Overview
Part of your carbon footprint is estimated based on your employees' habits, collected through a short questionnaire. This guide walks you through each step on the platform: setting up and sending the survey, tracking responses, and using the results.
💡 To understand what the survey measures and how employee emissions are calculated, see Understanding the Employee Survey and its methodology.
Key benefits / use cases
Collect primary data on commuting, remote work, and meals directly from your employees
Capture a significant share of your Scope 3 emissions
Engage your teams in your company's climate strategy
Activate awareness training to support your reduction actions
1. Prepare your employees before sending the survey
We recommend informing your employees in advance about the questionnaire. It is sent from [email protected], so this helps ensure they do not mistake it for spam or marketing, and know to check their spam folder if needed.
Presenting your climate strategy internally can also help increase the response rate. You can use our ready-made email template to invite them.
💡 Replies to the survey are anonymous.
2. Configure and preview the survey
To get started, go to the Employee data module under Data > Data Collection in the menu.
Choose how you want to add your employees. You have two options:
Email campaign: manually add employee email addresses, then send the surveys directly from the Greenly platform.
Shared link or QR code: share a unique link or QR code through your internal communications.
After choosing an option, configure the survey settings. On the survey configuration page, you can customize:
Language (note that the invitation email language is automatically set based on your company email language. To update it, go to your account settings. Once employees access the platform, more language options will be available to them.)
Employee country-Questions about days off and remote days per week
These settings become the default values for all responses and cannot be overridden afterwards. If you want each employee to choose their own language, country, and days off, leave those fields blank.
If you want to check how the survey looks before launching it, you can add your own email address first and send yourself an invitation. Once you are done, remove your email address to reset the module.
3. Send the survey
The sending process depends on the option you selected: Email campaign or Shared link or QR code.Email campaign (sent directly from Greenly's platform):
Add the email addresses and click Send survey. The email status will be set to Sent.
Or add the email addresses and send the survey later by clicking Add mail without sending. The status will be set to Not sent.
Shared link or QR code (managed by you):Share the unique link or QR code through your internal communications. 💡 Provide each employee's individual professional email address, not a grouped or shared address. Only one response per email address is taken into account.
Manage employees and track progress
On the data collection page, after sending the surveys, you can see several details for each employee, such as the sending date, completion date, and survey status.
You can also delete one or more employees: tick the box to the left of their email address, then click Delete. Using the same method, you can resend the survey to any employee who has not answered or received it yet.
We recommend reaching a 50% completion rate to improve accuracy and limit extrapolation. You can continue receiving employee responses until you request your report.
4. Follow your results
Once your employees start responding, you will have access to employee-related emissions based on actual answers.
If the response rate is not 100%, or if some employees have left the company, missing results are extrapolated based on available responses and reliable proxies. For more details, see Employee survey: Extrapolation of answers.
To go further in engaging your employees, you can also activate and send Greenly employee training: these are awareness quizzes that help them better understand the causes and consequences of climate change, with concrete action ideas. For the full guide on activating and communicating the training, see Train your employees.
FAQs
Do all employees need to complete the survey, including part-time staff?
Yes. We recommend that everyone in your company takes part, including interns, apprentices, short-term contractors, and part-time employees. Note that only a portion of their yearly emissions will be included, so it is important to indicate their start and end dates, as well as whether they work part time.
Is it possible to get the list of questions?
Yes. You can either send the survey to yourself first and then remove your information to reset the module, or reach out to Support.
Is it possible to set up default values?
Yes. You can define both the country and the number of paid leave days in the settings before launching the survey. Once the survey has started, these settings can no longer be changed directly — you will need to contact our Support team.
Are replies to the survey anonymous?
Yes.