Looking through the employees’ lens: what can green human resources and workforces contribute? Employees are an oft-overlooked green hospitality facet who are ground-level implementers of sustainability and bioeconomy-based initiatives. Their voices and actions matter, perhaps more than we realize, having far-reaching connotations that are being talked about. Why is our focus centered on hospitality? That …
Looking through the employees’ lens: what can green human resources and workforces contribute?
Employees are an oft-overlooked green hospitality facet who are ground-level implementers of sustainability and bioeconomy-based initiatives. Their voices and actions matter, perhaps more than we realize, having far-reaching connotations that are being talked about.
Why is our focus centered on hospitality?
That hospitality and tourism industry contributes too much to global carbon footprints is a fact1. For example, recent numbers suggest that hotels alone account for 1% of worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions2. It doesn’t look like much but a closer look may give it more perspective: an article in the Washington Post published last year estimated that in 2021 global GHG emissions amounted to over 36 billion tons, meaning hotels’ contribution equated to over 360 million tons, roughly the same amount that 45 million homes would generate. That is not a small amount by any means.
Recognizing this problem, stakeholders across the world have raised calls for hotels to take the climate change and carbon neutrality goals seriously and have been criticized for being late to jump on the sustainability drive3,4. Thus, there are substantial expectations for hotels to step up their game and start contributing substantially to the BCG economies (bio, circular, and green economies). And this expectation is being taken seriously by hotels which is evident from the perceptible announcements and investments made by global hospitality associations and international chains for implementing eco-friendly practices, reducing waste, encouraging recycling, and promoting sustainability.
These practices are not just relegated to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, like SDG 12: promoting sustainable production) but are also at the heart of the BCG economies. They further tie into specific initiatives5 and reporting standards6 that are being used to assess the long-term impact of hospitality industry players – like hotels – on the environment and society. Collectively called the ESG – Environmental, Social, and Governance – these initiatives and standards span a broad range of activities in which hotels can engage through innovative and creative means. In fact, some mainstream discussions have hailed ESG initiatives to be the giant strides the hospitality industry needs to make to protect our planet and the people4.
The ESGs have become particularly important in recent times, particularly for hotels wherein ESG-related initiatives remain in the nascent stages7 but are being vigorously pursued by hospitality giants like Marriott, Accor, and Hilton8. For example, Hilton has an award-winning ESG platform called Lightstay which keeps a thorough record of its environmental and social impact. Similarly, Marriott has established its own goals called Serve360 (that are similar to SDGs), which they are using to report its ESG, sustainability, and social impact-related achievements (their 2022 report can be accessed here if you want to take a look).
ESG, hotels, and the bioeconomy
We also believe that ESG initiatives are hugely important and may be the first step to the hospitality industry’s adoption and promotion of the BCG economies. Why so? We see two reasons. First, consumers have become acutely aware of the hospitality industry’s detrimental environmental impact and are increasingly choosing eco-friendly, sustainable, and nature-based tourism options over conventional ones. This high consumer preference is uniquely evident in multiple reports (for example – Booking.com and CBRE), which highlight consumers’ focus on ensuring sustainable and environmental elements while planning any form of travel or holiday9. If you check Google trends (Figure 1, or feel free to run searches with your own keywords), you can see that there has been a sharp increase in “environmental” and “green” hotel searches and especially in the recent past (i.e., since 2022)
Second, ESG and allied initiatives to support the BCG economies become even more critical when we consider how nature-based tourism and eco-tourism are quickly gaining ground in terms of market size and valuation. For example, a 2021 report by Allied market research10 estimated that the global eco-tourism market, which also encompasses nature-based tourism and aligns strongly with the bioeconomy, alone would be worth 333.8 billion USD by the end of this decade. As industries worldwide come together to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050, the hospitality industry has also been spurred into action by taking initiatives like the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism11 and establishing pathways for Net Positive Hospitality12.
Many think hospitality and tourism’s ESG-related initiatives can help the BCG economies’ mainstreaming for these industries. A rising number of academic studies have suggested that hospitality and tourism are becoming quickly integrated and prioritized in the bioeconomy13. Tools like LCA14 or strategies like sustainable hotel design15 can help these industries further ensure that their operations have a minimal detrimental effect on the fragile ecosystem they operate in. But is it merely enough for hotels to implement initiatives and strategies and expect them to succeed?
The success of any initiatives a business implements hugely depends on whether its employees accept and promote the initiatives. And the same applies to our case of sustainable and BCG economies-driven initiatives, especially in the context of Europe’s hospitality industry, wherein staff retention and allied costs are among the most prominent challenges hoteliers face16. This is why the ideas of a green workforce17 and green human resource management (GHRM) have become so important, particularly for businesses operating in service-related industries, like hotels18,19.
Services and employees: a brief intro
About two decades ago, scholars20,21 developed a framework called the services marketing triangle that has, since then, become a cornerstone of services marketing. This framework tells us that a business’s success in offering a service, hinges on the involvement of three players – the business itself (i.e., the management), the consumer, and the employee1. An overwhelming amount of research22 has shown that for any service to gain consumer attention or love in the market – all three must be active and aligned. These three players must be on the same page – working together to (a) build a relationship between the business, service brand, and customers; and (b) make a service the best in its class.
