I-O Psychology and Environmental Sustainability in Organizations: A Natural Partnership

Industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology is extremely well positioned to facilitate environmental sustainability (ES) in organizations. I-O psychology experts (e.g., Muchinsky, 2011) have stressed, and we agree, that the nature of our mission (dealing with issues of critical relevance to business) makes our profession a natural fit to be active players to promote and support ES practices in organizations. We believe that our qualifications were established quite early in I-O psychology’s history, and contend that facilitation of efficiency is one of the fundamental goals of I-O psychology. Maximum output is no longer the sole purpose of organizations, but efficiency remains critical to the practical application of I-O psychology-and also to ES in organizations. We firmly believe that it is a short, appropriate, and (pun intended) natural step to extend our attention to the efficient use of environmental resources. Efficiency is not the only driver for I-O psychology, nor is it the only avenue to ES. However, the field of I-O psychology is a bit late to the sustainability table, and therefore we have chosen, with this introduction, to help illustrate how closely linked I-O psychology and ES really are.