Organizational division of responsibility for the environment. The findings from the case studies across the organisational types highlighted the issue of roles and responsibilities for environmental issues within the organisational structure. The research suggests that concentrating the responsibility for environmental management within a single specialised role or in a dedicated department can be problematic. When such responsibilities are fully devolved to specialists, other workers do not see themselves as having personal responsibility for environmental practices unless they are asked to act by one of these specialists. This aspect points to the potential value of mainstreaming environmental issues throughout the remit of each department in an organisation, to reinforce perceptions of individual and collective responsibility in all areas of activity. However, it is important to qualify this as there were seen to be limits to which mainstreaming environmental responsibilities can be effective; it is important that some individuals are assigned specific roles since a complete diffusion of environmental responsibility across the workforce is problematic in itself. Thus roles should be clear and established across several departments, but their activities should be coordinated from a specialized department in charge of managing the transition to low-carbon practices. The research suggests that the most effective approach may be to combine the advantages of centralised and specialised responsibility and control with the advantages of decentralised everyday practices. Enabling people on all levels of the organisation to develop and suggest ideas for environmental improvement through participatory mechanisms offers great promise for engaging staff and harnessing the creative potential residing in the workforce. This does, however, require receptiveness on the part of management; a condition which may be more challenging in organisations which adhere to a strict top-down hierarchical structure. Finally, top-down communications from managers to workers play an important role in structuring social norms. Formal and informal communications from managers and opinion leaders in organisations were identified as central to the development and persistence of positive injunctive norms. Developing effective communication strategies should therefore be considered an important part of implementing environmental policies at the organisational level.