Figure 2. Services marketing triangle, adapted from: George (2021).
We have discussed what consumers think about the BCG and how businesses are using ESG measures to promote these economies, we feel that a discussion on what employees can do is also warranted, and that’s where GHRM comes in!
Where GHRM comes in
We said earlier that GHRM is green human resource management, but what does it mean? Let’s turn to the academicians for this. Pham and colleagues23 (2020, p. 847) say that GHRM relates to “HRM-related aspects of environmental management and focuses on the role of HRM in pollution prevention through an organization’s operational processes.” In another recent article, Aboramadan24 (2022, p. 9) stated that GHRM could also be seen as a set of “practices that include green recruiting and hiring employees with green awareness and knowledge; green training to develop employees’ green skills, competencies and knowledge; green performance appraisal with established green standards for assessing performance; and green rewards to provide incentives based on the successful implementation of the green objectives set by the organization.”
Simply speaking, we see GHRM as a way to incorporate the essence of sustainable and green behavior throughout a business’s culture and way of working by ensuring that every employee is on board with helping the business achieve its BCG economy and sustainability-related goals. Since the Net Zero and climate change targets that face the industry are formidable, the engagement and involvement of every employee would be essential if these targets are to be met. And while this is just our opinion, it is based on recent reports that surprisingly discussed that situation in Europe’s accommodation sector (i.e., hotels) remains less-than-ideal regarding sustainability and decarbonization efforts (see Figure 3).
How can an organization be prepared for these efforts? Of course, strategies, tactics, and investments in proper technology are crucial elements, but they are simply not enough on their own. Because tactics and strategies deployed by businesses are, in the end, executed by employees. In fact, HRM professionals have been called ‘change makers’ because they are the ones who make sure that all employees are supported in times of major transformations in business vision, mission, and structure. So, we stand our ground to state that any BCG economy and sustainability-related target businesses aim to meet will not be met unless their employees support such endeavors. Here comes the importance of GHRM – which will essentially train, support and prepare employees for driving businesses’ BCG and sustainability-related agendas on the high drive.
Sounds lofty, but will GHRM work?
Research resoundingly says – YES! GHRM works! These GHRM initiatives not only make employees participate more enthusiastically in enacting green initiatives but also increase their work engagement and identification with their employers, improving their experienced job satisfaction. So while GHRM helps businesses put their goals in sight, it also makes employees happy – perhaps because these individuals are also aware of how vital green actions are for the future of our planet and coming generations. And the industry agrees too! In a research study that Deloitte25 undertook in the United Kingdom, the report discussed that the country’s transformation to achieving Net Zero would place new demands on employees and require their developing green knowledge and skills to meet three core challenges head-on: (a) Nature and biodiversity, (b) Climate change and decarbonization, and last but not least, (c) Waste and pollution reduction.
And we firmly believe that GHRM would be a critical bridge to employees’ skills and knowledge development. And GHRM’s effects won’t just stop at creating knowledge – not if you place faith in recent research, which suggests that these practices can often embolden employees to speak up and promote greener actions and ESG-related innovations. This phenomenon has been termed green voicing or green voice behavior, which Ari and colleagues26 (2020, p.2) defined as “making novel suggestions for environmentally friendly activities and recommending changes to standard procedures designed for green activities even when others disagree.” Such behavior may be just what we need to now push bioeconomy-based products more into the mainstream.
You may be asking why? Let’s say we have an employee working in the housekeeping department of a leading hotel that operates in the nature-based tourism segment. We will call her Jill — and bear in mind she is a fictional character. Jill has become increasingly interested in sustainability after participating in her hotel’s GHRM training and is keeping abreast of the latest developments in green and clean technologies. And she just found out about wood-based textiles, which are now being commercialized and goes to talk to her supervisor about maybe using such textiles – perhaps in the form of bed linens, for one of her hotel’s premium accommodation options. Think about what happens when the supervisor says yes (because wood-based textiles are also a catchy selling point). Consumers become aware of these textiles, experience them, and find them delightful to use (and, of course, there’s satisfaction from being an environmentally-friendly consumer). Optimistically speaking, these consumers may either be motivated to get their own form of wood-based textiles and/ or inspire others to check out these fantastic linens in that fabulous hotel. Either way, it would be a win-win for the BCG economies (particularly the bioeconomy) to have such products recommended in the mainstream. All because one employee made a solid recommendation and used their “green voice” – just one of many discussed consequences of GHRM that researchers have talked about prolifically.
Now imagine how much the BCG economies would be promoted if employees across multiple hotels could foster the mainstreaming of bioeconomy-based products and services. We believe that employee-based initiatives could bring the entire supply chain (from suppliers to consumers) on board to use BCG-based products. For example, employees could prompt consumers to opt for nature-based tourism activities like berry-picking in Finland or encourage the adoption of bio-based packaging, biofuels, and even local produce for their hotels’ kitchens. There are so many possibilities! Plus, GHRM and human capital (i.e., the total sum of knowledge and abilities that employees have) have actually been hailed as facilitators for organizations’ green innovation capabilities, that is, innovations specifically targeted to reducing these entities’ environmental negative impacts and enhancing the positive ones26.
