Green IHRD: Sustainability and environmental issues

There has been a growing interest in environmentally conscious or ‘green’ HRD practice, but green international HRD (IHRD) has to date been under-researched. Green IHRD is concerned with IHRD interventions to facilitate individual learning and organizational development which contribute to sustainable international organizational policies and practices. Sustainable organizational practices and policies should increase the positive environmental impact and decrease the negative environmental and social consequences of organizational behaviours. Learning is central to developing organizational sustainability, and IHRD with its focus on learning and development is ideally placed to play a central role in organizational sustainability, to support learning for and about sustainability within organizations.
This chapter presents some ways of thinking about green IHRD. A conceptual framework for green IHRD is presented, which highlights how competing ways of thinking about sustainability are reflected in differing organizational and IHRD practices. Some lessons for IHRD are drawn out, and suggestion for a future research and practice agenda.