Importance of including the environment itself in our outcome measures

Environmental outcomes (e.g., biodiversity, water quality) should be more prominently considered in I-O psychology sustainability research. This is because environmental outcomes are a core aspect of the definitions of environmental sustainability and organizational environmental performance. Without environmental criteria, we may be ill equipped to evaluate whether organizations’ sustainability initiatives truly matter for the environment.

It is important to note that the definitions of both environmental sustainability and organizational environmental performance include the consideration of environmental outcomes. Environmental outcomes should be inherent to how we measure our sustainability criteria. Yet, I-O psychology often dismisses environmental outcomes in favor of the organizational initiative aspect of the definition (Kühner et al., Reference Kühner, Hüffmeier and Zacher2025; Ones & Dilchert, Reference Ones and Dilchert2012). Despite knowing that organizations can tangibly impact the environment, the closest we’ve come to addressing environmental outcomes is in calls for future research to identify employee green behaviors with the greatest potential environmental impact. Why stop at a proxy for environmental results instead of measuring that impact directly? One might consider this perspective akin to evaluating training effectiveness based on employee behavior without examining the organizationally relevant results of that behavior. Unfortunately, overlooking environmental outcomes opens the door to shoulder-shrugging when organizations invest resources into sustainability initiatives as the environment continues to decline. Until we carefully and intentionally measure all aspects of our key constructs, I-O sustainability efforts may continue to fall short.

Without understanding the actual relationships between constructs like pro-environmental behavior or organizational environmental performance and environmental criteria, I-O psychology research and practice runs the risk of encouraging too much time, effort, or financial resources be invested into less impactful practices. Kühner et al. (Reference Kühner, Hüffmeier and Zacher2025) do capture this idea with the ExxonMobil CO² emissions example, highlighting how no amount of employee behavior could overcome their pollution output. I argue that this line or reasoning must be taken one step further. I-Os should examine not only the organizational side of organizational environmental performance (e.g., CO² emissions; employees switching lights off) but also the actual environmental outcomes of their initiatives. For instance, no amount of employee recycling behavior will alleviate increased flooding (environmental outcome) or reduced native plant and animal species diversity (environmental outcome) caused by an organization building new offices (organizational environmental performance) by filling in wetlands (Lang et al., Reference Lang, Ingebritsen and Griffin2024).

The imperative to collaborate with local environmental experts

Conservation science has long understood that conservation efforts are made or broken within local communities (Tisdell, Reference Tisdell1995). Therefore, an understanding of local ecosystems is required to identify valid measures of environmental sustainability. This is consistent with what I-O psychology has long acknowledged: “criteria are context-sensitive” (Austin & Villanova, Reference Austin and Villanova1992, p. 858). Therefore, I-O psychology efforts that apply global sustainability standards rather than environmental outcomes in context may miss key opportunities to enact the most impactful forms of environmental sustainability. So, how do we better include the local environment in our environmental sustainability work? Just as I-Os hope that organizations will bring us in as experts to help study and solve problems germane to our discipline, so too should we invite the appropriate experts to the table who can help us better measure environmental criteria. Collaborating with environmental experts will help I-Os better address environmental sustainability at work by (1) increasing our ability to accurately measure impact, (2) helping conservation scientists better communicate with organizations, and (3) learning directly from local experts about what the most pressing environmental needs are around us.

Environmental experts can help us measure environmental outcomes directly rather than relying on indirect measures of organizational initiatives. Perhaps I-Os (e.g., Ones & Dilchert, Reference Ones and Dilchert2012) feel that measuring organizational initiatives is more viable because we are not trained to measure environmental outcomes. Rather than asking environmental scientists which behaviors impact the environment the most, we should collaborate with these researchers to design studies that allow us to measure environmental criteria directly.

Conservation scientists are equipped to measure these outcomes, and they are wanting to work with organizations to not only implement quantitative measures of ecosystem impact but also guide them toward actions with the greatest environmental benefits (Addison et al., Reference Addison, Bull and Milner-Gulland2019). However, they struggle to understand organizational culture and leadership priorities enough to successfully engage with organizations (Rose et al., Reference Rose, Evans, Jarvis, Sutherland, Brotherton, Davies, Ockendon, Pettorelli and Vickery2020). This is where I-Os can draw from our expertise in multidisciplinary teams (i.e., the science of team science) to facilitate these efforts. I-Os can help conservation scientists work effectively with organizations so that both the environmental outcomes and organizational initiatives aspects of organizational environmental performance can be appropriately measured.

