Sustainable leadership and eco-citizenship behavior: examining green organizational climate as a pathway

Corporate sustainability has become a critical priority for contemporary organizations because leaders face intensifying competing pressures linked to resource scarcity, climate change, rising ethical expectations and reputational risk (Ahsan and Khawaja, 2024; Keil et al., 2025; Saleem et al., 2021). In response to these pressures, sustainable leadership has emerged as a leadership logic that integrates economic, social and environmental responsibilities to support long-term organizational success (Akinwalere et al., 2025; Eustachio et al., 2023; Gerard et al., 2017; Liao, 2022). Sustainable leaders demonstrate a forward-looking vision, cultivate participation and innovation and institutionalize ethical and environmental stewardship as their core values. According to Avery and Bergsteiner (2011), sustainable leaders adopt a long-term perspective and cultivate an innovative, high-involvement workforce. These leaders aim to create conditions that continuously enhance sustainability practices, enabling individuals and organizations to adapt and thrive in a changing world.

Within this leadership architecture, employees interpret organizational priorities through a green organizational climate. Green climate reflects the shared perceptions that the organization’s policies, practices and procedures support environmental sustainability and expect pro-environmental conduct (Ahsan and Khawaja, 2024; Zhang et al., 2021). When employees perceive clear environmental priorities, they infer normative expectations that shape attitudes and guide action. Prior studies characterize green climate as a shared perceptual context about environmental priorities and support (Norton et al., 2014). Research further suggests that a supportive green atmosphere encourages employees to set personal environmental goals and align their behavior with organizational sustainability objectives (Duarte and Mouro, 2022; Radassao and Zappalà, 2025). Conversely, if employees sense weak commitment or inconsistency in environmental priorities from leadership, pro-environmental norms in the workplace may fail to develop. Thus, leadership commitment to sustainability is likely to be a key antecedent of a strong green organizational climate.

Eco-citizenship behavior refers to employees’ discretionary pro-environmental acts at work (Mensah et al., 2021). Although related to green climate, the two constructs capture distinct dimensions of organizational sustainability. Climate reflects perceived expectations and contextual support for environmental responsibility, whereas eco-citizenship behavior reflects the voluntary enactment of pro-environmental intent. Sustainable leadership and green climate help explain eco-citizenship behavior, often conceptualized as organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (Liu and Yu, 2023). Eco-citizenship behavior comprises discretionary, voluntary acts such as reducing waste, conserving energy, participating in environmental initiatives and advocating responsible practices among colleagues (Mensah et al., 2021; Xiao et al., 2021). Such actions are typically extra-role and unrewarded formally, yet they contribute materially to environmental performance and to the social legitimacy of the organization (Daily et al., 2008; Liu and Yu, 2023; Jankelová et al., 2025; Xiao et al., 2024). Although individual factors such as environmental values and self-efficacy contribute to pro-environmental motivation, the translation of intention into sustained behavior is also contingent upon contextual influences including the quality of leadership and the prevailing organizational climate (Khan et al., 2019; Xiao et al., 2021). From a social learning perspective, leadership provides modeled cues and vicarious rewards that increase efficacy (Koutroubas and Galanakis, 2022), whereas from a social exchange perspective, leadership investment signals trust and support, eliciting reciprocal eco-citizenship (Kacmar et al., 2013; Zhong et al., 2022).

Prior leadership, climate and behavior research has commonly relied on transformational, ethical, responsible, servant and green or environmental leadership to explain employees’ pro-environmental conduct at work (e.g. Elshaer et al., 2024; Li et al., 2020; Norton et al., 2014; Saleem et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2022). These frameworks highlight inspirational influence, moral role modeling, stakeholder concern or explicit environmental advocacy, but they are typically specified at the dyadic level and often focus on discrete behaviors or campaigns (Bass and Riggio, 2006; Brown et al., 2005; Maak and Pless, 2006; Mittal and Dhar, 2016). By contrast, sustainable leadership is defined as a leadership logic that integrates economic, social and environmental responsibilities into a long-term, multi-stakeholder orientation that shapes both everyday decisions and organizational systems (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011; Eustachio et al., 2023). This broader, systemic perspective suggests that employees do not only learn isolated “green” behaviors from leaders; they also infer that environmental stewardship is embedded in the organization’s enduring purpose and routines (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011). We therefore argue that sustainable leadership offers distinct theoretical leverage for understanding how durable green organizational climates are formed and how they, in turn, sustain eco-citizenship behaviors in challenging emerging-economy manufacturing settings where organizations face simultaneous efficiency, equity and environmental pressures (Han et al., 2025; Zhao and Liang, 2023).

