Green Office Practices from a Sustainable Organizational Management Perspective: A Systematic Review of Environmental Management, Green HRM and Employee Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Abstract

Green office practices represent an important workplace-level expression of organizational sustainability, yet empirical evidence on their implementation remains dispersed across environmental management, green human resource management (Green HRM), leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour. This systematic literature review with qualitative thematic synthesis aims to synthesize empirical evidence on green office practices from a sustainable organizational management perspective and to explain how environmental governance, people-management systems, leadership and employee behaviour jointly shape their implementation. Following the PRISMA 2020 framework, the review included peer-reviewed original empirical studies published in English between 2014 and 2026. Twenty-two studies met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed through structured data extraction, quality appraisal and thematic coding. The findings indicate that green office practices cannot be understood only as technical or operational measures. They are workplace practices shaped by environmental governance, Green HRM, leadership support, workplace conditions and employee participation. Seven interrelated thematic categories were identified: sustainable workplace routines, environmental management and governance, Green HRM, leadership and organizational culture, employee pro-environmental behaviour, organizational sustainability outcomes, and implementation barriers and contextual conditions. The novelty of the integrated framework lies in positioning green office practices not as a separate operational domain, but as a workplace-level interface through which environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour are connected. The review clarifies how organizations institutionalize environmental responsibility through administrative work and everyday workplace routines.

1. Introduction

Sustainability has become a central concern for contemporary organizations because environmental responsibility is now closely connected with governance, legitimacy, resource efficiency, employee behaviour and long-term organizational performance. In management research, sustainability is no longer treated only as an external reporting obligation or a technical environmental issue. It is increasingly examined as a managerial process through which environmental objectives are translated into strategies, systems, work routines and employee practices. Recent research on green human resource management, environmental management systems and employee green behaviour indicates that organizations are more likely to achieve environmental goals when sustainability is embedded in management practices, leadership, organizational culture and everyday work behaviour, rather than treated as a peripheral environmental programme (Martín-de Castro et al., 2016; Roscoe et al., 2019; Paillé et al., 2020; Yong et al., 2020; Zacher et al., 2023).

This perspective is particularly relevant for office-based and administrative organizations. Although offices are often perceived as low-impact workplaces when compared with manufacturing or heavy industry, they generate continuous environmental effects through energy use, paper consumption, procurement decisions, digital practices, waste generation, commuting patterns, meetings, indoor environmental conditions and shared workplace routines. Green office practices therefore go beyond visible measures such as recycling bins, reduced printing or energy-efficient lighting. They show how environmental responsibility is organized in the daily functioning of work. Studies on green offices and workplace sustainability indicate that implementation depends not only on infrastructure or building characteristics, but also on employee awareness, organizational support, participation, communication and managerial reinforcement (Pasharibu et al., 2019; Adomßent et al., 2019; Parida et al., 2021; Mohd Razali et al., 2022; Srikolchan et al., 2025).

In this article, green office practices are understood as workplace-level environmental practices aimed at reducing the ecological footprint of office work and supporting more sustainable routines. They may include paper reduction, digital documentation, energy saving, responsible waste management, recycling, sustainable procurement, environmentally responsible use of office equipment, green meetings, sustainable mobility, indoor environmental quality improvements and employee participation in environmental initiatives. Their managerial significance lies in the way these practices connect organizational systems with employee behaviour. A green office is not simply a physical or technical workplace. It is a work environment in which formal policies, leadership signals, employee competencies, cultural expectations and everyday decisions interact.

The green office concept has developed from practical workplace greening initiatives into a broader organizational approach to sustainability in administrative and knowledge-work settings. Earlier applications tended to emphasize visible operational measures, such as paper reduction, recycling, energy saving or environmentally responsible procurement, whereas more recent research increasingly treats the green office as a socio-organizational setting in which physical workplace conditions, environmental management routines, employee participation and managerial support interact (Pasharibu et al., 2019; Adomßent et al., 2019; Parida et al., 2021; Mohd Razali et al., 2022; Srikolchan et al., 2025). This development is important for the present review because it distinguishes green office practices from the broader constructs that support them. Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour are therefore not treated as substitutes for green office research, but as mechanisms through which green office practices are implemented, sustained and translated into everyday work routines.

Environmental management systems provide one structural basis for this process. Research on environmental management systems and ISO 14001 (ISO, 2026) indicates that formal environmental policies, monitoring procedures, stakeholder engagement and organizational routines can support environmental performance, although implementation outcomes depend on how deeply these systems are embedded in managerial practice (Martín-de Castro et al., 2016; Boiral et al., 2018; Joy-Camacho & Thornhill, 2024). For green office research, this means that office-based environmental initiatives may remain symbolic or fragmented if they are not connected with systematic environmental management, clear responsibilities, feedback mechanisms and organizational learning. The managerial challenge is therefore not simply to introduce green practices, but to make them part of how the organization works.

Green human resource management is another key mechanism through which environmental goals are translated into workplace behaviour. It integrates environmental objectives into recruitment, training, performance management, employee involvement, reward systems and internal communication. Recent studies show that Green HRM can strengthen employee green behaviour, green organizational citizenship behaviour, organizational environmental performance and green organizational culture (Dumont et al., 2017; Tang et al., 2018; Roscoe et al., 2019; Paillé et al., 2020; Ababneh, 2021; Aboramadan, 2022; Hooi et al., 2022). This body of research is directly relevant to green office practices because many office-based sustainability outcomes depend on the knowledge, motivation and discretionary behaviour of employees rather than on formal policy alone.

Employee pro-environmental behaviour has therefore become a central construct in organizational sustainability research. It includes in-role and extra-role actions through which employees reduce environmental harm or support environmental objectives in the workplace. Such behaviour can involve saving energy, reducing paper use, separating waste, participating in green initiatives, encouraging colleagues, proposing improvements and supporting environmental norms. Recent reviews and meta-analytical evidence show that employee green behaviour is shaped by individual values, psychological climate, organizational identification, leadership, corporate social responsibility perceptions and human resource practices (Norton et al., 2017; Tian & Robertson, 2019; Francoeur et al., 2021; Katz et al., 2022; Tang et al., 2023; Zacher et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2024). Green office implementation therefore depends on behavioural mechanisms as much as on operational measures.

Leadership and organizational culture influence whether environmental expectations become stable workplace routines. Green or environmental leadership can communicate priorities, model responsible behaviour, support employee participation and legitimize environmental initiatives. Organizational culture can strengthen or weaken the translation of environmental values into everyday practice. Empirical studies have linked green transformational leadership, environmental leadership, green organizational climate, organizational identification and employee engagement with workplace green behaviour and broader sustainability outcomes (Afsar et al., 2018; Chen & Wu, 2022; Omarova & Jo, 2022; Li et al., 2023; Ahmad et al., 2023). These findings are important for administrative and office-based settings, where environmental responsibility is often enacted through small, repeated and socially influenced behaviours rather than through large technological interventions.

Despite the growing literature, the field remains conceptually fragmented. Studies on environmental management systems often focus on formal structures, standards and performance. Studies on green human resource management focus on people-management practices, employee engagement and organizational culture. Studies on employee pro-environmental behaviour focus on individual and social predictors of green action. Studies on sustainable workplaces and green offices often examine operational practices, green buildings, indoor environmental quality or employee perceptions. These research streams are closely related, but they are frequently examined separately. As a result, less is known about how green office practices function as an integrated element of sustainable organizational management, connecting environmental management, green human resource management, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour.

This gap is relevant for Administrative Sciences because it concerns how organizations design, govern and sustain environmental responsibility within everyday work systems. Green office practices are not only environmental practices; they also require coordination, communication, employee involvement, leadership support, human resource alignment and cultural reinforcement. A systematic review focused on this intersection can clarify how the literature conceptualizes green office practices, which organizational mechanisms support their implementation, how employees contribute to their effectiveness and what barriers limit their integration into sustainable organizational management.

Previous reviews have provided valuable syntheses of related research streams, but they do not fully address the specific workplace-level role of green office practices. Reviews of Green HRM have clarified how environmental objectives can be embedded in human resource systems, employee development and sustainable performance, while reviews and meta-analytical studies on employee green behaviour and workplace pro-environmental behaviour have explained behavioural predictors, motivational mechanisms, measurement issues and the development of this research stream (Amrutha & Geetha, 2020; Francoeur et al., 2021; Katz et al., 2022; Tanova & Bayighomog, 2022; Tang et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2024). These contributions are important, but their primary unit of synthesis is usually Green HRM, employee behaviour, environmental citizenship or workplace pro-environmental action rather than the green office as a concrete organizational setting. As a result, existing reviews offer only limited explanation of how environmental management, workplace routines, HRM practices, leadership, organizational culture and employee behaviour operate together in the implementation of green office practices. The present review addresses this limitation by positioning green office practices as the central workplace-level construct through which these related domains can be integrated within sustainable organizational management.

The fragmentation of the field is also visible in the review-level literature used to position this study. Two review-level sources primarily synthesize Green HRM as a people-management and sustainability-oriented research stream (Amrutha & Geetha, 2020; Tanova & Bayighomog, 2022), whereas four review-level or meta-analytical sources primarily synthesize employee green behaviour, workplace green behaviour, measurement issues or the development of employee-oriented pro-environmental behaviour research (Francoeur et al., 2021; Katz et al., 2022; Tang et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2024). These reviews provide important evidence, but they organize the field mainly around either HRM systems or employee behaviour. They do not use green office practices as the central integrative unit for connecting environmental management, workplace routines, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour. This pattern supports the interpretation of the field as fragmented and justifies the need for a review that positions the green office as the workplace-level point of integration.

Accordingly, the aim of this systematic review is to synthesize empirical evidence on green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management, with particular attention to environmental management, green human resource management, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour. The review focuses on peer-reviewed empirical studies published in English between 2014 and 2026 and uses qualitative thematic synthesis to integrate evidence from organizational, workplace, office-based, administrative, public-sector, private-sector and service-oriented contexts. Its contribution is to bring together research streams that are often examined separately and to explain green office practices as one way in which organizations translate environmental responsibility into everyday administrative work.

The review is guided by the following research questions:

• RQ1: How are green office practices conceptualized and implemented as part of sustainable organizational management?
• RQ2: Which organizational mechanisms support or constrain green office implementation, including environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture, workplace conditions and managerial support?
• RQ3: How does employee pro-environmental behaviour contribute to the enactment and effectiveness of green office practices in organizational and workplace settings?
• RQ4: How can green office practices be understood as an integrated socio-organizational system connecting environmental management, people-management practices, workplace routines, employee behaviour and sustainability-related outcomes?

To clarify how the included empirical studies inform the review questions, their contribution to each research question is summarized in

Table 1. Contribution of included studies to the research questions.

