DR. PREETI SINGH
Assistant Professor
Environmental sustainability has been amongst the top issues in concern by organizational leaders as reported in World Economic Forum, 2009. There is a need to understand concept of employee green behaviour and its constituents as applicable in organisational settings. Organizations these days are putting efforts to define and identify tactics to sustain a green workforce. Researchers have pinpointed the linkage between economic performance (profits), people (social performance), and environmental performance (cf. Elkington, 1998).
Employee Green Behaviour (EGB): Depleting environment conditions demand green behaviour of employees in manufacturing industries. Green behaviour of employees focus on conserving natural resources and ecological environment to reduce environment deterioration and improvise quality of environment. It is challenging for organisations to improve its social performance and economic performance in same time frame. Green behaviour of employees has positive impact on organisational environmental performance.
EGB is characterized as “compound performance domains”. The domain primarily includes set of employee behaviour contributing to environment sustainability. Organisations can formally prescribe EGB behaviour for example hiring sustainability officer in organisation, producing sustainable product, sustainable. Behaviour can also be shown in work roles at different hierarchical levels like top managers sustainable behaviour.
EGB can be classified along three continuous dimensions
- In role ( As employees core task) or extra role ( As Organizational citizen)
- Direct ( Employee working for/against environment) or indirect (motivating other employees for EGB)
- Low intensity and high intensity
The Denis S Ones gave green 5 taxonomy as depicted below in the diagram
The fact has been accepted by organisations these days that environmental impacts of HRM processes are to be considered throughout the entire process as HRM practices contribute in environmental management system (EMS). The better environmental management practices helps to achieve higher environmental performance (EP). GHRM ensures that become more environmentally friendly and same is crucial for company management due to following reasons:
- Environmental benefits
- Employee retention
- Company’s appeal.
- Organizational performance and the environment
List of Green HR Practices
- Green Hiring
- Green training and Development
- Green performance management and commitment
- Green innovation
1. Green Hiring
Green hiring means looking for candidates with environment friendly bent of mind. The organisations have been prone for green hiring considering
Benefits of Green Hiring
- Brand performance increases with green hiring because induvial prioritising environment contributes to overall positive impact on brand.
- Green hiring promote sustainable culture, inspiring and motivating employees for environment friendly practices like energy conservation, reduced paper waste resulting in efficient and effective workplace.
- Helps in attainment of sustainability goals and global vision of environment responsibility for all.
2. Green training and Development
Green training and development is the process by which employees are equipped with approaches that make optimum utilisation of resources, reduced wastes, energy conservation and reduction in environment degradation.
3. Green performance management
Green performance management include rewarding employee for meeting their sustainable goals and sustainable environment.
4. Green Innovation
It is type of social innovation that focus on reducing environmental impacts and maximize sustainability. This includes development of new technologies having positive impact on environment
Green Jobs: Trends and Opportunities in India
As per news published in Economic times 30 million green jobs are supposed to be created by 2050 in India. There is a remarkable change in green talent share that has increased to about 14 percent within 6 years.
Highlights:
- Salary packages of professional in sustainability area have increased from 10 lakh per annum to 255 Lakh per annum.
- India is becoming more conscious about the environmental responsibility. Recent survey released by IBM state that 82% of Indian business leaders are hiring professionals with expertise in green and sustainable technology
As per survey by naukri.com average growth in green jobs is 27% in oct 2023 vs. Oct 2022 . Companies in India recruiting talents as part of their CSR Activities are recruiting in domain of agriculture, energy, sustainable development and waste management.
The companies contributing to this sector are Vedanta Group, HCL, Piramal, Tata etc. .
Green jobs are seen in sectors like solar energy, climate change, Agriculture, water sanitisation and health, green transport
The union budget 2023-2024 has envisaged number of projects catering to green growth of country spreading across several sectors and ministries like :-
- Green Hydrogen mission
- Green storage projects
- Energy transition
- Renewable energy evacuation
- PM Pranam
- Green credit programme
- GOBARDHAN Scheme
- MISHTI
- Coastal Shipping
- Amrit Darohar
- Bhartiya Prkritik kheti
- Vehicle replacement.
The aim is to facilitate green growth in country along with meeting current challenges.
