Exploring the effect of organisational variables on employee environmental behaviour

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between organisational and individual variables within the context of employees’ environmental behaviour in the workplace. It also explores the changes in employees’ behaviour, and perceptions of organisational support and incentives, after exposure to an environmental intervention (i.e. heating/cooling campaign and recycling campaign in the workplace). The intervention was designed by Global Action Plan, the UK’s leading environmental charity, and findings are based on a large-scale quantitative survey of four UK-based companies, also administered by the charity. The data analysis showed that infrastructure (measured by how well the companies’ environment is set up to support environmental behaviour and the amount of knowledge/support about related practices), is correlated significantly with all individual behaviour measures. Interestingly, organisational commitment was not correlated with employees’ environmental behaviour or attitudes, given that prior literature provides mixed results for this relationship. Overall, this study’s findings highlight the need for further research on various dimensions of organisational commitment and its impact on employees’ behaviour, as well as the need for incentives and internal support from colleagues and line managers in generating significant environmental behavioural change in the workplace.