Study	Research Question(s) Addressed	Contribution to the Research Questions
Nieuwenhuis et al. (2014)	RQ1, RQ2, RQ4	Provides field-experimental evidence that green office space can influence satisfaction, perceived air quality and productivity, supporting the interpretation of green offices as workplace environments with organizational and behavioural relevance.
Blok et al. (2015)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Shows that workplace pro-environmental behaviour among university employees is shaped by both individual motivation and organizational conditions, contributing to the behavioural and contextual dimensions of the synthesis.
Pasharibu et al. (2019)	RQ1, RQ2	Identifies dimensions of green office implementation in government offices and highlights organizational support as a condition for translating green office concepts into public-sector practice.
Fawehinmi et al. (2020)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Examines the relationship between green human resource management, personal moral norms and employee green behaviour, contributing evidence on how people-management practices shape workplace environmental behaviour.
Saifulina et al. (2020)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Links sustainable and green human resource management with employee pro-environmental behaviour at work, supporting the role of human resource management as an organizational mechanism for environmental practice.
Xiao et al. (2020)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Shows that employee–organization fit, perceived insider status and green organizational climate influence voluntary green behaviour, contributing to the cultural and climate-related explanation of employee behaviour.
Parida et al. (2021)	RQ1, RQ2, RQ4	Connects green office buildings with green human resource management and green behaviours, providing evidence that physical workplace conditions and human resource systems should be interpreted together.
Zhu et al. (2021)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Demonstrates that green human resource management influences employee green behaviour through environmental belief and green organizational identity, strengthening the explanatory role of identity and belief mechanisms.
Mansoor et al. (2021)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Shows that green transformational leadership and management initiatives stimulate employees’ green creativity, contributing to the leadership and managerial-support dimension of green workplace practices.
Ribeiro et al. (2022)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Shows that green human resource management promotes employees’ eco-friendly behaviour through organizational identification, supporting the role of identification as a behavioural mechanism.
Omarova and Jo (2022)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Examines the impact of environmental transformational leadership and green human resource management on employee pro-environmental behaviour, contributing evidence on the combined influence of leadership and human resource practices.
Chen and Wu (2022)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Shows that green human resource management and green transformational leadership jointly facilitate employee green behaviour, supporting the integrated leadership–human resource management interpretation.
Khan et al. (2022)	RQ2, RQ3	Identifies antecedents of employee green behaviour in the hospitality sector, contributing evidence on individual and organizational predictors of workplace environmental behaviour.
Mohd Razali et al. (2022)	RQ1, RQ2	Examines the green office concept among employees in government organizations and shows the importance of employee awareness and acceptance for implementation.
Li et al. (2023)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Examines the relationship between green human resource management practices and employee green in-role behaviour, with spiritual leadership as a moderator, strengthening the leadership and human resource management perspective.
Ahmad et al. (2023)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Models workplace pro-environmental behaviour through green human resource management and organizational culture, contributing directly to the organizational-culture and behavioural mechanisms of the review.
Tandon et al. (2023)	RQ2, RQ4	Examines green and non-green outcomes of green human resource management in tourism, contributing evidence on broader organizational outcomes and sectoral conditions.
Rasheed and Rotimi (2024)	RQ1, RQ2, RQ4	Examines workers’ perceptions of indoor environmental quality in green office environments, supporting the inclusion of workplace conditions in the interpretation of green office practices.
Alherimi et al. (2024)	RQ2, RQ3	Provides case-based evidence on employee pro-environmental behaviour in an organizational context, contributing to the analysis of behavioural drivers and contextual conditions.
Carbone et al. (2024)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Explores green workplace behaviours and the role employees can play in sustainability, contributing to the interpretation of employees as active agents of green workplace practice.
Bangwal et al. (2025)	RQ2, RQ3, RQ4	Examines green human resource management, employee pro-environmental behaviour and environmental commitment, contributing evidence on commitment as a mechanism linking human resource practices and behaviour.
Srikolchan et al. (2025)	RQ1, RQ2, RQ4	Examines factors influencing participation and engagement in green office operation, emphasizing training, communication, collaboration and recognition as implementation mechanisms.

Note: RQ = research question. The table summarizes the contribution of each included empirical study to the research questions.

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2. Theoretical Framework

This theoretical framework defines the concepts that structure the review and explains why they are relevant for understanding green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management. The green office is not treated here as a purely technical or environmental topic. It is examined as part of a broader organizational setting in which environmental management, human resource management, leadership, organizational culture, employee engagement and employee pro-environmental behaviour interact. This orientation is important for Administrative Sciences because the article focuses on how organizations make environmental responsibility visible through strategy, governance, managerial practices, people-management systems and everyday workplace behaviour.

2.1. Sustainable Organizational Management

Sustainable organizational management is understood here as the integration of environmental, social and economic considerations into organizational strategy, governance, operations and everyday work routines. In this perspective, sustainability is not an additional activity placed beside ordinary management, but a managerial orientation that influences decision-making, performance expectations, employee participation and organizational culture. Studies on organizational sustainability and green human resource management show that sustainability-oriented organizations increasingly rely on intangible organizational capabilities, including green intellectual capital, green innovation, environmental culture, employee engagement and pro-environmental behaviour (Malik et al., 2020; Al Doghan et al., 2022; Legese et al., 2026; Pillai & Joseph, 2026).

This understanding is directly relevant to green office practices. Office-based sustainability is often visible through operational measures such as reducing paper use, saving energy, recycling, limiting unnecessary travel, or improving workplace environmental quality. However, these measures become organizationally meaningful only when they are connected with management systems, employee involvement, and organizational values. Studies on employee engagement and sustainability show that sustainability initiatives can influence employees when they are perceived as relevant, credible, and connected with organizational purpose (Opoku-Dakwa et al., 2018; Pillai & Joseph, 2026). Similarly, green organizational culture and green human resource management have been linked with environmental sustainability and performance, which suggests that sustainability depends not only on formal policies but also on organizational capabilities and behavioural alignment (Ahmad et al., 2023; Al Doghan et al., 2022; Legese et al., 2026).

A sustainable organizational management perspective provides the conceptual bridge between environmental goals and organizational practice. It makes it possible to interpret green office practices as part of a wider management approach rather than as isolated technical interventions. This is consistent with studies emphasizing pathways towards sustainability in organizations through green human resource management practices, green intellectual capital, green innovation and green organizational culture (Malik et al., 2020; Yong et al., 2020; Roscoe et al., 2019; Legese et al., 2026). It also supports the view that leadership and employees are central to implementation, especially in workplace contexts where environmental outcomes depend on repeated individual and collective actions (Yuan & Li, 2022; Zacher et al., 2023).

2.2. Environmental Management in Organizations

Environmental management in organizations involves the planning, implementation, monitoring and improvement of practices that reduce the environmental impact of organizational activities. It covers environmental policies, environmental management systems, resource efficiency, waste management, energy management, sustainable procurement, environmental performance monitoring, stakeholder engagement and continuous improvement. Environmental management systems give organizations a formal structure for translating broad sustainability intentions into documented procedures and measurable practices.

The literature on environmental management systems, especially ISO 14001 and ISO 14000, shows that formal environmental management can support organizational learning, environmental performance, and stakeholder-oriented environmental policy. Boiral et al. (2018) reviewed the adoption and outcomes of ISO 14001, while Martín-de Castro et al. (2016) connected environmental management systems and firm performance with stakeholder engagement. Ferrón-Vílchez (2016) examined the symbolic dimension of ISO 14001 adoption and its relationship with environmental and business performance, which is important because formal certification may function either as a substantive management tool or as symbolic signalling. More recent literature also draws attention to the practical conditions and limitations of environmental management system implementation, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises and in relation to soft organizational dimensions (Joy-Camacho & Thornhill, 2024; Ali et al., 2025).

For the present review, environmental management is important because green office practices represent one of the everyday organizational spaces in which environmental management becomes visible. Policies on energy efficiency, printing, recycling, procurement, waste reduction, digital documentation, meetings, commuting, and office use require organizational coordination and employee participation. Environmental management systems may provide the formal structure, but their effectiveness depends on how they are enacted through organizational routines and employee behaviour. This is why environmental management should be analyzed together with Green HRM, leadership, and pro-environmental behaviour rather than as a purely procedural or compliance-based system (Paillé et al., 2020; Roscoe et al., 2019; Wesselink et al., 2017).

2.3. Green Office Practices

In office-based organizations, environmental responsibility becomes visible through practices such as reducing paper consumption, using digital documentation, saving energy, switching off equipment, improving recycling and waste separation, using sustainable procurement criteria, reducing single-use materials, organizing green meetings, limiting unnecessary travel, encouraging sustainable mobility and improving the environmental quality of the office environment. These practices are operational, but they are also managerial and behavioural: they involve material resources and workplace infrastructure, while depending on employee awareness, participation, communication and management support.

Research on green offices and sustainable workplaces has emphasized that workplace sustainability is shaped by both physical and behavioural dimensions. Pasharibu et al. (2019) examined dimensions of the green office in government offices, while Mohd Razali et al. (2022) studied the green office concept among employees in government organizations. Srikolchan et al. (2025) focused on participation and engagement in green office operation, showing the importance of involvement, communication, and organizational participation. Parida et al. (2021) connected green office buildings with sustainability and Green HRM, which is particularly relevant for this article because it links the built workplace with people-management practices and employee green behaviour.

Over the last decade, green office research has gradually moved from a predominantly operational understanding of office greening towards a more integrated view of workplace sustainability. Studies directly addressing green offices have examined public-sector offices, government organizations, higher-education settings, green office buildings and employee participation in green office operation (Pasharibu et al., 2019; Adomßent et al., 2019; Parida et al., 2021; Mohd Razali et al., 2022; Srikolchan et al., 2025). Although this literature is still smaller than the broader research streams on Green HRM and employee green behaviour, it provides the conceptual core of the present review. It shows that green office implementation depends on the alignment between workplace infrastructure, environmental routines, employee awareness, communication, participation and organizational support. For this reason, the present review uses the green office as the central workplace-level construct and interprets Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour as enabling and behavioural dimensions of green office implementation.

The sustainable workplace literature also shows that office sustainability is not limited to certified buildings or environmental technologies. Adomßent et al. (2019) presented the Green Office Model in the context of sustainable campuses and emphasized the empowerment of students, staff, and academics. Brazdauskas and Žirnelė (2020) approached sustainable offices from the perspective of employee engagement, while Bulińska-Stangrecka and Bagieńska (2021) discussed culture-based green workplace practices as a means of conserving energy and natural resources. Charisi et al. (2025) reviewed the role of green spaces, nature-based activities, creativity, and employee well-being, which further supports the view that green workplaces influence not only environmental outcomes but also human and organizational experiences. Taken together, these studies support an interpretation of green office practices as workplace-level expressions of sustainable organizational management.

2.4. Green Human Resource Management

Green human resource management integrates environmental objectives into human resource management policies and practices. It includes green recruitment and selection, green onboarding, environmental training, employee development, green performance management, green rewards, employee involvement, internal communication and the development of environmental competencies. Green HRM is conceptually important because it links environmental management with the management of people and explains how environmental expectations can become embedded in employee knowledge, motivation, roles and everyday workplace behaviour.

Several studies have contributed to the development of Green HRM as a distinct field. Tang et al. (2018) developed and validated a scale for Green HRM practices, providing a basis for more systematic empirical work. Amrutha and Geetha (2020) reviewed Green HRM in relation to social sustainability, while Tanova and Bayighomog (2022) examined the construct, antecedents, consequences, and outlook of Green HRM in service industries. Mousa and Othman (2020) proposed a conceptual framework linking Green HRM practices with sustainable performance in healthcare organizations. These contributions show that Green HRM has moved beyond a narrow environmental agenda and now connects environmental objectives with organizational sustainability, employee development, and sector-specific management challenges.

Empirical studies indicate that Green HRM practices are associated with employee green behaviour, environmental performance, green culture, and sustainability-oriented outcomes. Dumont et al. (2017) linked Green HRM practices with employee workplace green behaviour through psychological green climate and employee green values. Pellegrini et al. (2018) analyzed sustainable human resource practices and employee behaviour for corporate sustainability. Roscoe et al. (2019) connected Green HRM with green organizational culture and environmental performance, while Yong et al. (2020) examined pathways towards sustainability in manufacturing organizations through Green HRM. Paillé et al. (2020) further emphasized the potential of green human resource practices to support environmental sustainability.

