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Employees at 'green' companies are significantly more productive, study finds
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Bucking the idea that environmentalism hurts economic performance, a new UCLA-led study has found that companies that voluntarily adopt international “green” practices and standards have employees who are 16 percent more productive than the average.
Professor Magali Delmas, an environmental economist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Sanja Pekovic from France’s University Paris–Dauphine are the first to study how a firm’s environmental commitment affects its productivity.
Their findings are published online Sept. 10 in the Journal of Organizational Behavior.
“Adopting green practices isn’t just good for the environment,” Delmas said. “It’s good for your employees and it’s good for your bottom line. Employees in such green firms are more motivated, receive more training, and benefit from better interpersonal relationships. The employees at green companies are therefore more productive than employees in more conventional firms.”
