GM Employees Watch Over Local Wildlife All Year Long

Our manufacturing sites around the world sit on diverse terrain filled with animals, flowers and colorful vegetation. With certified habitat programs at 40 of our facilities around the world, we like to promote and cultivate that wildlife, getting our nature-loving employees involved along the way.

Outside of work, we have employees who hike, birdwatch, fish, or garden. They have a natural interest in nature, so we give them opportunities to help us keep the habitats outside our facilities’ windows and walls thriving.

These are the team members who volunteer to help us tend pollinator gardens, control invasive plant species, install nesting boxes and much more to increase native biodiversity on our campuses. Thus employees are our greatest asset in documenting the species that call our grounds home.

We keep tabs on how native flora and fauna have increased as a result of our habitat preservation efforts; how we’ve created species corridors that attract certain dwindling waterfowl; and communicate fox, bear and lynx sightings throughout our facilities globally.

That got us thinking: Wouldn’t it be great to compile all these diverse wildlife photos from our various facilities into a collection? Thus the GM Wildlife Habitat Calendar was born.

For the last two years, we’ve invited employees from GM facilities with certified habitats to submit photos of wildlife spotted onsite for a friendly competition. The cream of the crop are featured in a calendar available for download on our intranet and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners are recognized in a private award ceremony.

Fifty employees submitted 280 photos this year, and thousands of employees have visited the intranet page to view the calendar or download a copy for their cubes.

“We asked employees to submit their photos, and we were happily surprised by the number and the National Geographic-quality of the photos we received,” said Sue Kelsey, GM Global Biodiversity Program Manager.  “They do a wonderful job of showing the diversity of plants and animals that our habitat sites support around the globe. “

The GM Wildlife Habitat Calendar not only creates awareness of our companywide commitment to biodiversity, it’s another example of engaging and encouraging our employees to take an active role in our sustainability efforts.

We’re committed to creating and securing wildlife habitat certifications or equivalent at each of our manufacturing sites where feasible by 2020. And GM employees, with cameras in hand, will be integral to both achieving and documenting our progress.