Recent studies deepen this behavioural interpretation of Green HRM. Ababneh (2021) examined how Green HRM practices affect employees’ green behaviours with attention to employee engagement and personality attributes. Aboramadan (2022) investigated Green HRM and employee green behaviour in higher education through green work engagement. Chreif and Farmanesh (2022) examined green human resource practices in relation to a sustainable workplace, while Hooi et al. (2022) considered green organizational citizenship behaviour together with green culture and green values. Saifulina et al. (2020), Li et al. (2023), and Chen and Wu (2022) further connect Green HRM with employee pro-environmental behaviour, leadership, and in-role green behaviour. For the present review, this literature is central because green office practices cannot be institutionalized without people-management mechanisms that encourage, support, and reinforce environmentally responsible workplace behaviour.

2.5. Employee Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Employee pro-environmental behaviour refers to work-related behaviour that contributes to reducing the environmental impact of organizational activity. It includes saving energy, reducing unnecessary printing, separating waste, using digital tools responsibly, supporting green initiatives, following sustainable office procedures, encouraging colleagues, and participating in environmental improvement activities. This behaviour may be required as part of formal job tasks or may be voluntary and extra-role. In office-based organizations, employee pro-environmental behaviour is especially important because many environmental outcomes depend on small, repeated decisions embedded in everyday routines.

The literature has developed a substantial conceptual and empirical basis for understanding employee green behaviour. Norton et al. (2017) addressed the gap between green behavioural intentions and employee green behaviour by highlighting the role of green psychological climate. Francoeur et al. (2021) reviewed the measurement of green workplace behaviours, while Katz et al. (2022) provided meta-analytic evidence on employee green behaviour. Tang et al. (2023) reviewed employee green behaviour and offered recommendations for future research, and Zhang et al. (2024) used bibliometric-content analysis to examine the development of this research stream. Zacher et al. (2023) positioned employee green behaviour as the core of environmentally sustainable organizations, which is directly aligned with the present review’s focus on employees as active agents of sustainable organizational management.

A related stream of research links pro-environmental behaviour with leadership, motivation, organizational identification, psychological climate, and corporate social responsibility. Afsar et al. (2016) connected spiritual leadership, workplace spirituality, intrinsic motivation, and environmental passion with employee pro-environmental behaviour. Afsar et al. (2018) examined corporate social responsibility, organizational identification, and environmentally specific servant leadership as factors activating pro-environmental behaviour. Tian and Robertson (2019) addressed how perceived corporate social responsibility can encourage voluntary pro-environmental behaviour, while Yuan and Li (2022) examined environmentally specific servant leadership using the proactive motivation model. These studies show that employee pro-environmental behaviour is not only a matter of individual ecological concern; it is shaped by leadership, identification, motivation, and organizational signals.

Other empirical contributions emphasize the organizational context of employee green behaviour. Wesselink et al. (2017) examined workplace pro-environmental behaviour and the role of managers and organization. Kim et al. (2016) analyzed determinants of hospitality employees’ pro-environmental behaviours and generational differences. Omarova and Jo (2022) connected employee pro-environmental behaviour with environmental transformational leadership and Green HRM. Alherimi et al. (2024) studied employees’ pro-environmental behaviour in an organizational case study, while Carbone et al. (2024) asked whether employees can make a difference through green workplace behaviours. Zafar and Suseno (2024) examined the effects of Green HRM practices, green psychological climate, and organizational pride on voluntary pro-environmental behaviour. Yuriev et al. (2020) reviewed pro-environmental behaviours through the theory of planned behaviour, and Unsworth et al. (2021) emphasized how organizations can help the environment through employee green behaviour. This literature supports the present article’s view that green office practices depend on organizationally enabled behaviour rather than on formal policy alone.

Overall, the theoretical framework shows that green office practices are located at the intersection of sustainable organizational management, environmental management systems, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture, and employee pro-environmental behaviour. Environmental management provides the formal and procedural basis for organizational environmental responsibility; Green HRM translates environmental objectives into people-management practices; leadership and culture provide direction, legitimacy, and social support; and employees enact sustainability through everyday workplace behaviour. This integrated view is necessary for understanding green office practices as a socio-organizational component of sustainable organizational management rather than as a narrow set of operational environmental measures.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Research Design

This study adopts a systematic literature review with qualitative thematic synthesis. It was designed to synthesize empirical evidence on green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management, with particular attention to environmental management, green human resource management (Green HRM), leadership, organizational culture, and employee pro-environmental behaviour. The review was conducted and reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 statement (Page et al., 2021) to ensure transparency in the identification, screening, eligibility assessment, inclusion and reporting of studies. The PRISMA reporting elements relevant to the article are summarized in

Table 2. An operational overview of the PRISMA-based review procedure reported in the main manuscript.

PRISMA-Related Element	Operational Description Included in the Main Manuscript
Eligibility criteria	The main text specifies that eligible studies had to be peer-reviewed original empirical articles, published in English between 2014 and 2026, available in full text and relevant to at least one central review domain. Organizational or workplace relevance was required and is operationalized in Section 3.3 through indicators such as office-based, administrative, service-oriented, public-sector, private-sector, higher-education or broader work-related context; managerial, HRM, leadership, organizational-culture or employee-behaviour perspective; and empirical evidence on workplace-level environmental practices or sustainable organizational management.
Databases and supplementary sources	The main searches were conducted in Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus. Supplementary searches were conducted in ScienceDirect, Emerald Insight, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis Online and the MDPI database. Google Scholar was used only as a supplementary checking source. All sources were screened against the same eligibility criteria, and the database-specific strings are presented in Table 3.
Boolean search logic	The main text includes the Boolean logic used across databases: green office or green workplace terms were combined with environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture and employee green behaviour or employee pro-environmental behaviour terms, together with organizational, workplace, office-based, administrative and employee-related terms. The exact syntax was adapted to each database, while the conceptual search structure remained consistent.
Screening and deduplication	All retrieved records were entered into a structured screening table. Duplicate records were removed before screening by comparing titles, authors, publication years, journal names and DOIs. Title and abstract screening then removed clearly irrelevant records, while potentially relevant, ambiguous or borderline records were retained for full-text eligibility assessment to reduce the risk of premature exclusion.
Full-text eligibility and exclusions	Full-text reports were assessed against operational criteria covering original empirical design, English-language publication, publication period, full-text availability, organizational or workplace relevance, methodological transparency and substantive relevance to the review questions. The exclusion categories used in the review were: review, conceptual or theoretical paper; no organizational, managerial, HRM, leadership or employee-behaviour perspective; technical building, architecture, energy or engineering focus only; no substantive focus on the review topic; insufficient empirical data for extraction and synthesis; and duplicate or overlapping full-text version.
Data extraction	The main text specifies the data-extraction fields: author(s), year of publication, country or region, methodology, sample or data source, organizational or workplace context, research focus, key constructs, key findings and relevance to the review questions. These fields were used to create the study-characteristics table and to support the thematic synthesis.
Quality appraisal	The main text reports the six-criterion, MMAT-informed quality-appraisal framework. Each study was assessed for clarity of research aim, appropriateness of empirical methodology, description of sample or data source, explanation of data-collection and data-analysis procedures, clarity of findings, and thematic relevance. Ratings distinguished between adequate, partially adequate and insufficient reporting.
Synthesis	Because the included studies were methodologically and conceptually heterogeneous, findings were synthesized qualitatively through structured extraction, deductive and inductive coding, thematic grouping and interpretive comparison. The main text explains that the review did not use statistical pooling or meta-analysis and that risk of bias was addressed through appraisal of methodological transparency, reporting quality, design heterogeneity and cautious interpretation of findings.

, and the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram is presented in the main manuscript as Figure 1. The review was not registered in a public systematic review register, and no separate publicly registered protocol was prepared. However, the review procedure was documented through predefined research questions, eligibility criteria, search sources, screening rules, extraction fields, quality-appraisal criteria and qualitative thematic-synthesis procedures, as reported in Section 3.1, Section 3.2, Section 3.3, Section 3.4, Section 3.5, Section 3.6 and Section 3.7, Table 1, Table 2,

Table 3. Selected databases and search strategy.

Database	Search Formula
Web of Science Core Collection	Topic field: (“green office” OR “green office practices” OR “green workplace” OR “sustainable workplace” OR “workplace sustainability”) AND (“environmental management” OR “organizational sustainability” OR “sustainable organizational management”) AND (“green human resource management” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee green behavior” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behavior” OR “green leadership” OR “green organizational culture”)
Scopus	Title, abstract and keywords: (“green office” OR “green office practices” OR “green workplace” OR “sustainable workplace” OR “workplace sustainability”) AND (“environmental management” OR “organizational sustainability” OR “sustainable organizational management”) AND (“green human resource management” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee green behavior” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behavior” OR “green leadership” OR “green organizational culture”)
ScienceDirect	Title, abstract or keywords: (“green office” OR “green office practices” OR “green workplace” OR “sustainable workplace” OR “workplace sustainability”) AND (“environmental management” OR “organizational sustainability” OR “sustainable organizational management”) AND (“green human resource management” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee green behavior” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behavior” OR “green leadership” OR “green organizational culture”)
Emerald Insight	Advanced search, all fields: (“green office” OR “green office practices” OR “green workplace” OR “sustainable workplace” OR “workplace sustainability”) AND (“environmental management” OR “organizational sustainability” OR “sustainable organizational management”) AND (“green human resource management” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee green behavior” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behavior” OR “green leadership” OR “green organizational culture”)
SpringerLink	Advanced search: (“green office” OR “green office practices” OR “green workplace” OR “sustainable workplace” OR “workplace sustainability”) AND (“environmental management” OR “organizational sustainability” OR “sustainable organizational management”) AND (“green human resource management” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee green behavior” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behavior” OR “green leadership” OR “green organizational culture”)
Taylor and Francis Online	Advanced search: (“green office” OR “green office practices” OR “green workplace” OR “sustainable workplace” OR “workplace sustainability”) AND (“environmental management” OR “organizational sustainability” OR “sustainable organizational management”) AND (“green human resource management” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee green behavior” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behavior” OR “green leadership” OR “green organizational culture”)
MDPI database	Title, abstract and keywords: (“green office” OR “green office practices” OR “green workplace” OR “sustainable workplace” OR “workplace sustainability”) AND (“environmental management” OR “organizational sustainability” OR “sustainable organizational management”) AND (“green human resource management” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee green behavior” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behavior” OR “green leadership” OR “green organizational culture”)

Note: Searches were limited to peer-reviewed original empirical articles published in English from 2014 to 2026. Search strings were adapted to the search fields and syntax of each database while preserving the same conceptual logic.

,

Table 4. Eligibility criteria applied during title/abstract screening and full-text assessment.

