Environmental good practices in public and private organisations
Keywords:
environmental management, public organisations, private organisations, circular economy, green procurement, organisational sustainability.Abstract
Environmental good practices have become a central component of organisational management in response to climate change, resource depletion, pollution, and regulatory and social demands. This systematic review aimed to analyse environmental practices implemented in public and private organisations, identify the factors supporting their implementation, and compare their contributions to sustainable performance. The PRISMA 2020 guidelines were followed, and institutional publications issued between 2015 and 2024 were examined from Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, SciELO, Dialnet, and official repositories. After verifying relevance, quality, authorship, and the availability of a DOI or URL, a final corpus of twenty sources was integrated. Results were organised into six categories: environmental management systems, energy efficiency and decarbonisation, circular economy and waste management, green procurement, environmental training and awareness, and performance measurement. Evidence showed that the most consistent practices combine leadership, measurable objectives, staff participation, life-cycle criteria, indicator monitoring, and transparent communication. In the public sector, green procurement stood out for its capacity to influence markets and suppliers; in the private sector, ISO 14001 systems, circular innovation, and corporate governance supported impact reduction and value creation. Nevertheless, barriers persisted, including costs, limited technical capacities, institutional fragmentation, inadequate measurement, and the risk of greenwashing. The review concludes that effectiveness depends on embedding environmental practices in strategy, budgeting, operations, and accountability, supported by verifiable indicators and continuous improvement. These findings provide an integrated framework for organisational decision-makers seeking to move from isolated environmental actions towards coherent, measurable, and enduring management systems across diverse institutional contexts and policy implementation.
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