Green training and development (GT&D) plays an important role in establishing sustainable organisational practices (Stefanelli et al., 2020). Despite this importance, little is known about the extent of adoption of GT&D within New Zealand organisations. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate GT&D adoption in NZX-listed organisations. The study employed a cross-sectional research design, utilising surveys for data collection, to examine a broad spectrum of GT&D practices . Specifically, the contents, methods, and motives behind the adoption of GT&D were assessed. The study’s findings show that New Zealand organisations are currently in the early stages of GT&D adoption, with the majority of participants currently having no dedicated GT&D practices in place. That said, over 90 percent of the sample did incorporate aspects of GT&D within more mainstream training and development activities. Where specific GT&D practices were adopted, there was considerable diversity in the training content and methods of delivery, which suggests that GT&D is tailored to the needs of the organisations. Encouragingly, the study shows that organisations have maintained or increased levels of GT&D adoption over the past five years, which further supports that the organisations are in the early stages of GT&D and broader GHRM adoption to combat societal pressure to react to climate change. The study drew on institutional and legitimacy theory to understand how extra- and intra-organisational factors related to GT&D adoption. to identify predicting variables. Findings demonstrate that external coercive, mimetic, and normative forces were poor predictors of GT&D adoption. Contrastingly, internal regulative, moral and normative forces were found to be strong predictors for GT&D adoption, with regulatory forces being the strongest predictor of GT&D adoption. The study’s findings suggest that governing bodies and regulatory industry authorities have more sway over organisations' adoption of GT&D than they may realise.

These findings aid in the development of a deeper understanding of GT&D in New Zealand’s business environment. The results from the study contribute to literature as the adoption and nature of GT&D within NZX-listed organisations at this point in time has been identified, information that has previously not been studied to this capacity. This data also provides similar demography organisations with benchmarking data to compare their GT&D adoption. Despite the limitations of the research, the study has allowed for a general foundation to build on for future research, specifically looking into the GHRM genre within New Zealand.