Inclusion Criteria	Exclusion Criteria
Peer-reviewed original scientific articles.	Review articles, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, editorials, commentaries, opinion papers, books, book chapters, conference papers, protocols, reports, theses, dissertations and non-peer-reviewed publications.
Quantitative, qualitative or mixed-method empirical studies with a clearly described aim, methodology, sample or data source and reported findings.	Purely theoretical, conceptual, argumentative or descriptive papers without original empirical data.
Full text published in English.	Full text published in languages other than English.
Studies published from 2014 to 2026.	Studies published before 2014 or after 2026.
Full-text articles publicly available through open access, publisher websites, institutional repositories or other publicly accessible academic sources.	Articles without publicly accessible full text.
Studies addressing green office practices, green workplace practices, sustainable office environments, workplace sustainability or sustainable workplace practices.	Studies with no substantive focus on green office practices, green workplace practices, sustainable office environments, workplace sustainability or sustainable workplace practices.
Studies examining environmental management, environmental performance, organizational environmental management, corporate sustainability or sustainable organizational management in organizational or workplace settings.	Studies addressing environmental policy, national sustainability, macroeconomic sustainability, urban sustainability or industry-level sustainability without a clear organizational or workplace-level focus.
Studies examining green human resource management, sustainable human resource management, green training, employee involvement, green leadership, environmental leadership, organizational culture, managerial support or employee engagement in relation to environmental sustainability.	Studies addressing human resource management, leadership, organizational culture, managerial support or employee engagement without a clear environmental or sustainability-related dimension.
Studies examining employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, workplace pro-environmental behaviour, environmental citizenship behaviour, employee environmental awareness or employee participation in green workplace initiatives.	Studies focusing only on consumers, households, students as a general population, citizens or the general public without an organizational or workplace context.
Studies situated in office-based, administrative, service-oriented, public-sector, private-sector, higher-education or broader organizational workplace contexts.	Studies focusing exclusively on architecture, construction, building technology, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality or engineering solutions without a clear organizational, managerial, workplace or employee-related dimension.
Studies not explicitly using the term green office but providing empirically relevant evidence on green workplace practices, employee environmental behaviour, green human resource management, leadership, organizational culture or organizational sustainability.	Records with insufficient methodological or substantive information to allow data extraction and thematic synthesis.
Where duplicate versions of the same study were identified, the most complete and methodologically informative version was retained.	Duplicate or overlapping records; where duplicate versions existed, less complete versions were excluded.

Note: The same criteria were applied during title and abstract screening and full-text eligibility assessment.

,

Table 5. Overview of included study characteristics.

Study	Region	Year	Method	Sample/Data Source	Key Variables/Research Focus	Key Findings
Nieuwenhuis et al.	United Kingdom/The Netherlands	2014	Three field experiments	Office workers in real workplace settings	Green versus lean office space; plants; productivity; satisfaction	Green office space was associated with higher workplace satisfaction, perceived air quality, and productivity.
Blok et al.	The Netherlands	2015	Survey research	University employees	Workplace sustainability; pro-environmental behaviour; organizational context	Employee pro-environmental behaviour was shaped by individual motivation and workplace conditions.
Pasharibu et al.	Indonesia	2019	Quantitative survey	Employees in regency/city government offices	Green office dimensions; public offices; organizational implementation	Green office implementation depended on relevant dimensions of practice and organizational support.
Fawehinmi et al.	Malaysia	2020	Quantitative survey; structural equation modelling	Employees in Malaysian organizations	Green human resource management; employee green behaviour; personal moral norms	Green human resource management and personal moral norms were associated with employee green behaviour.
Saifulina et al.	Spain	2020	Empirical quantitative study	Employees in organizational settings	Sustainable human resource management; green human resource management; pro-environmental behaviour	Green human resource management influenced workplace pro-environmental behaviour.
Xiao et al.	China	2020	Cross-level quantitative model	Employees and organizational units	Employee–organization fit; voluntary green behaviour; green organizational climate	Green organizational climate strengthened the relationship between fit and voluntary green behaviour.
Parida et al.	India	2021	Empirical quantitative study	Green office building context	Green office buildings; green human resource management; employee outcomes; sustainability	Green office buildings and green human resource management were linked to employee-related sustainability outcomes.
Zhu et al.	China	2021	Quantitative survey; structural equation modelling	Employees in Chinese organizations	Green human resource management; employee green behaviour; environmental belief; green organizational identity	Green human resource management influenced employee green behaviour through environmental belief and green organizational identity.
Mansoor et al.	Pakistan/organizational context	2021	Quantitative empirical study	Employees in organizations	Green transformational leadership; management initiatives; green creativity	Leadership and management initiatives stimulated green creativity and supported environmental performance.
Ribeiro et al.	Portugal	2022	Quantitative survey; mediation analysis	Employees in organizational settings	Green human resource management; eco-friendly behaviour; organizational identification	Green human resource management promoted eco-friendly behaviour through organizational identification.
Omarova and Jo	Kazakhstan	2022	Cross-sectional online survey; structural equation modelling	Employees from private and public organizations	Environmental transformational leadership; green human resource management; employee pro-environmental behaviour	Environmental transformational leadership affected employee pro-environmental behaviour; green human resource management acted as an organizational mechanism.
Chen and Wu	China	2022	Quantitative survey; structural equation modelling	Employees in organizations	Green human resource management; green transformational leadership; employee green behaviour	Green human resource management and green transformational leadership jointly facilitated employee green behaviour.
Khan et al.	Hospitality sector	2022	Quantitative empirical study	Hospitality employees	Antecedents of employee green behaviour; organizational support; environmental values	Organizational and individual antecedents predicted employee green behaviour.
Mohd Razali et al.	Malaysia	2022	Survey study	Employees in government organizations	Green office concept; employee awareness; government organizations	Employee awareness and acceptance were important for implementing the green office concept.
Li et al.	China	2023	Quantitative survey; moderation model	Employees after the COVID-19 pandemic	Green human resource management; in-role green behaviour; spiritual leadership	Green human resource management was linked to in-role green behaviour, with leadership strengthening the relationship.
Ahmad et al.	Organizational workplace context	2023	Quantitative empirical modelling	Employees in organizations	Workplace pro-environmental behaviour; green human resource management; organizational support	Green human resource management and organizational support contributed to workplace pro-environmental behaviour.
Tandon et al.	Tourism context	2023	Empirical quantitative study	Tourism-sector employees/organizations	Green human resource management; green and non-green outcomes	Green human resource management influenced environmental and broader organizational outcomes.
Rasheed and Rotimi	New Zealand	2024	Empirical perception study	Workers in green office environments	Green office environment; indoor environmental quality; worker perception	Indoor environmental quality emerged as an important component of worker perception in green office environments.
Alherimi et al.	United Arab Emirates	2024	Case study; quantitative empirical research	Employees in an organization	Employee pro-environmental behaviour; organizational context	Organizational context was relevant for understanding employee pro-environmental behaviour.
Carbone et al.	Italy	2024	Empirical quantitative study	Employees in workplace settings	Green workplace behaviours; employee contribution; organizational antecedents	Employees contributed to green workplace behaviours when organizational conditions supported such practices.
Bangwal et al.	India	2025	Quantitative empirical study	Employees in organizational settings	Green human resource management; employee pro-environmental behaviour; environmental commitment	Green human resource management and environmental commitment were associated with employee pro-environmental behaviour.
Srikolchan et al.	Thailand	2026	Quantitative survey	Faculty members, operational staff, and students	Participation and engagement in green office operation	Training, communication, collaboration, and recognition influenced participation and engagement in green office operation.

Note: This table summarizes the empirical studies included in the qualitative thematic synthesis.

and

Table 6. The thematic categories and coding framework derived from the analysis of the included studies.

No.	Thematic Category	Coding Focus	Codes and Subcodes Identified in the Analysis	Descriptive Role in the Synthesis
1	Sustainable organizational management and environmental governance	Formal organizational systems and managerial processes through which environmental goals are embedded in organizational strategy and everyday work.	Environmental management systems; corporate environmental policy; sustainable organizational management; environmental governance; environmental performance monitoring; accountability; resource efficiency; sustainability-oriented work routines; strategic alignment; policy-to-practice translation (n = 10).	This category positions green office practices within the broader field of administrative and organizational sciences. It shows how environmental intentions become part of management systems, governance routines and organizational decision-making rather than remaining isolated ecological measures.
2	Green office practices and workplace sustainability	Concrete office-level practices and operational routines that reduce the environmental footprint of everyday work.	Green office implementation; paper reduction and digitalization; energy saving; waste separation and recycling; sustainable procurement; sustainable office environment; green workplace routines; green office operation; office resource use; employee participation in office practices (n = 10).	This category captures the practical expression of sustainable organizational management in office-based and administrative work settings. It explains how sustainability is translated into visible, repeated and manageable workplace practices.
3	Green human resource management	People-management practices that support environmental goals, employee competencies and participation in green workplace behaviour.	Green recruitment and selection; green training and development; green performance management; green rewards and recognition; employee involvement; environmental competencies; internal communication; green human resource management systems; sustainable human resource management; human resource support for environmental practices (n = 10).	This category connects environmental management with human resource management. It is central for interpreting green office practices as a managerial and behavioural issue, because human resource systems can institutionalize environmental expectations, skills and motivation among employees.
4	Green leadership, managerial support and organizational culture	Leadership, supervisory support and cultural conditions that enable or constrain employee engagement in workplace sustainability.	Green transformational leadership; environmental leadership; sustainable leadership; supervisory support; managerial initiatives; role modelling; green organizational climate; green organizational identity; green organizational culture; recognition; coworker advocacy; trust and commitment (n = 12).	This category reflects the relevance of leadership, organizational behaviour and managerial processes to Administrative Sciences. It shows that green office practices require visible leadership, supportive culture and credible managerial communication to become stable organizational routines.
5	Employee green behaviour and pro-environmental workplace behaviour	Individual and collective employee behaviours through which environmental policies are enacted in daily work.	Employee green behaviour; employee pro-environmental behaviour; in-role green behaviour; extra-role or voluntary green behaviour; environmental citizenship behaviour; eco-friendly behaviour; behavioural intention; environmental awareness; personal moral norms; environmental beliefs; organizational identification; employee engagement (n = 12).	This category explains employees as active agents of organizational sustainability. It provides the behavioural mechanism through which formal environmental management, green human resource management and leadership are converted into everyday sustainable workplace action.
6	Workplace design, green buildings and indoor environmental quality	Physical and environmental characteristics of the workplace that shape employee experience, perceptions and sustainability-related behaviour.	Green office buildings; indoor environmental quality; green versus lean office space; plants; perceived air quality; lighting; ventilation; workplace comfort; employee well-being; workplace health; productivity; cognitive function; worker perceptions (n = 13).	This category prevents a purely behavioural or policy-based interpretation by showing that green office practices are also embedded in the physical work environment. For the synthesis, it clarifies how workspace design interacts with management, employee well-being and organizational performance.
7	Implementation drivers and barriers	Organizational conditions that facilitate or hinder the adoption, continuity and effectiveness of green office practices.	Training; communication; collaboration; recognition; participation opportunities; employee awareness; institutional support; leadership continuity; resource limitations; unclear responsibilities; sectoral differences; measurement inconsistency; fragmented evidence; implementation consistency (n = 14).	This category supports a critical interpretation of the evidence. It explains why green office practices may not produce uniform outcomes across organizations and why implementation depends on managerial capacity, employee involvement, organizational context and evaluation mechanisms.
8	Organizational sustainability outcomes and strategic value	Environmental, social and organizational outcomes associated with green office practices and employee-oriented sustainability mechanisms.	Environmental performance; resource reduction; green creativity; employee well-being; productivity; organizational reputation; sustainability culture; competitive advantage; stakeholder legitimacy; contribution to sustainability goals; long-term sustainable management (n = 11).	This category links the review findings to the strategic contribution expected in Administrative Sciences. It shows that green office practices have value beyond operational resource saving because they can support organizational legitimacy, employee engagement, performance and sustainable management.

