Introduction
Kühner et al. (Reference Kühner, Hüffmeier and Zacher2025) thoughtfully reviewed the environmental sustainability at work literature and delineated between micro-, meso-, macro-, and magnosystem levels research. As anticipated with Westernized and neoliberal thinking, most research has taken an individualized lens (i.e., examining individual employee and leader environmental behavior and behavior change), and has focused on understanding top-down influence across the system levels (e.g., how team processes and work design influence employee green behaviors). We argue that this has resulted in the current state of research predominantly framing organizations and individuals as passive agents, which overlooks how change can also be initiated from the bottom up. Furthermore, this framing may undermine the successful embedding of sustainable practices in workplaces, as socio-ecological theory has long shown that it is through the reciprocal interactions between the micro-, meso-, macro-, and magnolevels that behavioral and systemic changes take place (Bronfenbrenner, Reference Bronfenbrenner1979). In this commentary, we extend the “impact-first” topics presented in the focal article by offering ideas on how future industrial-organizational psychology (IOP) research on environmental sustainability can rebalance the emphasis placed across structure and agency. The agency-structure debate, central to contemporary institutional theory, suggests that although system-level factors shape and constrain organizations and the individuals within them (top-down drivers of change), these actors also have agency—both individuals and organizations can actively initiate change, challenge norms, and transform the systemic structures that govern them (bottom-up drivers of change; Dacin et al., Reference Dacin, Goodstein and Scott2002).
In the context of environmental sustainability in the workplace, the value that society places on economic profit is a significant structural factor that drives decisions benefiting organizations’ bottom line at the expense of our planet’s natural resources. In organizational practice, we can see that unquestioned prioritization of economic profit can restrict the imagined scope of what individuals believe to be viable workplace actions for environmental sustainability. Research on workplace schemes that promote employees as climate champions to drive pro-environmental change found that these initiatives perpetuate neoliberal values (i.e., profit, continuous growth, individualized solutions to systemic problems) without addressing the need for fundamental structural change (Swaffield & Bell, Reference Swaffield and Bell2012). These particular climate champions understood their role to be encouraging their peers to voluntarily choose more sustainable individual behaviors, at times using the rationale of economical cost and benefits (e.g., energy savings from energy efficient light bulbs), and did not consider nor believe it was within their capability to challenge operations and practices of their workplaces. Like cases of tokenism with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (e.g., Yoder, Reference Yoder1991), environmental sustainability efforts that only focus on changing individual actions without systemic engagement risk being perceived as greenwashing (Lyon & Montgomery, Reference Lyon and Montgomery2015). Still, both organizations and individuals can become "active interpreters" of these institutional forces, and can negotiate meaning, leverage resources, and mobilize collectively to initiate change in these institutional structures (Hardy & Maguire, Reference Hardy, Maguire, Greenwood, Oliver, Suddaby and Sahlin2008). We propose two possible ways that such agency may be exercised to implore future research to explore these dynamics further.
Organizations as active agents for sustainability
Organizations that place social and/or environmental purpose at the heart of their business (e.g., for-purpose and benefit corporations; Villela et al., Reference Villela, Bulgacov and Morgan2021) and social enterprises with a clear objective to solve societal challenges are on the rise (Bull & Ridley-Duff, Reference Bull and Ridley-Duff2019). This signals a broader paradigm change, one that contests the dominance of the industrial, linear business model and toward organizations claiming responsibility in addressing environmental sustainability challenges. A concerted effort to reframe how organizations are viewed in IOP—from closed systems that contain individuals to constellations of actors capable of interacting with and influencing their environments—can allow us to study how these organizations can act as lobbyists and activists, shaping the systems they are in.
Drawing from the market shaping literature, organizations can also pressure other organizations (including supply chain actors and competitors), industry bodies, and governmental actors to promote change (Flaig et al., Reference Flaig, Kindström and Ottosson2021; Nenonen et al., Reference Nenonen, Storbacka and Windahl2019), as evident already in the transition to a sustainable and circular economy (Fehrer et al., Reference Fehrer, Kemper and Baker2024). In the same vein, brand activism literature demonstrates that brands and corporations are becoming involved in polarizing and controversial sociopolitical issues such as gun control and abortion (Vredenburg et al., Reference Vredenburg, Kapitan, Spry and Kemper2020); issues that span beyond their product or industry. There are current discussions about sociopolitical issue networks and how they interact with more traditional business networks (Sandvik et al., Reference Sandvik, Sjödin, Parida and Brekke2024), but studying how more progressive organizations can bring along traditional ones (those without a sociopolitical mission) as part of broader systems change for environmental sustainability would be an impactful area of research.
