s always late to meetings or the boss who verbally abuses their team. Public accountability can be a powerful tool.

But shame is risky. In most organizations, power dynamics favor the polluters, and those who speak out would surely face retaliation. Are we ready to risk our jobs to shame someone into doing better? Probably not.

3. Conservation

The most practical and empowering answer is to become organizational conservationists.

We can take responsibility for our corner of the workplace and make sure the environment we create is clean and healthy. That means running better meetings, giving honest feedback, and helping our peers grow. It’s about stopping waste before it accumulates, whether it’s wasted time, talent, or energy.

It starts small: asking ourselves if we’re polluting the work environment, encouraging better habits in our teams, and quietly backing others who do the same. These actions may seem minor, but when enough of us do them, the impact is undeniable. Ripples can become waves.

We can also support fellow conservationists. Let’s go out of our way to lift up people who improve the workplace. Even if they’re not the most powerful or influential, they’re worth protecting. And whenever possible, we can choose to distance ourselves from the polluters. The less we enable them, the less impact they’ll have.

Reclaiming Our Workplaces

Of course, none of this is groundbreaking. We all know the difference between a good work environment and a toxic one. But thinking about it through the lens of pollution makes it click in a new way. Polluters don’t just make work annoying—they harm everyone around them.

And honestly, we don’t want to be polluters. None of us do. Framing ourselves as conservationists helps us see our role in a new light. When we choose to conserve and protect the work environment, we’re not just doing what’s right—we’re building something better for ourselves and others.

So here’s the truth: pollution in the workplace is a choice. But it’s a choice we make together. Every meeting, every interaction, every decision—it’s an opportunity to either pollute or conserve. The more of us who take pride in being conservationists, the greater our chance of creating healthy, thriving work environments.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll leave the workplace better than we found it, and that will ultimately make quality of life better both at home and at work.