Unless we collaborate with environmental experts, I-Os and the organizations with which we work run the risk of spinning our wheels, developing initiatives driven by the feeling that something needs to be done. Sometimes, though, the best thing an organization can do for the environment is nothing. It may be presumptive to think that an organization knows what is best for the environment; I-Os should listen to what local environmental experts say is most needed. In my experience working with local environmental nonprofits, nature centers, state biologists, county land managers, and volunteers, two things are clear. First, these folks, who work in and advocate for the environment every day, know best. They can help us develop context-relevant criteria. Second, they desperately want to teach others about local ecosystems and encourage them to love nature, too. By helping them pursue their educational mission within organizational settings, we may have a greater impact together.

A better way forward

I-Os may find it daunting to incorporate new, unfamiliar environmental measures in research efforts targeting traditional I-O publication outlets. There are I-O scholars whose work published in top outlets provides us with ideas for how this can be done. Fehr et al. (Reference Fehr, Yam, He, Chiang and Wei2017) created self-report items measuring daily air pollution appraisals, a variable they predicted would influence employee affect and behavior. They found participants’ scores to be significantly related to daily levels of particulate matter, objective environmental data collected near participants’ work locations. Khan et al. (Reference Khan, Patel and Barnes2024) later used the Fehr et al. self-report measure to operationalize air pollution as an occupational stressor. In both studies, an environmental variable was used to predict organizational behavior, which shows us that environmental criteria can be effectively theorized to relate to more traditional I-O constructs.

Extending these examples, I-O researchers might gain comfort working with environmental measures by framing them as occupational stressors or predictors of I-O outcomes within traditional I-O frameworks. Local environmental events and organizational responses to them might be framed as affective events driving employee attitudes and behavior, for instance. I-Os can use other climate crisis-relevant measures such as daily heat index, proportion of a geographic area covered by natural versus developed land, gallons of pollutants spilled into nearby bodies of water, or days of the year impacted by natural disasters in I-O research. These data are often collected by public agencies as part of municipal, regional, and state-level strategic plans and can enhance the rigor of I-O research otherwise relying on self-report data.

Once I-Os feel more comfortable including environmental criteria in their work, the next step toward impact-first research and practice involves collaborations across disciplines with environmental criteria as focal outcomes of interest. The greatest challenges facing society cannot be solved by a single discipline, and environmental crises are no exception. For I-Os to contribute meaningfully to environmental sustainability, we must work with environmental experts to measure environmental outcomes. So, where can I-Os start these conversations? Online resources to help I-Os interested in finding environmental nonprofit organizations and experts to build strong environmental sustainability partnerships can be found in Table 1.

Table 1. Resources for I-Os Searching for Environmental Groups or Experts to Build Better Partnerships

I-Os can reach out to environmental nonprofits to learn more about the most important environmental concerns and connect organizations with initiatives and behaviors that matter most. I-Os who volunteer with environmental groups or visit environmental centers during non-work time are more likely to have met or connected with folks who could point them in the direction of a great environmental expert with whom they can collaborate. In the United States, most public natural lands have a land manager, ecologist, or biologist on staff responsible for carrying out the land management plan for that property. These folks have a deep understanding of these ecosystems’ needs and would be excellent partners for I-Os helping organizations develop relevant environmental criteria.

There may be cases in which the organization itself need not enact new practices but instead facilitate those developed in the local conservation community. Maybe there are endangered birds being threatened by feral cats nearby, and an organization’s best opportunity to positively impact the local environment is to allow an Audubon Society chapter to present resources on keeping domestic cats indoors. In some cases, the best thing an organization can do might be to give employees and leaders time outside to interact with and learn about natural ecosystems in their area, led by a local park ranger skilled at using immersive educational experiences to get folks to care about conservation. Without understanding the true needs of the environmental context in which an organization operates, organizations may waste resources focusing on environmental performance indicators that do nothing to support the local, natural ecosystems on which they rely for resilience to natural hazards and climate-related events.