Green Workplace Behaviors: Can Employees Make the Difference?

Promoting environmental sustainability is becoming a priority for organizations. There is thus increasing interest in understanding to what extent green workplace behaviors are linked, alongside contextual determinants, to employees’ characteristics. This study investigated the relationship between green workplace behaviors, various employee characteristics, and organizational determinants. A sample of 513 employees from the energy sector was administered a survey assessing green workplace behaviors and the management of events (e.g., weak signals) which could anticipate the occurrence of incidents with harmful environmental impacts. Employees’ job-related (proneness toward behaving pro-environmentally at work) and broader individual characteristics (personality and human-nature connectedness), as well as their perceived organizational support (e.g., green climate and leadership), were also examined. The results from the structural equation models showed that green workplace behaviors were associated with employees’ proneness toward behaving pro-environmentally at work and perceived organizational support. Indirect effects from organizational support, personality, and human-nature connectedness on green workplace behaviors, mediated by employees’ proneness toward behaving pro-environmentally at work, also emerged. These findings highlight that employees’ characteristics also favor their adoption of green workplace behaviors, with important implications for developing interventions promoting environmental sustainability in organizations.