Research in Progress: Promoting employees’ pro-environmental behaviors through internal branding

By Yeunjae Lee, Ruoyu Sun, and Enzhu Dong, University of Miami

As corporations are under pressure to adopt sustainable practices to overcome the challenges of global warming, water/air pollution, and other environmental issues, embracing environmental responsibility and sustainable strategies has become an important task.

While most corporations have adopted a variety of environmental management practices by focusing on technical/tangible modifications, the implementation of corporate sustainability strategies largely depends on the cooperation and participation of employees — one of the most strategic, involved, and important publics and the best ambassador for an organization.

In particular, the role of employees’ active pro-environmental behaviors (or green behaviors), their environmental-friendly behaviors in the workplace that are beneficial to the environment or minimize harm to the environment, is key to promoting sustainable development of corporations. Employees behave responsibly toward the environment in their job in diverse ways, ranging from task-related behaviors that are often asked by the organization (e.g., recycling, reusing disposable products, reducing the use of energy at work) to their proactive and discretionary behaviors (e.g., initiating or promoting environmental programs, activism).

Such environmental-friendly behavior within and outside of the workplace helps fulfill companies’ sustainability commitment, achieves a competitive advantage for the company, and improves the company’s environmental performance and reputation.

As the negative environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., increased use and disposal of masks, disinfectants, and plastic products, increased water consumption, and decreased in recycling) have accelerated the push toward sustainable organizational practices, the importance of employees’ pro-environmental behaviors at work has become even more emphasized.

In this research project, our team is excited to answer the question of how to communicate sustainability initiatives within an organization in an effective and ethical way to encourage employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. Specifically, we suggest internal sustainability branding, the management of a corporate brand internally mainly through internal communication with the aim of achieving employees’ brand-understanding and brand identification, and promoting brand-consistent behaviors, as critical commutative interventions that foster employees’ pro-environmental behaviors.

This approach may provide important practical insights into how corporations can achieve their sustainability goals through internal power, by improving employees’ trust in corporations’ sustainability commitment, fulfilling their environmental values, and helping them to fully embrace the importance of sustainability.

For further information on this study, please email Yeunjae Lee at yxl992@miami.edu, Ruoyu Sun at ruoyu.sun@miami.edu, or Enzhu Dong at exd516@miami.edu. Findings from the study will be available next year. This project is supported by a 2022 Page/Johnson Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center.