Bridging the ESG Gap: A Gamified Diagnostic for Workplace Sustainability Culture
This capstone project, developed in collaboration with delaware, addresses a challenge that sits at the heart of corporate sustainability: the gap between what organisations commit to on paper and what employees actually experience in their day-to-day work. While ESG frameworks have become standard practice for many companies, how well those values translate into workplace culture, individual behaviour, and operational decisions is rarely measured in a meaningful way. To investigate this, the team developed a mixed-methods approach combining a baseline survey, interviews, clustering, and text analysis, building a picture of ESG alignment that goes beyond top-down reporting and into the lived experience of employees across the organisation.
In response, the team designed GAP-I, a gamified diagnostic tool in which employees respond to realistic workplace scenarios spanning four ESG pillars: Environmental Stewardship, People and Culture, Business Conduct, and Responsible Value Chain. For each scenario, participants reflect on what they would personally do, what they believe delaware would do, and how visible the issue is in their daily work. These responses are aggregated into alignment insights that help the company identify where ESG values are clearly felt and where communication or support may need to be strengthened. The pilot revealed uneven alignment across pillars: Business Conduct appeared most integrated, People and Culture and Responsible Value Chain showed the greatest dissonance, and Environmental Stewardship was strongly supported in principle but rarely visible in practice. By combining playful design with rigorous anonymisation, GAP-I turns a sensitive organisational topic into a safe, structured basis for learning and improvement.