Environmental concern has found its way into work

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Beneva’s survey captures the scale of employee climate concern, while Christelle Lim-Severe points to practical ways organizations can respond

CLIMATE CHANGE used to be discussed mostly in the future tense: emissions targets, models keyed to 2050. That’s become harder to sustain as wildfire smoke settles over Canadian cities and heat records rise. It’s not a distant scenario anymore. It’s this summer. A recent Beneva study found that among employees surveyed at small and medium-sized Canadian businesses, 69 percent reported moderate to high levels of climate concern and 20 percent said it was having a moderate to severe effect on daily functioning. “That’s actually quite high for me,” Christelle Lim-Severe, sustainability practice leader at Beneva, says of the second figure. “We’re talking about something that is affecting people’s daily functioning, rather than the kind of everyday worry that comes and goes.” Concern remains more widespread than serious functional impairment, and Beneva also found that worry can sit alongside positive emotions such as hope. Lim-Severe points to relatively accessible measures: involve employees in environmental initiatives and give them a role in identifying where climate-related risks and opportunities show up in the business.

Beneva is the country’s largest mutual insurance company, with 3.8 million members and over 6,500 employees dedicated to protecting people. Its caring approach founded on human values and shared by its employees is anchored in its mutualist roots. Created by the coming together of La Capitale and SSQ Insurance in 2020, the company consolidated its pan-Canadian presence through its merger with Gore Mutual in 2026. With $30.3 billion in combined assets, it stands out for its diverse offerings in Group Insurance, Property and Casualty Insurance as well as Individual Insurance and Financial Services. Its head office is located in Quebec City.

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“People don’t just want to talk about climate concerns; they want opportunities to act. That sense of agency can be very powerful in reducing feelings of helplessness”

Christelle Lim-Severe, Beneva

When concern starts following people through the day Environmental concern is already widespread among employees. Beneva’s survey shows eco-anxiety is already affecting a meaningful share of the workforce. That makes the current moment important for employers: there is still an opportunity to respond before climate concern becomes more disruptive to well-being and work. Eco-anxiety isn’t a new, freestanding category of stress. “One in three Canadians are already experiencing anxiety,” Lim-Severe notes, “and mental health is already accounting for more lost workdays than any other condition in Canada.” That figure is higher among younger workers. Beneva found that 73 percent of employees aged 18 to 34 reported moderate to high climate concern, while 25 percent said it was having a moderate to severe effect on daily functioning, compared with 20 percent across the broader survey. The same group is also the most motivated to act when given a credible way in − Lim-Severe doesn’t see them as an anxious generation so much as an engaged one.

Lim-Severe says expectations can be very practical. An employee whose basement has flooded repeatedly, for example, may need greater understanding and flexibility when another major storm is forecast. More broadly, employees want leaders to recognize how climate-related events are affecting their lives and give them meaningful ways to participate in the organization’s response. “People don’t just want to talk about climate concerns; they want opportunities to act,” she says. “That sense of agency can be very powerful in reducing feelings of helplessness.” The practical difficulty is obvious. An employer cannot control wildfire seasons or temperatures, and even a substantial corporate sustainability program will not make those concerns disappear. What it can influence is whether employees feel like they’re completely left out of the response.

From concern to function “The most important tool a manager has is listening,” she says. Employees are often looking to be heard and taken seriously rather than expecting their manager to arrive with an answer to climate change. Employer responses might involve adjusting priorities during a particularly difficult period, pointing them toward existing wellness support, finding an environmental initiative they can participate in, or identifying something practical the team can take on together. Lim-Severe’s own team encourages sustainable commuting, organizes volunteer days, and occasionally shifts to vegetarian meals for a stretch of the week. None of it requires a budget request or executive sign-off.

The authority to act doesn’t sit only with leadership. “You always have power, whether you’re a manager, an employee, or the employer,” Lim-Severe says. A manager that is not directly influencing corporate strategy can still model different habits or simply raise the subject aloud. Small, repeated choices build into culture faster than any initiative handed down from above. People often tell her they wish they worked in sustainability specifically. Her answer doesn’t change: “It’s not just working for climate that the change will happen. It’s actually in your everyday job, in your everyday living, that the change is going to happen.” Beneva frames its own commitments as investing in global wellness while accelerating a just transition toward a greener, more inclusive, and resilient world − language built around something almost everyone already wants. “Who doesn’t want cleaner air?” Lim-Severe asks. “Who doesn’t want to live in a good community?”

“It’s not just working for climate that the change will happen. It’s actually in your everyday job, in your everyday living, that the change is going to happen”

What 26,000 pounds of vegetable can show An example Lim-Severe refers to started far from any sustainability agenda. A Beneva commercial insurance client was transporting 26,000 pounds of vegetables when an accident happened. The employee handling the claim wondered whether they could be used instead of discarded. She contacted organizations near the accident site, and Solidarité Citoyenne Portneuf helped coordinate the response. Within hours, all 26,000 pounds had been recovered and distributed to people in need. Food was kept out of the waste stream, disposal costs were avoided, and an employee had found a way to apply environmental thinking inside a job that was not ostensibly about sustainability. Beneva celebrated the initiative internally, and its CEO personally recognized the employee. “Sustainability isn’t always about launching a large new initiative,” Lim-Severe says. “Sometimes it’s about creating an environment where employees feel comfortable bringing forward ideas and know that those ideas will be supported and recognized.”

Beneva’s gamified sustainability platform drew in more than 600 employees in under a week and passed 1,500 within two months. Collectively, employees completed more than 4,800 sustainability-related actions, lessons, and challenges. Constantly presenting climate change as catastrophe can leave employees disengaged rather than motivated. Beneva’s approach has been to make participation practical and social, using friendly competition and recognition rather than another stream of warnings.

Published Oct 5, 2026

Start with the business in front of you Reflect on what effect the organization has on the environment, and what effect the environment has on the organization. A business in agriculture doesn’t need convincing that hotter seasons and heavier rain change how it operates; most other industries are closer to that exposure than they assume. Employees are usually the best source of insight on both the risks worth watching and the opportunities worth pursuing, since they’re the ones closest to the daily work. When employees notice a gap between what a company says about sustainability and what it actually does, engagement tends to drop. Eco-anxiety therefore sits across both mental health and trust: employees may be carrying real stress about climate-related events, while also judging whether their employer’s response feels credible. For Lim-Severe, that credibility comes from giving people a real role in environmental efforts, rather than asking them simply to absorb another corporate message.

Christelle Lim-Severe, Beneva

said it was already having a moderate to severe impact on daily functioning

20%

of employees reported moderate to high climate concern

69%

How wide-spread is Eco-Anxiety?

of workers aged 18 to 34 reported concern, with 25 percent reporting a moderate to severe daily impact

73%

Give employees a role in sustainability decisions tied to their everyday work, from travel and procurement to waste and energy use

Build in flexibility when floods, storms, or other climate events directly disrupt an employee’s life

Create a culture that favours incorporating environmental actions in their operations and active listening

What employers can actually do

Make action visible. Beneva’s sustainability platform drew more than 1,500 employees within two months and generated more than 4,800 actions, lessons, and challenges