Green human resource management and environmental sustainability: a hybrid review

Purpose This study examines green human management (GHRM) and its contribution to environmental sustainability systematically. It examines trends, influential contributors, theoretical developments, methodological patterns, bibliographic coupling of authors, keywords occurrence and citation analysis between 2016 and 2025. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods approach was adopted, integrating a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric technique following the SPAR-4-SLR with the theories-context-methodology–antecedents-decisions-outcomes framework to explore its multidimensional nature. Findings The review highlights the rapid growth of this research, particularly after 2020, with emerging economies significantly contributing to the field and quantitative research remaining dominant, indicating that GHRM practices enhance environmental performance, green competitive advantage, organizational reputation, employee engagement and alignment with the sustainable development goals. However, this review is limited to English-language articles published in journals indexed in the Scopus database between 2016 and May 2025, which may restrict the comprehensiveness and generalizability of our findings. Practical implications Organizations should formulate HR practices in accordance with the sector’s environment involve stakeholders and integrate global sustainability into their HR strategies. Originality/value This study presents a detailed synthesis of GHRM and suggests avenues for future inquiry.