Note: n indicates the number of codes and subcodes identified within each thematic category. It does not represent the number of studies, as a single study could contribute to several thematic categories.

and Figure 1.

All tables and the PRISMA flow diagram that document the review procedure and synthesis are placed in the main manuscript. Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5 and Table 6 and Figure 1 are therefore part of the article text and provide the main source for assessing the transparency, traceability and reproducibility of the review procedure.

To make the review procedure fully auditable, the manuscript identifies the exact location of each main methodological component in the article text. The review questions are stated at the end of the Introduction and mapped to the included studies in Table 1. The PRISMA-based methodological audit map is presented in Table 2. The search sources and search strategy are reported in Section 3.2 and Table 3, while the inclusion and exclusion criteria are specified in Section 3.3 and Table 4. The screening rules, retrieval decisions, full-text eligibility decisions and exclusion categories are described in Section 3.4, Section 3.5 and Section 4.1, and the numerical selection pathway is presented in Figure 1. The data-extraction fields are described in Section 3.4 and reflected in the study-characteristics table in Table 5. The quality-appraisal criteria and their application are reported in Section 3.6 and summarized in the PRISMA audit map in Table 2, while the qualitative thematic-synthesis procedure is explained in Section 3.7 and summarized in the coding framework in Table 6. This arrangement enables the reader to trace the review from research-question formulation and search execution to screening, full-text eligibility assessment, data extraction, quality appraisal and thematic synthesis within the main manuscript.

Operationally, the PRISMA 2020 procedure was implemented as a sequence of auditable decisions rather than as a retrospective reporting device. In the identification stage, records were retrieved from the databases and supplementary sources specified in Section 3.2 and entered into a structured screening table. Before screening, duplicate records were removed by comparing titles, authors, publication years, journal names and DOIs. In the screening stage, titles and abstracts were assessed against the predefined criteria in Section 3.3. Records that were clearly outside the scope were excluded, whereas potentially relevant, ambiguous or borderline records were retained for full-text assessment.

In the eligibility stage, each full-text report was assessed against the same operational criteria: original empirical design; English-language publication; publication period 2014–2026; full-text availability; organizational or workplace relevance; methodological transparency; and substantive relevance to at least one review domain. Exclusions were recorded using predefined categories: review, conceptual or theoretical paper; no organizational, managerial, HRM, leadership or employee-behaviour perspective; technical building, architecture, energy or engineering focus only; no substantive focus on the review topic; insufficient empirical data for extraction and synthesis; and duplicate or overlapping full-text version. Studies meeting all criteria were included in structured data extraction, six-criterion quality appraisal and qualitative thematic synthesis.

To ensure that the review can be assessed directly from the main article, the key PRISMA elements are reported in the main manuscript. Section 3 reports the eligibility criteria, databases, Boolean search logic, screening and deduplication procedure, full-text exclusion logic, extraction fields, quality-appraisal approach and synthesis procedure. Table 2 provides a main-text audit map of these elements, and Figure 1 presents the PRISMA flow diagram.

A systematic literature review design was selected because the research field is interdisciplinary and includes studies from management, organizational behaviour, environmental management, human resource management, sustainability, public administration, workplace studies, and employee behaviour. Qualitative thematic synthesis was used because the included studies differ in research design, organizational context, sample characteristics, variables, measurement instruments, and outcome indicators. Consequently, the purpose of the review was not to statistically aggregate effect sizes, but to identify recurring concepts, relationships, implementation mechanisms, and contextual conditions relevant to green office practices.

The unit of analysis was the peer-reviewed original empirical article. The review focused on studies that provide empirical evidence on green office practices, workplace sustainability, environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture, employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, or sustainable organizational management in organizational and workplace settings. This design is appropriate for the aim of the article because it enables an integrative interpretation of green office practices as socio-organizational practices rather than as isolated operational or technical measures.

3.2. Search Strategy

The literature search was designed to identify peer-reviewed original empirical studies addressing green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management. The search focused on the intersection between environmental management, green human resource management (Green HRM), leadership, organizational culture, and employee pro-environmental behaviour in organizational and workplace settings.

The search covered the publication period from 2014 to 2026 and was limited to articles published in English. Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus were used as the primary academic databases because of their broad multidisciplinary coverage of management, organizational studies, environmental management, human resource management, and sustainability research. To broaden the interdisciplinary scope, supplementary searches were conducted in ScienceDirect, Emerald Insight, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis Online, and the MDPI database. Google Scholar was used only as a supplementary checking source to identify potentially relevant publicly available articles and was not treated as a primary database search source.

Searches were conducted in the title, abstract, and keyword fields where database functionality allowed this. The search strategy combined terms related to green office practices, workplace sustainability, sustainable organizational management, environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture, and employee pro-environmental behaviour. The search strings were adapted to the technical requirements and syntax of each database, while the conceptual logic of the search remained consistent across all databases.

An example of the Boolean logic used across databases was: (“green office*” OR “green workplace*” OR “workplace sustainability” OR “sustainable workplace*”) AND (“environmental management” OR “Green HRM” OR “green human resource management” OR “green leadership” OR “organizational culture” OR “employee green behaviour” OR “employee pro-environmental behaviour”) AND (organization* OR workplace* OR office* OR administrative OR employee*). The exact search string was adjusted to the available search fields and syntax of each database, but the same conceptual combination was retained throughout the search process.

All retrieved records were organized in a structured screening table and manually checked for duplication by comparing article titles, authors, publication years, journal names, and DOIs. The selected databases and search strategy are presented in Table 3.

3.3. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The screening and eligibility assessment were guided by predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Studies were eligible for inclusion when they were peer-reviewed original empirical articles, published in English between 2014 and 2026, available in full text, and relevant to at least one of the central domains of the review: green office practices, workplace sustainability, environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture, employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, or sustainable organizational management.

Eligible studies had to address the topic in an organizational, workplace, office-based, administrative, service-oriented, public-sector, private-sector, higher-education, or broader work-related context. Studies with a technical, architectural, energy-modelling, building-performance, or engineering focus were considered eligible only when they included a clear organizational, managerial, human resource management, leadership, organizational culture, or employee-behaviour perspective.

Studies were excluded when they were review papers, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, conceptual papers, theoretical papers, editorials, commentaries, book chapters, conference papers, protocols, reports, dissertations, theses, or non-peer-reviewed publications. Studies were also excluded when they were outside the publication period, not published in English, not available in full text, lacked an organizational or workplace context, had no substantive focus on the review topic, or provided insufficient empirical data for extraction and synthesis. The inclusion and exclusion criteria applied during screening and full-text eligibility assessment are presented in Table 4.

Operationally, organizational relevance was determined by the presence of at least one of the following indicators: an organizational, workplace, office-based, administrative, service-oriented, public-sector, private-sector or higher-education setting; employee-, manager-, leadership-, HRM- or culture-related evidence; or empirical findings on the implementation, acceptance, enactment or organizational consequences of environmental practices at work. This rule was applied to keep the review focused on green office and comparable workplace-level sustainability practices, while excluding studies that treated environmental performance only as a technical, engineering, architectural or building-efficiency issue without an organizational or employee-related dimension.

3.4. Data Selection and Extraction

All records retrieved from the selected databases and supplementary search sources were entered into a structured screening table. The table documented the source database, article title, author(s), year of publication, journal name, digital object identifier, full-text availability, duplicate status, screening decision, eligibility decision, and the main reason for exclusion where applicable. Records were first checked for duplication before title and abstract screening. Duplicate records were identified manually by comparing article titles, author names, publication years, journal names, and digital object identifiers. Where duplicate versions of the same study were identified, only the most complete and methodologically informative version was retained for further assessment.

Records were assessed first by title and abstract. Records that were clearly outside the thematic scope of the review were excluded, whereas potentially relevant, ambiguous, or borderline records were retained for full-text assessment in order to reduce the risk of premature exclusion. Full-text assessment then examined whether each study provided original empirical evidence and whether it addressed the review topic in a relevant organizational or workplace context.

Data were extracted using a structured data-extraction form. The extracted information included the author(s), year of publication, country or region, research methodology, sample or data source, organizational or workplace context, research focus, key constructs, key findings, and relevance to the review questions. Data extraction was conducted descriptively and was not transformed into statistical effect measures because the included studies differed in research design, theoretical background, organizational context, variables, measurement instruments, and outcome indicators.

The extraction form was applied uniformly to all included studies. It was used not only to summarize bibliographic and methodological information, but also to link each study to the review questions and to the thematic categories used in the synthesis. This made it possible to trace how individual studies contributed to the evidence base and to distinguish descriptive study characteristics from interpretive thematic findings.

The final set of studies was synthesized qualitatively through thematic grouping and interpretive comparison across the main review constructs. The extracted data also supported the development of the research-question contribution table (Table 1), the study-characteristics table (Table 5), and the thematic coding framework (Table 6).

3.5. Study Selection

The study selection process followed the PRISMA 2020 framework and included four stages: identification, screening, eligibility assessment, and inclusion. The search sources, database strategy and eligibility criteria are described in Section 3.2 and Section 3.3, while the numerical outcomes of the selection process are reported in Section 4.1 and Figure 1.

Records were screened in two stages. Title and abstract screening removed clearly irrelevant records, while potentially relevant or borderline records were retained for full-text assessment. Full-text eligibility assessment then examined empirical design, organizational or workplace relevance, methodological transparency and contribution to the review questions. Final inclusion required that a study provide empirical evidence on at least one of the key domains of the review.

This two-stage selection procedure ensured that the final corpus was limited to studies with a clear empirical basis, a relevant organizational or workplace context and a substantive contribution to at least one review question. The final set of included studies formed the basis for qualitative thematic synthesis. The numerical study selection results are reported in Section 4.1 and presented in the PRISMA flow diagram in Figure 1.

3.6. Quality Appraisal

The methodological quality and thematic relevance of the included studies were assessed using a structured quality-appraisal approach developed for the purposes of this systematic review. Because the included studies were expected to differ in research design, organizational context, sample characteristics, variables, measurement instruments, and analytical procedures, a single statistical risk-of-bias tool was not considered appropriate. The appraisal was therefore used to assess transparency, relevance, and interpretive credibility rather than to calculate a pooled quality score.

The six-criterion appraisal framework was used because the included studies formed a methodologically heterogeneous corpus, and the purpose of the appraisal was not to generate a pooled risk-of-bias score, but to assess whether each study provided sufficient empirical transparency, methodological clarity, and thematic relevance for qualitative synthesis. The criteria were aligned with the general logic of established appraisal tools, particularly the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) (Hong et al., 2018), which emphasizes the appropriateness of the research design, the clarity of methodological reporting, the adequacy of data collection and analysis, and the coherence between empirical evidence and conclusions. In this review, the six criteria were therefore used as a review-specific, MMAT-informed appraisal framework suitable for a heterogeneous body of empirical studies included in a qualitative thematic synthesis.

Each study was assessed according to six criteria: (1) clear statement of the research aim; (2) appropriate empirical methodology; (3) clearly described sample, participants, organizational setting, or data source; (4) sufficient explanation of data collection and data analysis procedures; (5) clear presentation of findings; and (6) relevance to green office practices, workplace sustainability, environmental management, green human resource management, leadership, organizational culture, employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, or sustainable organizational management.

