Hr Managers and Environmental Sustainability: Strategic Leaders or Passive Observers?

While many organisations have been quick to jump onboard the ‘sustainability bandwagon’ little appears to have been done to consider the role of, and effect on, the HR function and manager. In fact, organisations have tended to treat sustainability and HR in silo. This paper examines questions such as: How are HR managers defining and enacting corporate sustainability? And what is the effect of the HR managers’ social and political contexts in this role? We do so by focusing on the relationships between HR and environmental sustainability. In particular, we explore the challenges posed to, and reactions of , HR and HR managers by the concept of sustainable development and the corporate sustainability rhetoric.