Green HRM practices and organizational sustainability in the sugar industry: Evidence from employee-based empirical analysis

Abstract

Green human resource management (Green HRM) has emerged as a central mechanism through which industrial organizations translate environmental commitments into workforce-level action, yet empirical evidence from resource- and energy-intensive agro-industrial settings such as the sugar industry remains limited. This study examined the relationship between institute-level green practices, Green HRM practices, and organizational sustainability outcomes among 400 employees drawn from sugar-industry organizations. A cross-sectional survey design was used, and data were collected through a structured, self-administered questionnaire measuring institute green practices, Green HRM practices, sustainability outcomes, and demographic characteristics. Data were analyzed using reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, independent-samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA with Tukey post-hoc comparisons, and hierarchical multiple regression. Green HRM practices were strongly and positively associated with organizational sustainability outcomes (r = .830, p < .001) and remained the dominant predictor in the regression model (β = .834, p < .001), explaining an additional 68.7% of variance beyond demographic controls. Institute-level green practices showed no significant association with sustainability outcomes. Gender, age, education, and experience produced selective, construct-specific differences. The findings indicate that employee-facing Green HRM functions, rather than institute-level infrastructure alone, are the primary lever for organizational sustainability in the sugar industry.