For each criterion, the assessment distinguished between adequate, partially adequate, and insufficient reporting. Studies were retained when they provided an identifiable empirical basis, sufficient methodological information for interpretation, and a clear thematic contribution to at least one of the review questions. Studies were excluded when they lacked empirical data, did not address an organizational or workplace context, had no clear relevance to environmental or sustainability-related practices at the organizational or employee level, or provided insufficient methodological information for meaningful interpretation.

Minor reporting limitations did not automatically lead to exclusion. Instead, they were considered during the interpretation of findings, particularly when comparing evidence from studies with different methodological designs and organizational contexts. This approach made it possible to retain studies that were thematically relevant while still acknowledging differences in methodological transparency and reporting quality.

The quality appraisal was conducted alongside the full-text eligibility assessment and informed the interpretation of findings. The quality-appraisal criteria, rating logic and use of the appraisal in the synthesis are reported in Section 3.6 and summarized in the PRISMA audit map in Table 2. Overall, the included studies were considered suitable for qualitative thematic synthesis because they reported a clear empirical focus, an identifiable organizational or workplace context, and findings relevant to the objectives of this review.

No formal Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation assessment, funnel plot, publication-bias test, or quantitative sensitivity analysis was conducted, as the review did not include meta-analysis and the evidence was synthesized qualitatively.

3.7. Data Synthesis

Given the interdisciplinary nature of the included studies, a qualitative thematic synthesis was conducted. This approach was considered appropriate because the included studies differed in research design, theoretical background, organizational context, sample characteristics, measured variables, and outcome indicators. The purpose of the synthesis was therefore not to aggregate statistical effects, but to identify recurring themes, relationships, mechanisms, and contextual conditions relevant to green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management.

The synthesis combined deductive and inductive coding. The initial deductive coding framework was guided by the review aim, research questions, and the main conceptual domains of the review: green office practices, workplace sustainability, environmental management, green human resource management, leadership, organizational culture, employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, and sustainable organizational management. During repeated reading of the included studies, additional codes were added inductively when recurring concepts, barriers, facilitators, or explanatory mechanisms emerged from the data.

The extracted data were first organized in a structured data-extraction table. The information compared across studies included author(s), year of publication, country or region, research design, sample or data source, organizational or workplace context, key variables, and main findings. Each study was then examined for its contribution to one or more thematic categories. A single study could contribute to several categories when it provided relevant evidence across different domains, for example green human resource management, employee pro-environmental behaviour, leadership support, and organizational sustainability.

The thematic categories were developed through comparison of study aims, empirical contexts, variables, findings, and quality-appraisal observations. The analysis focused on identifying how green office practices are conceptualized, how they are implemented in organizational and workplace settings, how employees contribute to their effectiveness through everyday behaviour, and how managerial, human resource management, leadership, and cultural factors support or hinder their implementation. Particular attention was paid to the relationship between formal environmental management systems and informal workplace routines, because this relationship is central to understanding green office practices as socio-organizational rather than merely technical measures.

The synthesis was conducted manually through structured extraction, coding, thematic grouping, and interpretive comparison of findings. No specialized qualitative-analysis software, statistical pooling, or meta-analytic procedure was used. This decision was based on the heterogeneity of the included studies and the qualitative purpose of the review. The final synthesis was organized around the main thematic patterns that emerged from the included studies and was used to develop an integrated interpretation of green office practices as a component of sustainable organizational management.

Because this was a single-author review, formal independent double-screening, independent coding and inter-rater agreement calculation were not performed. To reduce the risk of selection and interpretive bias, several procedural safeguards were applied throughout the review process. These included predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, a structured screening and extraction table, conservative retention of potentially relevant or borderline records for full-text assessment, documented reasons for exclusion, uniform data-extraction fields, six-criterion quality appraisal, repeated checking of coding decisions against the original study aims, methods and findings, and a clear separation between descriptive results and interpretive discussion. Together, these procedures provided an internal audit trail across identification, screening, eligibility assessment, extraction, appraisal, coding and thematic synthesis. Nevertheless, the absence of independent second-reviewer verification remains a methodological limitation.

Overall, the Materials and Methods section contains the substantive PRISMA information required to assess reproducibility directly in the main article. In practical terms, the main text identifies the search sources, the Boolean logic, the eligibility boundary, the two-stage screening process, the full-text exclusion categories, the data-extraction fields, the six-criterion MMAT-informed quality appraisal, and the thematic-synthesis procedure. These elements are reported in Section 3.1, Section 3.2, Section 3.3, Section 3.4, Section 3.5, Section 3.6 and Section 3.7, Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5 and Table 6 and Figure 1. Because the review uses qualitative thematic synthesis rather than meta-analysis, risk of bias is addressed through appraisal of methodological transparency, reporting quality and design heterogeneity, and through explicit interpretation of limitations. This structure makes it possible to trace the reduction of initial records to the 22 included empirical studies and supports the reproducibility of the review process.

4. Results

4.1. Study Selection Results

The study selection results are summarized below and presented in the PRISMA flow diagram in Figure 1. The search process identified 594 records through the database and supplementary searches described in Section 3.2.

Before screening, 205 duplicate records were removed and 16 records were removed for other reasons, including records outside the publication period, records not published in English, non-peer-reviewed items and document types that clearly did not meet the predefined eligibility criteria. After this step, 373 records were screened by title and abstract.

During title and abstract screening, 280 records were excluded because they did not correspond to the thematic scope of the review or did not address green office practices, workplace sustainability, environmental management, green human resource management, green leadership, organizational culture, employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, or sustainable organizational management in a relevant organizational or workplace context. A total of 93 reports were sought for retrieval, of which 17 reports could not be retrieved in full text. The remaining 76 full-text reports were assessed for eligibility according to the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Following full-text assessment, 54 reports were excluded. The reasons for exclusion were as follows: review, conceptual, or theoretical paper (n = 12); no organizational, managerial, human resource management, leadership, or employee-behaviour perspective (n = 14); technical building, architecture, energy, or engineering focus only (n = 9); no substantive focus on green office practices, workplace sustainability, environmental management, green human resource management, or employee pro-environmental behaviour (n = 11); insufficient empirical data for extraction and synthesis (n = 5); and duplicate or overlapping full-text version (n = 3). The final sample consisted of 22 original empirical studies that met all inclusion criteria and were included in the qualitative thematic synthesis.

4.2. Characteristics of Studies

The final sample consisted of 22 original empirical studies that met the predefined inclusion criteria and were included in the qualitative thematic synthesis. The included studies were published between 2014 and 2026 and covered a broad range of organizational and workplace contexts relevant to green office practices, sustainable organizational management, environmental management, green human resource management, leadership, organizational culture, and employee pro-environmental behaviour.

The studies were conducted in diverse geographical and sectoral contexts, including Europe, Asia, New Zealand, the Middle East, public-sector organizations, government offices, higher-education settings, hospitality and tourism contexts, green office buildings, and broader organizational workplace environments. This diversity reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the research area and shows that green office practices are examined not only as physical or technical workplace interventions, but also as organizational, managerial, behavioural, and human-resource-related practices.

Methodologically, the included studies were heterogeneous. Most studies used quantitative survey designs, structural equation modelling, cross-sectional models, mediation or moderation analyses, and empirical modelling approaches. A smaller number of studies used field experiments, perception studies, or case-based empirical designs. The samples mainly included employees, office workers, organizational staff, public-sector employees, university employees, hospitality employees, tourism-sector employees, workers in green office environments, and members of higher-education institutions.

The main research foci of the included studies were employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, green human resource management, green transformational or environmental leadership, organizational support, green organizational climate, employee awareness, green office implementation, green office buildings, indoor environmental quality, and organizational sustainability outcomes. Together, the studies provide empirical evidence that green office practices operate through an interaction between formal environmental management, people-management systems, leadership support, workplace characteristics, and everyday employee behaviour.

The main characteristics of the included studies are presented in Table 5.

4.3. Thematic Categories and Coding Framework

To support the qualitative thematic synthesis, the included studies were analyzed using a structured coding framework. The framework was developed to identify recurring concepts, relationships and mechanisms relevant to green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management. Particular attention was given to the intersections between environmental management, green human resource management, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour.

The coding process combined deductive and inductive elements. Deductive coding was guided by the review aim, research questions and the conceptual domains defined in the search strategy. Inductive coding was used during repeated reading of the included studies to identify additional implementation mechanisms, barriers, workplace conditions and organizational outcomes. Each study could contribute to more than one thematic category when it provided relevant evidence across several domains.

The thematic coding resulted in seven categories: (1) green office practices and sustainable workplace routines; (2) environmental management and organizational governance; (3) Green HRM as an institutional mechanism; (4) leadership, managerial support and organizational culture; (5) employee pro-environmental behaviour and participation; (6) organizational sustainability outcomes; and (7) implementation barriers, contextual conditions and managerial implications. In this Results section, the categories are reported descriptively to show how the included studies were coded and grouped. Their relationships, explanatory meaning and contribution to the integrated interpretation of green office practices are addressed in the Discussion.

5. Discussion

The Results section reports the study selection process, study characteristics and thematic coding framework descriptively. The Discussion interprets the relationships among the thematic categories and develops the integrated synthesis of green office practices from a sustainable organizational management perspective.

Although the included studies show several convergent patterns, the evidence base is not uniform. Directly contradictory findings were not dominant, but the studies differ substantially in research design, sectoral context, level of analysis, constructs and outcome measures, as shown in the study characteristics and thematic coding framework presented in Table 5 and Table 6. Studies focusing directly on green offices and workplace environments tend to emphasize physical workplace conditions, employee awareness, participation, indoor environmental quality and organizational support (Nieuwenhuis et al., 2014; Pasharibu et al., 2019; Mohd Razali et al., 2022; Rasheed & Rotimi, 2024; Srikolchan et al., 2025). By contrast, studies grounded in Green HRM, leadership and employee green behaviour more often examine psychological, behavioural and people-management mechanisms, including environmental beliefs, green organizational identity, leadership support, organizational culture and employee engagement (Fawehinmi et al., 2020; Saifulina et al., 2020; Zhu et al., 2021; Omarova & Jo, 2022; Chen & Wu, 2022; Ahmad et al., 2023). As a result, the evidence is stronger for associations between Green HRM, leadership, organizational support and employee pro-environmental behaviour than for long-term organizational change, objectively measured environmental performance or the sustained environmental effects of specific green office practices. These differences help explain why green office practices should not be interpreted as producing uniform outcomes across organizations. Their effects appear to depend on how workplace infrastructure, managerial support, employee participation, sectoral conditions and evaluation mechanisms are combined in a specific organizational setting.

This systematic review synthesizes 22 empirical studies to explain green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management, rather than as a narrow set of environmental actions. The discussion follows the thematic coding framework and responds to the research questions by bringing several studies into each interpretive argument. When the discussion moves beyond individual study findings, this is presented as the review’s integrative interpretation. This structure is necessary because the evidence base is heterogeneous: some studies focus directly on green office environments and workplace practices, whereas others examine Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture, employee green behaviour and workplace conditions. Read together, the included studies show that green office practices become relevant for administrative and organizational sciences when they are understood as a system that combines formal environmental governance, people-management practices, leadership support, employee engagement and everyday workplace routines.

The main codes guiding the discussion were sustainable organizational management and environmental governance; green office practices and workplace sustainability; Green HRM; green leadership, managerial support and organizational culture; employee green behaviour and employee pro-environmental behaviour; workplace design, green buildings and indoor environmental quality; implementation drivers and barriers; and organizational sustainability outcomes and strategic value. These codes are not treated as separate findings. They help explain how organizations turn environmental responsibility into everyday administrative work.

