Green HRM: towards sustainability in human resource management

Abstract

Environmental management is recognized as one of the most appropriate tools used to manage environmental degradation issues. Organizations around the world have begun to implement changes in their organizational culture and structure to put the sustainable development concept in the forefront and include environmentally friendly practices as an essential part of their business. The aim of this paper is to attempt to ascertain, summarize and explain the specificities of sustainable development, the characteristics of its environmental, economic and social dimension for organizations, the benefits of implementing the concept of sustainability in organizations worldwide, as well as the importance and advantages of embedding sustainability in human resource management (HRM) practices in order to reach a new concept worldwide - green human resource management. Even though green HRM is still in the initial stage of development many organizations are already accepting green initiatives in all areas of HRM. Having in mind that HRM should serve as a foundation of every business, green human resource management should include all policies and procedures that will transform the roles of employees so they may contribute in different ways to the achievement of environmental sustainability. The conclusion of this paper is that HRM has an opportunity to play a vital role in driving the organizations to implement green practices and become more sustainable. The significant contribution of green HRM should be in terms of raising environmental awareness among employees and their readiness to perform green activities, while environmental behaviour learned at work may be easily transformed into employees' lifestyle.