Green HRM: An Approach towards Sustainable Development

Objective: To conduct a systematic review of collected literature regarding various green components which can be incorporated into basic HR practices and attempts to highlight the present position of Green HRM practices implemented in select green banks in India which have been able to make a position among “Top Green Companies in the World 2016” list of Newsweek Green Score, namely ICICI Bank at rank 437, HDFC Bank at rank 445 and SBI at rank 449. Methods: A search was conducted using seven databases: Emerald Insight, Springer, Elsevier, IEEE Xplore, Sage, Durham Research Online, Rainer Hampp Verlag. The year range was 2008 to April 2017. An additional manual search of reference lists was conducted to ensure relevant articles were not overlooked, which also involves sustainability reports of select green banks. Results: Of 83 potential results, there were only 9 articles covering all green components that can be included in HR practices. The other papers have discussed one or two components at a time. Most of these limited studies have been conducted to study Green HRM practices in health sector, sports centre, IT companies. Only 5 studies have been conducted to study Green HRM practices implemented by green banks. In particular, there is limited literature regarding green turn taken by green banks in India. Further studies need to be conducted to study Green HRM practices with respect to different perspectives.