5.1. Green Office Practices as a Socio-Organizational Component of Sustainable Organizational Management

The answer to RQ1 is that green office practices are conceptualized and implemented most convincingly when they are treated as organizational routines embedded in management systems, workplace design and employee behaviour. Studies that directly address green offices show that the concept includes both visible workplace arrangements and less visible managerial practices. Pasharibu et al. (2019) identify green office dimensions in government offices and show that implementation depends on organizational support rather than on individual goodwill alone. Mohd Razali et al. (2022) similarly demonstrate that employee awareness and acceptance are relevant for the implementation of the green office concept in government organizations. Srikolchan et al. (2025) add that training, communication, collaboration and recognition influence participation and engagement in green office operation. These findings suggest that green office implementation cannot be reduced to recycling bins, paper reduction or energy-saving instructions; it depends on whether the organization creates the conditions under which such practices become legitimate, expected and repeatable.

The studies on physical workplace conditions further broaden the interpretation of green office practices. Nieuwenhuis et al. (2014) show, through field experiments, that green office space can be associated with higher satisfaction, perceived air quality and productivity. Rasheed and Rotimi (2024) similarly highlight the importance of indoor environmental quality in workers’ perceptions of green office environments. Parida et al. (2021) connect green office buildings with Green HRM and green behaviours, indicating that the physical environment and people-management practices should not be interpreted separately. These studies are particularly relevant for Administrative Sciences because they show that sustainable workplace design has organizational consequences: it shapes perceptions, participation, employee experience and the likelihood that employees will engage with sustainability practices.

From the perspective of sustainable organizational management, the evidence indicates that the green office should be understood as a practical organizational field where environmental goals are translated into everyday administrative action. The relevant codes here are green office implementation, paper reduction and digitalization, energy saving, waste separation and recycling, sustainable procurement, green meetings, sustainable mobility, indoor environmental quality and workplace routines. These codes show that green office practices combine operational measures with governance, leadership, HRM and employee behaviour, thereby linking the technical, managerial and behavioural dimensions of implementation.

This subsection moves the green office from a descriptive list of measures to an organizational translation arena. The evidence suggests that green office practices operate simultaneously at three levels: an operational layer of everyday environmental routines, a spatial-material layer of workplace design and indoor environmental quality, and a socio-managerial layer through which employees learn about, enact and normalize sustainability. Pasharibu et al. (2019), Mohd Razali et al. (2022) and Srikolchan et al. (2025) provide evidence on awareness, organizational support, participation, communication and green office operation, whereas Nieuwenhuis et al. (2014), Parida et al. (2021) and Rasheed and Rotimi (2024) show that the physical workplace and building environment shape employee perceptions and behaviour. This review integrates these strands by arguing that the green office is best understood as a translation site between organizational sustainability strategy and everyday administrative practice.

For Administrative Sciences, this interpretation clarifies why green office practices belong within the domain of organization and management research: they are mechanisms through which organizations test whether sustainability has entered administrative routines, leadership expectations, employee roles and workplace culture.

5.2. Environmental Management, Green HRM and Leadership as Institutional Mechanisms

RQ2 asks which organizational mechanisms support or constrain green office implementation. The included studies do not all examine formal environmental management systems directly, but they collectively show how environmental management is operationalized through policies, organizational support, workplace routines, communication and monitoring of employee-related practices. Pasharibu et al. (2019) and Mohd Razali et al. (2022) show that green office implementation requires organizational structures that make environmental expectations understandable and acceptable to employees. Srikolchan et al. (2025) further show that participation in green office operation depends on training, communication, collaboration and recognition. In this sense, environmental management is not merely a compliance function. It provides the organizational infrastructure through which green office practices can be planned, communicated, evaluated and sustained.

Within RQ2, Green HRM emerges as a central people-management mechanism. The evidence is especially strong here: several included studies show that Green HRM connects environmental objectives with employee competencies, motivation, identification and behaviour. Fawehinmi et al. (2020) link Green HRM and personal moral norms with employee green behaviour. Saifulina et al. (2020) show that sustainable HRM and Green HRM influence employee pro-environmental behaviour at work. Zhu et al. (2021) demonstrate that Green HRM influences employee green behaviour through environmental belief and green organizational identity. Ribeiro et al. (2022) show that Green HRM promotes eco-friendly behaviour through organizational identification. These studies support the interpretation that Green HRM is not only an HR label, but a managerial pathway for internalizing environmental values into employee roles and organizational identity.

Other studies extend this mechanism by showing that Green HRM works in combination with leadership and organizational context. Parida et al. (2021) connect Green HRM with green office buildings and green behaviours, while Chen and Wu (2022) show that Green HRM and green transformational leadership jointly facilitate employee green behaviour. Omarova and Jo (2022) identify Green HRM together with environmental transformational leadership as relevant to employee pro-environmental behaviour. Li et al. (2023) indicate that spiritual leadership strengthens the link between Green HRM and in-role green behaviour. Ahmad et al. (2023) model workplace pro-environmental behaviour through Green HRM and organizational culture, whereas Bangwal et al. (2025) associate Green HRM and environmental commitment with employee pro-environmental behaviour. Tandon et al. (2023) show that Green HRM can generate both green and non-green organizational outcomes in the tourism context. Collectively, these studies answer RQ2 by showing that green office implementation is supported by environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture, workplace conditions, employee involvement, internal communication, recognition and the development of environmental commitment.

Leadership is another institutional mechanism through which environmental responsibility becomes organizationally credible. Mansoor et al. (2021) show that green transformational leadership and management initiatives stimulate employees’ green creativity. Omarova and Jo (2022), Chen and Wu (2022) and Li et al. (2023) all support the view that leadership strengthens or activates employee green behaviour when combined with Green HRM or environmental values. The relevant codes are green transformational leadership, environmental leadership, spiritual leadership, managerial support, supervisory support, role modelling and organizational culture. The synthesis therefore indicates that green office practices require not only formal environmental policies but also leadership practices that make environmental responsibility visible and actionable in daily work.

The integrative contribution of this review is to interpret environmental management, Green HRM and leadership not as three parallel variables, but as three mutually reinforcing institutional layers. Environmental management provides the normative and procedural layer: it defines what should be reduced, monitored and improved. Green HRM provides the employee-translation layer: it converts environmental expectations into competencies, roles, performance criteria, communication, recognition and participation. Leadership provides the social-legitimacy layer: it signals that green office practices are not marginal or voluntary add-ons, but part of legitimate organizational conduct. Read together, the studies by Pasharibu et al. (2019), Parida et al. (2021), Chen and Wu (2022), Omarova and Jo (2022), Ahmad et al. (2023) and Srikolchan et al. (2025) suggest that implementation is strongest when these layers are aligned.

This interpretation deepens the response to RQ2. Green office practices should therefore be assessed not only by the presence of environmental policies or by the number of visible workplace measures, but by the degree to which environmental objectives are embedded in HRM systems, leadership behaviour and organizational routines. In this respect, the review offers a management-oriented explanation of the implementation gap: green office initiatives may fail not because employees reject sustainability, but because the organization does not translate environmental objectives into role expectations, managerial support, participation channels and recognized forms of employee contribution.

5.3. Employee Pro-Environmental Behaviour as the Behavioural Pathway of Green Office Implementation

RQ3 asks how employee pro-environmental behaviour contributes to the enactment and effectiveness of green office practices. Across the included studies, employee behaviour emerges as the behavioural pathway through which green office practices become operational. Blok et al. (2015) show that workplace pro-environmental behaviour among university employees is shaped by individual motivation and workplace conditions. Fawehinmi et al. (2020), Saifulina et al. (2020), Zhu et al. (2021), Ribeiro et al. (2022), Ahmad et al. (2023) and Bangwal et al. (2025) all connect people-management or organizational conditions with employee green behaviour or pro-environmental behaviour. These studies demonstrate that employee behaviour is not an automatic response to environmental policy. It is shaped by perceived expectations, organizational climate, identity, commitment, moral norms and the extent to which the workplace supports green action.

Several studies also distinguish between in-role and voluntary or extra-role green behaviour, which is important for interpreting green office practices. Li et al. (2023) focus on in-role green behaviour, while Xiao et al. (2020) examine voluntary green behaviour through employee–organization fit, perceived insider status and green organizational climate. Carbone et al. (2024) show that employees can contribute to green workplace behaviours when organizational conditions support such practices. Alherimi et al. (2024), in a case-study context, confirm that organizational context is relevant for understanding employee pro-environmental behaviour. Khan et al. (2022) identify organizational and individual antecedents of employee green behaviour in the hospitality industry. These findings show that green office practices should not be interpreted only as prescribed compliance behaviours. They also depend on discretionary employee contributions, perceived belonging, green climate and practical opportunities to participate.

The behavioural codes identified in the analysis include employee green behaviour, employee pro-environmental behaviour, in-role green behaviour, voluntary green behaviour, eco-friendly behaviour, energy saving, reduced printing, waste separation, digital work practices, green creativity, environmental commitment and participation in green initiatives. This synthesis responds to RQ3 by showing that employee pro-environmental behaviour connects formal organizational arrangements with everyday green office enactment. Formal pathways include training, performance expectations and HRM practices. Informal pathways include role modelling, identity, perceived support, climate and recognition. A key interpretation of this review is that employee pro-environmental behaviour is the bridge between organizational sustainability strategies and the actual environmental footprint of everyday office work.

The added insight is that employee pro-environmental behaviour should be understood as the behavioural translation of organizational sustainability, not as an individual psychological outcome alone. In green office contexts, environmental responsibility becomes observable through repeated micro-practices: switching off equipment, reducing printing, separating waste, using digital workflows, participating in green initiatives and proposing improvements. The studies by Blok et al. (2015), Xiao et al. (2020), Mansoor et al. (2021), Khan et al. (2022), Alherimi et al. (2024) and Carbone et al. (2024) show that such behaviours depend on the interaction between personal motivation, climate, leadership, opportunity and organizational context.

For this reason, the review proposes a distinction between three behavioural levels of green office implementation. The first level is compliance-based behaviour, in which employees follow prescribed routines such as recycling or reducing printing. The second level is role-integrated behaviour, in which green practices become part of how employees understand quality, efficiency and responsibility in their own work. The third level is developmental behaviour, in which employees contribute ideas, green creativity and collective initiatives. This three-level interpretation provides a more precise response to RQ3 because it explains why employee pro-environmental behaviour is not only an outcome of managerial support and organizational culture, but also the behavioural mechanism through which green office practices are sustained.

5.4. Organizational Culture, Employee Engagement and Workplace Conditions as Enabling Factors

As part of RQ2, the synthesis identifies the main organizational drivers and barriers affecting green office implementation. The central drivers are organizational support, green organizational climate, leadership commitment, employee awareness, training, communication, participation opportunities, recognition, organizational identification, environmental commitment and supportive workplace design. Conversely, the main barriers are weak communication, insufficient awareness, lack of managerial support, poor integration of environmental goals into HRM practices, unclear employee roles, inadequate recognition and the treatment of green office practices as technical measures rather than as organizational routines.

