By Natalie Ainsworth
The most sustainable training program is the one you never created.
Read that again.
What does it mean?
You could have designed and delivered the greenest training program, but if it isn’t solving the right problem, it is fundamentally unsustainable.
Let’s face it, we’ve all been there.
Deals are lost after client meetings and a leader boldly proclaims, “we need to train all of our managers in presentation skills!” The true skill gap lying elsewhere, in plain sight. The presentation skills training? It might have been good, but it didn’t solve the problem.
Treating “right first time” as a sustainability principle in learning and development (L&D) means diagnosing root causes, designing only what’s needed and measuring what matters. We no longer make, or remake, ineffective learning.
The outcome is simple: fewer wasted hours, less digital burden, and a lower organisational carbon footprint.
Hidden Wastes
Travel, printed handouts and data centres are obvious environmental costs. Less visible is the repeated creation and re-creation of learning that was never fit for purpose.
Duplicated slide decks, courses redesigned after poor feedback, or multiple “quick fixes” layered on top of unresolved performance problems. Each iteration consumes people’s time, platform storage, bandwidth and organisational goodwill. Those are real resources, and emissions, even if they are harder to measure.
Diagnose Before Designing
Treat performance consulting and needs analysis as an environmental action. Before embarking on course design and development, answer three questions:
- What is the performance gap? What evidence demonstrates the performance need? Distinguish skill competence from system constraints: process, tools, incentives.
- Is a program the right lever? Consider the alternatives: job aids, process change, peer coaching.
- What is the minimal viable intervention? Reframe your thinking away from all-singing and all-dancing tech-enabled solutions, with all the bells and whistles. What is the solution that solves the problem? Start with the smallest change likely to shift behaviour.
Use straightforward diagnostics like interviews, observation, data. The aim is to avoid designing solutions for symptoms. Home in on the root causes.
Design for Precision and Reuse
When a learning intervention is justified, design modular content intended for reuse, not one-off campaigns. Practical tactics include:
- Performance support over longform content. Short, searchable assets to be used at point of need. Reduce long videos and repeated virtual classroom sessions.
- Every item earns its place. Every megabyte needs to earn its place. From each word to whole assets. If it isn’t serving a performance purpose, why is it there?
- Version control and retirement plans. Sunset outdated courses and content to avoid storage and learner confusion. Compress and optimise media files.
These reduce digital storage, lower streaming loads and prevent the cascade of duplicated content.
Lean Media and Platform Choice
The latest technology might be alluring, but it is carbon intensive. Opt for lighter formats where they meet the outcome:
- Reduce reliance on video. Use audio scripts, podcast-style learning, animated slides, or text-first micro-modules instead of long HD video or recorded sessions.
- Drive sustainable change in your supply chain. Prefer learning platforms that publish sustainability or energy-use information where available (ask vendors for hosting and data-centre details).
- Understand the planetary impact of AI. Leverage AI when it meets broader strategic goals and where performance outcomes outweigh the planetary costs incurred.
Small file sizes and smarter hosting reduce bandwidth and server cycles, a simple win that scales.
Measure What Prevents Rework
Shift your measurement strategy from completions and confidence to performance outcome metrics demonstrating impact:
- Connect the dots from diagnosis to solution. Track changes in on-the-job performance, error rates, or process cycle time after learning.
- Collect only the data that you will use. Your data will be held in the cloud, powered by data centres that demand energy and water resources. Every datapoint has a footprint.
- Report resource savings. Consider reduced travel, fewer classroom hours, digital storage, reduction in carbon intensive solutions. These all factor into your organisation’s indirect carbon emissions.
If evaluation shows outcomes haven’t changed, the signal is to pause and re-visit diagnosis, not jump to solutions.
Sustainability in L&D is a design discipline.
Taking a “right first time” approach cements L&D as a strategic enabler of organisational performance. It respects learners’ time, reduces organisational waste and aligns L&D with the organisation’s broader environmental goals.
That is one of the most impactful sustainability moves an L&D team can make.
About the Author: Natalie Ainsworth
Natalie inspires and drives behaviour change that enables positive outcomes for people, for organisations, and for the planet. She blends extensive experience in learning and development (L&D) with sustainability, enabling everyone’s role to become a sustainability role. She is particularly skilled at translating what sustainability means in the context of HR and L&D. Contact via natalie@virescentlearning.com.