Collective employee action for sustainability
Although organizations can act externally to shape systems and institutions, they also possess the capacity to mobilize internally; organizations—and the individuals within them—can act collectively to advocate for sustainability-oriented change. Looking historically, the workplace has at times served as a platform for confronting and advancing social issues, not through individual efforts but as collective action grounded in a shared interest (e.g., labor unions; Barling et al., Reference Barling, Fullagar and Kelloway1992). Operating as a collective represents a distinct form of coordinated power. By banding together, previously disenfranchized individuals are more capable of challenging dominant actors and structures of power to achieve broader social and political goals (Bernstein, Reference Bernstein2003; Louis, Reference Louis2009). Indeed, a systematic review of collective actions around sustainability found that such efforts have led to tangible changes in corporate practice, policy, and law, while also shifting public attitudes, values, and behaviors (Guilliver et al., Reference Gulliver, Star, Fielding and Louis2022).
Therefore, another impactful area of research could be how organizations can meaningfully facilitate bottom-up influences, such as legitimizing employees to participate in environmental decision making related to the organization’s operations and strategy (e.g., shaping green procurement policies, low-impact business travel choices). We use the term legitimize in its broadest sense: from providing employees with education and training needed for informed participation, to fostering a culture where employee voice is expected and valued. In this way, work is not merely another context that affects environmental sustainability outcomes but a place of agency where individual employees can feel like they can participate in impactful change through collective deliberation (Frega, Reference Frega2021; Swaffield & Bell, Reference Swaffield and Bell2012). Research with this focus can draw on emerging IOP constructs such as environmental voice and environmental civic mindedness (Francoeur et al., Reference Francoeur, Paillé, Yuriev and Boiral2021), which together support a type of environmental citizenship rooted in collective action rather than neoliberal individualism. This engagement in collective action may in turn foster personal gains in individual participants. Enabling employees as co-producers of organizational solutions can increase their sense of autonomy and help them internalize green values and identities (Marshall et al., Reference Marshall, Hine and East2017), thereby encouraging positive behavioral spillover of climate action across life domains (Sabherwal & Sparkman, Reference Sabherwal and Sparkman2025). Participation can also foster a personal sense of efficacy and belief that impactful climate action is possible (Klandermans, Reference Klandermans1997). This sense of agentic hope is especially important for supporting individual well-being in the face of mounting climate anxiety (Ojala, Reference Ojala2023).
IOP’s agency in shaping sustainable organizational futures
We stated at the start of our commentary that for IOP research in environmental sustainability at work to be impactful, we must explore how agency enables change to flow across all the system levels, particularly when initiated from the bottom up. Accomplishing this requires IOP researchers to consider each system levels not in isolation but through their interactions. Collaborations with scholars in magno- and macrolevel fields such as management and marketing can expand our understanding of behavior change. These partnerships can help IOP move beyond individual and rational economic models that only explain behaviors at a microlevel (e.g., theory of planned behavior, theory of reasoned action). For instance, social practice theory offers a promising framework that uniquely balances agency and structure (Shove, Reference Shove2014), emphasizing how social and collective organization of practices both shape and are shaped by individual behaviors (Hargreaves, Reference Hargreaves2011). In this partnership, as the focal article has aptly detailed, IOP would bring in rich expertise on the microlevel of employee motivation, values, perceptions, and behaviors, and to some extent the meso- (e.g., peer, leadership) and macrolevels influences (e.g., organizational). Even more valuable would be our discipline’s evidence- and practice-based knowledge of how to implement organizational change. IOP researchers and practitioners are uniquely positioned to work with individuals and teams across the organization on (a) empowering them to make and adopt environmentally sustainable decisions, (b) advising on the design of the workplace in a way that enables these decisions to be made more easily and with greater collective participation, and (c) fostering an organizational culture that prioritizes environmental sustainability goals and concerns.
As IOP researchers, we too can have agency in shaping how the purpose of organizations is defined as we move toward more sustainable futures. Critical reflection and reflexivity in our research and approaches can help uncover the assumptions we hold—both as a discipline and as individuals—about the role and responsibilities of organizations in society (Hyland, Reference Hyland2023). If we believe that organizations can serve both social and environmental purposes, how might that reshape our research priorities? One possibility could be a greater integration of environmental sustainability within occupational health psychology, recognizing that environmental health is inseparable from community and employee well-being. If we believe that organizations share responsibility for enabling employee green behaviors, how might our research shift in response? Our progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion demonstrates that we can address broader structural changes within organizations (Silver et al., Reference Silver, Nittrouer and Hebl2023). If we see the workplace not merely as another context for sustainable behavior but as a unique place for collective engagement with climate issues and challenges, what new research opportunities might that open? We are hopeful about the possibilities this shift in perspective might unlock for the future of IOP.
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