Evidence for these drivers appears across different contexts. Blok et al. (2015) show that workplace conditions matter for employee pro-environmental behaviour. Xiao et al. (2020) demonstrate the role of green organizational climate. Ribeiro et al. (2022) emphasize organizational identification. Mohd Razali et al. (2022) point to employee awareness and acceptance. Srikolchan et al. (2025) identify training, communication, collaboration and recognition as factors influencing participation and engagement in green office operation. Rasheed and Rotimi (2024) show that indoor environmental quality matters for workers’ perceptions of green office environments. Nieuwenhuis et al. (2014) and Parida et al. (2021) also indicate that the physical workplace can support sustainability-related outcomes when connected with employee experience and HRM mechanisms.

The organizational culture dimension is particularly important because it explains why similar environmental measures may produce different results in different organizations. Ahmad et al. (2023) model workplace pro-environmental behaviour through Green HRM and organizational culture. Zhu et al. (2021) show that environmental belief and green organizational identity mediate the influence of Green HRM on employee green behaviour. Mansoor et al. (2021) emphasize green creativity as an outcome of leadership and management initiatives. Carbone et al. (2024) and Alherimi et al. (2024) further support the view that employees’ green behaviours are enabled by organizational context. These findings indicate that organizational culture does not operate as a vague background factor. It is part of the mechanism through which employees interpret environmental expectations and decide whether green office practices are meaningful, supported and worth sustaining.

The synthesis therefore suggests that implementation barriers are often managerial rather than purely environmental. Organizations may adopt environmental policies or visible green office measures, but if these are not connected with HRM, leadership, communication, recognition and employee participation, their behavioural effect may remain limited. Based on the included studies, the most robust managerial implication is that organizations should design green office programmes as integrated change processes. This means defining environmental goals, translating them into HRM practices, assigning leadership responsibility, creating green organizational climate, supporting employee participation, and monitoring both environmental and behavioural outcomes.

This review synthesizes the drivers and barriers into an alignment logic. Drivers do not operate independently: awareness without managerial support may remain symbolic; training without participation may remain procedural; leadership without HRM integration may remain rhetorical; and green workplace design without employee engagement may remain a physical intervention with limited behavioural continuity. Barriers emerge when these elements are misaligned. This explains why green office programmes should not be designed as isolated environmental projects, but as organizational change systems that align strategy, structures, HRM, leadership, workplace design and employee participation.

This alignment logic further refines the answer to RQ2. The main managerial problem is not simply how to persuade employees to behave more sustainably, but how to create a work environment in which sustainable behaviour is easy, legitimate, recognized and compatible with everyday tasks. The evidence from Nieuwenhuis et al. (2014), Blok et al. (2015), Xiao et al. (2020), Parida et al. (2021), Ribeiro et al. (2022), Srikolchan et al. (2025), Rasheed and Rotimi (2024) and Carbone et al. (2024) supports this interpretation because it connects employee behaviour with physical conditions, identity, climate, recognition and participation. The managerial implication is that green office implementation should be evaluated as a configuration of mutually reinforcing organizational conditions, not as a checklist of separate green measures.

5.5. Theoretical Contribution

The main theoretical contribution of this review is the integration of evidence on green office practices, Green HRM and employee pro-environmental behaviour into one organizational interpretation. The focus is deliberately confined to workplace and management mechanisms rather than to general environmental sustainability, which strengthens the relevance of the review for Administrative Sciences. The included studies show that green office practices are not only operational or facility-management measures; they also depend on HRM, leadership, organizational culture, employee identity, workplace design and behavioural engagement.

The review therefore proposes that green office practices should be understood as a component of sustainable organizational management. Implementation is shaped by the interaction between environmental governance, HRM mechanisms, leadership support, organizational culture, workplace conditions and employee behaviour. Studies on green office implementation, physical workplace conditions, Green HRM, leadership and employee green behaviour jointly support this interpretation.

This contribution can be specified as a four-part theoretical logic. First, environmental management anchors green office practices in organizational strategy and governance. Second, Green HRM translates environmental objectives into employee-related processes and expectations. Third, leadership and organizational culture legitimize green conduct and create the climate in which employees perceive sustainability as part of normal organizational life. Fourth, employee pro-environmental behaviour enacts sustainability through everyday administrative routines and provides feedback on whether policies have become embedded in work practices. Together, these elements connect the codes of environmental governance, Green HRM, leadership, culture, employee behaviour, workplace conditions and organizational outcomes into one explanatory framework.

Figure 2 presents the proposed framework. It brings together the institutional, behavioural and contextual mechanisms identified in the included studies and shows how environmental management and governance, Green HRM, leadership and organizational culture, employee pro-environmental behaviour and implementation conditions shape green office practices and sustainable workplace routines.

In the framework, the main directional logic runs from environmental management and governance towards Green HRM, leadership and organizational culture, which create the organizational conditions for employee pro-environmental behaviour and the enactment of green office practices in everyday work routines. These practices then contribute to sustainable workplace routines and organizational sustainability outcomes. The framework also includes feedback loops: employee participation, implementation experience and observed sustainability outcomes can feed back into environmental governance, HRM practices, leadership priorities and organizational culture, thereby supporting learning, adjustment and institutionalization over time.

The theoretical value of this framework lies in shifting the analytical focus from which green office measures exist to how such practices become embedded in organizational life. This shift is important because the included studies show that the same visible measures may have different effects depending on HRM integration, leadership support, green climate, employee identification and practical opportunities for participation. The proposed interpretation therefore contributes to Administrative Sciences by treating green office practices as a question of organizational design, governance, people management and behavioural institutionalization.

The framework also clarifies the relationship between the revised research questions: RQ1 addresses the conceptualization and implementation of green office practices; RQ2 identifies the organizational mechanisms that support or constrain implementation; RQ3 explains the behavioural pathway through which employee pro-environmental behaviour enacts green office practices; and RQ4 connects these elements into an integrated socio-organizational system linking environmental management, people-management practices, workplace routines, employee behaviour and sustainability-related outcomes.

5.6. Practical Implications for Organizational Management

The findings have several concrete implications for organizational management. First, organizations should define green office practices as part of their sustainability strategy and not as isolated workplace campaigns. This requires clear environmental objectives, visible managerial responsibility and operational indicators related to energy use, paper reduction, waste management, procurement, mobility and digitalization. Evidence from Pasharibu et al. (2019), Mohd Razali et al. (2022) and Srikolchan et al. (2025) indicates that green office implementation depends on organizational support, awareness, participation and engagement.

Second, HRM departments should translate environmental objectives into employee-related practices. This includes green recruitment messages, onboarding content, green training, performance expectations, recognition systems, internal communication and employee involvement mechanisms. The studies by Fawehinmi et al. (2020), Saifulina et al. (2020), Zhu et al. (2021), Ribeiro et al. (2022), Chen and Wu (2022), Li et al. (2023), Ahmad et al. (2023), Tandon et al. (2023) and Bangwal et al. (2025) provide empirical support for the relationship between Green HRM and employee green behaviour or related organizational outcomes.

Third, leaders and managers should actively model and reinforce green office practices. Leadership is important not only for communicating environmental priorities but also for legitimizing employee participation, supporting green creativity and creating a climate in which green behaviour is perceived as part of professional responsibility. Mansoor et al. (2021), Omarova and Jo (2022), Chen and Wu (2022) and Li et al. (2023) support this implication by connecting leadership mechanisms with employee green behaviour, pro-environmental behaviour or green creativity.

Fourth, organizations should monitor employee experience and workplace conditions. Green office practices are more likely to be sustained when they are compatible with employees’ work processes and when the workplace environment supports well-being and productivity. Nieuwenhuis et al. (2014), Parida et al. (2021) and Rasheed and Rotimi (2024) show that the physical office environment and indoor environmental quality should be considered alongside behavioural and HRM interventions. The practical implication is that organizations should avoid treating sustainability as an additional burden for employees; instead, they should design green office practices that improve work routines, comfort, participation and perceived organizational responsibility.

Finally, the review suggests that organizations should evaluate green office practices through both environmental and organizational indicators. Environmental indicators may include energy consumption, printing volume, waste separation, procurement patterns and mobility-related emissions. Organizational indicators should include employee awareness, participation, perceived support, green organizational climate, engagement, green behaviour and satisfaction. This combined evaluation approach follows from the evidence that sustainability outcomes are produced by the interaction of environmental management, HRM, leadership and employee behaviour rather than by a single intervention.

5.7. Limitations and Future Research Directions

Several limitations should be acknowledged. First, the included studies differ substantially in design, context, sector, sample and measurement approach. This heterogeneity is appropriate for a qualitative thematic synthesis, but it prevents statistical aggregation of effect sizes. Second, many studies are cross-sectional and rely on employee perceptions, which limits causal interpretation. Third, only a smaller group of studies directly examines green office practices as such; many relevant insights come from adjacent fields such as Green HRM, employee green behaviour, organizational culture, leadership and workplace sustainability. Fourth, the review was limited to peer-reviewed empirical articles published in English between 2014 and 2026 and available in full text. Relevant studies published in other languages, the grey literature, organizational reports or studies using different terminology may therefore have been omitted. Fifth, screening, extraction, coding and thematic synthesis were conducted by a single author. Subjectivity was reduced through predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, a structured screening and extraction table, documented quality-appraisal criteria and repeated verification of borderline decisions; nevertheless, the absence of independent second-reviewer verification remains a methodological limitation. Finally, the final sample of 22 studies reflects the strict conceptual and empirical inclusion criteria rather than an exhaustive mapping of all sustainability-related workplace literature.

Future research should examine green office practices through longitudinal and multi-level designs that connect organizational policy, HRM practices, leadership behaviour, employee attitudes and measured environmental outcomes. There is also a need for comparative studies across administrative sectors, public and private organizations, higher-education institutions, service organizations and hybrid or digital work arrangements. Future research should more explicitly test how green office practices move from formal policy to daily routines and how employees interpret these practices in relation to workload, autonomy, organizational support and professional identity. In addition, studies should measure both environmental indicators and employee-level outcomes, because the present synthesis shows that green office effectiveness depends on the alignment between environmental performance and organizational behaviour.

6. Conclusions

This systematic literature review with qualitative thematic synthesis examined green office practices as an element of sustainable organizational management. The review shows that green office practices should not be interpreted only as operational environmental measures. They are workplace-level management practices through which environmental responsibility becomes part of everyday administrative work.

The central conclusion is that effective green office implementation depends on the alignment of environmental management and governance, Green HRM, leadership and organizational culture, employee pro-environmental behaviour, workplace conditions and contextual implementation support. The framework proposed in this article positions green office practices as a mechanism that connects organizational sustainability strategy with concrete workplace routines, employee participation and managerial accountability.

For organizational management, the findings indicate that green office programmes should be designed as coordinated change processes rather than as isolated campaigns. Managers should define measurable environmental objectives; HRM departments should translate these objectives into training, communication, participation and recognition systems; and leaders should model and reinforce sustainability as part of normal organizational conduct. The central implication of this review is that the green office should be understood less as a workplace label and more as a test of whether sustainability has become part of organizational management.

The theoretical contribution of this review is not the identification of additional green office measures, but the repositioning of green office practices as an administrative and organizational design problem. In the context of Administrative Sciences, the green office can be understood as a workplace-level mechanism through which environmental governance, people-management systems, leadership, organizational culture and employee behaviour are connected in everyday administrative work. This shifts the analytical focus from individual green practices to the organizational conditions that make such practices durable, legitimate and behaviourally embedded. The review therefore contributes to a more integrated understanding of sustainable organizational management by showing that green office practices are not peripheral environmental actions, but indicators of how deeply sustainability has become institutionalized in organizational routines, responsibilities and social practices.