Pro-environmental Behaviour Dissertation Chapter
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Background of study
This study deals with the pro-environmental behaviours of employees based on the sustainability program at Home 2 Suites Hotel in Salt Lake City.
Sustainability is defined as an ability or capacity of something to be maintained or to sustain itself. It's about taking what we need to live now, without jeopardizing the potential for people in the future to meet their needs (LandLearn NSW, N.D.).
In the past, an emphasis on the importance of sustainability was not yet a concern for many.
Nowadays, the increased concerns regarding the world of sustainability, in order to preserve the world that we are living in, has proved to be increasingly popular and common in society today. In this world, people are facing several environmental problems, which are caused by human actions and behaviours such as: pollution, overpopulation, global warming, climate change and reliance on fossil fuels (Alyssa, 2014). The aforementioned challenges in sustainability contain a common denominator that is they are all created by human behaviours. Therefore, sustainability programs surrounds us in not only the workplace but also in our personal lives. Due to the fast-growing trend, many companies are looking for support to their business strategy by sustainability (Franchise Help, 2015). While it can reduce the costs of a business and attract further customers for profit gain, it is correspondingly a huge market competition amongst other companies in which they employ the same strategy (Environmental leader, 2015). In the hotel industry, management is seeking to construct a win-win situation to the internal workings of the hotel and environment of the world. Moreover, there includes several benefits with the exercise of sustainability strategies, such as: Saving costs is one of the biggest advantages to the hotel, protecting the environment which is “the right thing to do” and it can reduce the environmental risks, such as the waste management (Graci&Kuehnel, 2010).
The encouragement of employees to participate sustainability programs also results to have numerous benefits, such as improving the reputation and credibility from the workers. For the employees, it can develop the new skills and gain the new experience of the work and social environmental (Green Hotelier, 2010). Numerous hotels employ various ways to engage employees to actively get involved in sustainability. For example, providing more chances for employees to share going green ideas, or develop activities and training programs about it (Elder, 2009). In Home 2 Suites, they launch the sustainability program reward to change the employee behaviour for the better, which they have successfully completed one of their goals (Green Hotelier, 2010). The primary reason of choosing Home 2 Suites hotel is to analyse the sustainability program and how the hotel changes the employees’ behaviour through the use of the program. In addition, the author will investigate the scope of strategies the hotel focuses to encourage the employees on pro-environmental behaviour and the result of the employee behaviour influenced by the sustainability program.
1.2. Statement of the Problem
In hotel industry, the managers want to grow their business profit and contribute with environmental problems by the pro-environmental behaviour; they recognized the responsibility of the environmental and seeking to improve better sustainable future by their performance (Verma, N.D.). Since the sustainability concept this study is dealing with is Corporate Social Responsibility, it concerns the needs and understanding of environmental issues in which managers of the hotel adopt to organize workplace sustainability programs (WSPs) for the employees. If hotel employees accept the WSPs in their workplace, it will lead to employees change in behaviours in their personal life habits and easily to find out the environmental issues in community (Loverock& Newell, 2012). On the other hand, if the hotel employees do not accept the WSPs in their workplace, it will reduce there ability to relate to environmental issues in their community. Some argue that human behaviour is interesting and habitual; some of them will change their old habits due to the environment factor. However, there is a contrast as the complexity of the constantly changing interacting factors influencing human behaviour concludes that comprehensive and definitive experiments in the social sciences are not possible and that the most we can ever realistically hope to achieve is not prediction and control but rather only temporary understanding (Cziko, 2012). Consequently, an important point of view is people cannot change the other people’s behavior, only individuals decide to change their own behaviour by themselves (Allen, 2013). In most cases people waste most of their times trying t