Attracting the best people is only getting tougher and, increasingly, top talent demands that employers demonstrate a solid commitment to corporate responsibility. Simply put, people want to work for a company that shares their values. Here's how some forward-thinking companies are engaging employees in their sustainability efforts. By Andrew Winston

Employees are the make-or-break stakeholders - ignite their passion and your organization will accomplish a great deal. According to one recent survey, nearly half of elite MBA students consider a prospective employer's social responsibility "extremely" or "very" important. And undergrads are even more convinced: 92% want to work for a green company.

Communicating with employees about what you're doing is critical. You know that CSR report you might think is for external stakeholders? Luckily the most interested audience is generally your own workers, and they are often excited to learn green initiatives. So how can you do a better job of engaging them in those efforts? Here's how some forward-thinking companies are leading the way.

Engaging Employees to Green Their Own Office

Recently, the CEO of a large tech company met with a group of employees about their green efforts. The first question he got was not about big programs to reduce energy use in their products or operations, but instead, "Why are we still using plastic water bottles around the office?" People are getting fired up to walk the talk on the small and local level, from measuring carbon footprints down to holding "paper-free" meetings and handing out reusable bottles. The smart companies are harnessing this energy by setting up "green teams" of lower and middle-level employees to get the ideas bubbling up. It's small stuff, but even largely symbolic actions are good for building a culture of sustainability which can get people thinking about how to green the core business. Green teams are a particularly good fit for small and medium-sized companies. (See, for example, this article (PDF) on payroll-processing company Paylocity.)

Offering Employees Green Perks

A great way to improve the overall package of "compensation" is to give green and socially-minded employees some outlets. Companies can help workers feel good about day-to-day operations: Deloitte launched a corporate credit card (with Barclays) for its 11,000 U.K. employees that offsets some corporate expenses. Companies also create small benefits like up-front parking spaces for hybrid drivers. For some companies, green perks fit the brand and mission perfectly in some firms (scroll down here for some renewable-energy company examples), but even traditional companies are pushing the envelope. Ernst & Young and PNC, among others, are paying employees for volunteer work abroad, some for months at a time.

Empowering Employees to Change Their Own Lives

Companies have built extensive wellness programs for years, but Wal-Mart took things a bit further with its Personal Sustainability Project - the granddaddy of corporate self-sustainability programs. The PSP initiative encourages employees (more than 500,000 of them, at last count) to make a pledge to health or planet. Among thousands of ideas, employees are carpooling, composting, and helping their kid's school build a recycling program). Besides tools and encouragement, some companies are putting money on the table to finance changes in employees' lives. Burt's Bees gives employees money to offset home energy use, Swiss Re's CO You2 program provides up to $3,000 to install carbon-saving technologies at home, and companies like Bank of America and Hyperion have been subsidizing employee purchases of hybrids (up to $5,000 in some cases).

Asking Employees to Act As Brand Ambassadors

A more aggressive approach is to enroll your employees as spokespeople to spread the green message. Coke sends its people out into the community and Ford has even put some into their ads to talk sustainability. This strategy carries some risk - what if the company can't back up what it's asking employees to talk about? But if employees are proud of your sustainability story and it's legitimate, inviting them to share the good news can only work in your favor.

Eventually, green will be a part of everyone's job - just a normal part of doing business, from the C-suite to product designers to marketing to finance. But even before developing tools and incentives to help them green their specific roles, it's important to build a broader culture of involvement. Consider sustainability a key tool for attracting the best people - and engaging and exciting them once you've got them.

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Andrew Winston is founder of Winston Eco-Strategies and co-author of the best-selling Green to Gold. Read his "Eco-Advantage" blog here.

Note: This article has been adapted from Eco-Advantage Strategies, Andrew Winston's regular newsletter on how to build value and competitive advantage by innovating for sustainability.