Some last thoughts
To sum up, employees have tremendous power to effect change in their organizations and, thus, can bring the BCG economies and their products to mainstream discussions and usage. Employees work behind the scenes, and their efforts may not be as noticeable as, let’s say, consumers’ rising demands. But, there is no denying that with GHRM-driven encouragement and supportive business environments, employees can become a pillar of strength for the BCG economies’ growth. Employees’ green voices, innovative actions, and wholehearted espousal of GHRM initiatives give a critical impetus to businesses’ BCG economy and sustainability initiatives. It logically follows that thus, GHRM and employee actions will also have a massive impact on how soon businesses will be able to meet their climate change goals.
References
1 Yoong, K. 2021. ESG in Hotel Real Estate: Understanding ESG & the hotel asset lifecycle.
2 Sustainable Hospitality Alliance. Climate Action – reducing emissions across the hospitality industry.
3 Hillsdon, M. 2022. Slow to wake up to climate change, hotels sector vows to tread more lightly. Reuters.
4 Yoong, K. 2021. ESG in Hotel Real Estate: Understanding ESG & the hotel asset lifecycle.
5 CBRE. 2022. A Check-in on the Hotel Sector’s ESG Initiatives.
6 Claar, S. K. 2021. ESG Innovations in Hospitality.
7 CBRE. 2022. A Check-in on the Hotel Sector’s ESG Initiatives.
8 Belton, A. 2022. What Cop27 means for hotels and hospitality in 2023.
9 Global Sustainable Tourism Council. 2022. Booking.com Reveals the Trends Shaping Sustainable Travel in 2022.
10 Allied Market Research. 2021. Market size of the ecotourism sector worldwide in 2019, with a forecast for 2027 (in billion U.S. dollars). Via Statista.
11 UN Tourism. 2022. The Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism.
12 Sustainable Hospitality Alliance. Climate Action – reducing emissions across the hospitality industry.
13 Rinn et al. 2023. Bioeconomy-based tourism: A new concept responding to the support of bioeconomy. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 11, 111. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1122440
14 Maugeri et al. 2017. The bioeconomy in Sicily: new green marketing strategies applied to the sustainable tourism sector. Procedia Environ Sci, Eng and Manag, 4(3), 135-142.
15 Kitriniaris, A. 2022. Sustainable Hotel Design Strategies: Tourism as a Tool for Circular Bioeconomy in Fragile Ecosystems. WIT Trans. Ecol. Environ, 256, 13-24. https://doi.org/10.2495/ST220021
16 Statista. European Accommodation Barometer 2022.
17 Deloitte & IEMA. 2022. A Blueprint for Green workforce transformation.
18 Pham et al. 2019. Greening the hospitality industry: How do green human resource management practices influence organizational citizenship behavior in hotels? A mixed-methods study. Tourism Management, 72(January), 386–399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2018.12.008
19 Tanova, C., & Bayighomog, S. W. 2022. Green human resource management in service industries: the construct, antecedents, consequences, and outlook. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2022.2045279
20 Dahlgaard-Park, S. 2015. Services marketing triangle. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Quality and the Service Economy, 2, 731-732. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483346366
21 Grönroos, C. 1996. Relationship Marketing Logic. The Asia-Australia Marketing Journal 4(1): 7–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1320-1646(96)70264-2
22 Baker, M. A., & Magnini, V. P. 2016. The evolution of services marketing, hospitality marketing and building the constituency model for hospitality marketing. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
23 Pham et al. 2020. Green human resource management: a comprehensive review and future research agenda. International Journal of Manpower, 41(7), 845–878. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-07-2019-0350
24 Aboramadan, M. 2022. The effect of green HRM on employee green behaviors in higher education: the mediating mechanism of green work engagement. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 30(1), 7–23. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-05-2020-2190
25 Deloitte & IEMA. 2022. A Blueprint for Green workforce transformation.
26 Ari et al. 2020. A conceptual model for green human resource management: Indicators, differential pathways, and multiple pro-environmental outcomes. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(17), 18. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12177089
27 Song et al. 2021. Effects of green human resource management and managerial environmental concern on green innovation. European journal of innovation management, 24(3), 951-967. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-11-2019-0315
Additional reading
Pham et al. 2019. Greening the hospitality industry: How do green human resource management practices influence organizational citizenship behavior in hotels? A mixed-methods study. Tourism Management, 72(January), 386–399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2018.12.008
Garavan et al. 2023. Employee perceptions of individual green HRM practices and voluntary green work behaviour: a signalling theory perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 61(1), 32–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/1744-7941.12342
Veerasamy et al. 2023. Green Human Resource Management and Employee Green Behaviour: Participation and Involvement, and Training and Development as Moderators. South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management, 232209372211443. https://doi.org/10.1177/23220937221144361
Zero Carbon Forum. 2022. Net Zero – The Guide for the Brewing and Hospitality Sector.
All links accessed 23.2.2024
Photo: Copyright (c) 2023 Sorapop Udomsri/Shutterstock.