Despite growing interest in sustainable leadership and workplace green behavior, the literature remains less clear about the proximal social mechanisms that translate sustainability-oriented leadership into employees’ voluntary, extra-role environmental actions, particularly in under-studied emerging economy manufacturing contexts (Han et al., 2025; Liao, 2022; Zhao and Liang, 2023). Prior work often demonstrates direct associations but provides less precision on how leaders shape shared green expectations and how those expectations, in turn, motivate eco-citizenship behavior (Du and Yan, 2022; Gu and Liu, 2022; Xu et al., 2022). Scholars have therefore called for mechanism-explicit models that connect leadership to climate perceptions and then to eco-citizenship behavior (Ahsan and Khawaja, 2024; Robertson and Carleton, 2018; Saleem et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2022), as shown in Figure 1.

We address these gaps by examining sustainable leadership – rather than more narrowly scoped leadership styles – as a long-term, multi-stakeholder leadership logic that shapes employees’ shared green expectations and eco-citizenship behavior through green organizational climate. Integrating social learning and social exchange theories, we position green organizational climate as the proximal social pathway through which sustainable leadership is associated with eco-citizenship behavior. Social learning theory (SLT) accounts for how employees observe leaders’ sustainability conduct and form convergent climate perceptions (Ahsan, 2025; Bandura and Walters, 1977), while social exchange theory (SET) explains why a supportive green climate elicits felt obligation, reciprocity and sustained discretionary environmental effort (Blau, 2017; Gouldner, 1960). Using cross-sectional survey data from employees in Ghana’s manufacturing sector, we articulate and test how sustainable leadership operates through green organizational climate. We further clarify what this construct adds to established leadership–climate–behavior frameworks and demonstrate its relevance in an under-studied Sub-Saharan African manufacturing context where environmental management scholarship remains comparatively sparse.

Our study is grounded in two complementary theories: the SLT and the SET. First, the SLT clarifies one pathway from leadership to climate and behavior (Bandura and Walters, 1977). Individuals learn by observing credible role models, encoding their actions and reproducing those behaviors when they expect positive outcomes (Ahn et al., 2020; Diepolder et al., 2024). Sustainability-oriented leaders’ model specific pro-environmental practices, explain their rationale and reinforce them through recognition and resource allocation. Employees attend to these cues, infer what constitutes appropriate behavior and generalize them into climate perceptions. Second, the SET complements the SLT by explaining why employees choose to exceed formal role requirements once a green climate is salient. When leaders invest in sustainability and in the conditions that enable employees to act responsibly, employees experience perceived organizational support and a felt obligation to reciprocate (Blau, 1964; Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). Reciprocity norms transform leadership signals into socioemotional currencies. Employees repay high-quality exchange relationships through discretionary effort that benefits the collective, including environmental stewardship activities. Over time, these exchanges stabilize into mutual commitment around sustainability and anchor climate strength.

Sustainable leadership shares some family resemblance with transformational, ethical, responsible, servant and green or environmental leadership, yet it is analytically distinct in scope, temporal orientation and systemic focus. Transformational leadership emphasizes inspirational motivation, idealized influence, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration to elevate followers’ commitment and performance (Bass and Riggio, 2006). Ethical leadership centers on moral role modeling, fairness and principled decision-making at the dyadic level, guiding followers to act with integrity (Brown et al., 2005). Servant leadership foregrounds leader humility, empathy and prioritization of follower needs and community well-being (Van Dierendonck, 2011). Responsible leadership extends stakeholder concern to corporate social responsibility, emphasizing accountability to multiple stakeholder groups (Maak and Pless, 2006). Green or environmental leadership focuses more narrowly on championing environmental initiatives, advocating for pro-environmental behavior and modeling eco-friendly conduct in specific green programs or campaigns (Robertson and Barling, 2013; Mittal and Dhar, 2016).

By contrast, sustainable leadership is defined as a leadership logic that integrates economic, social and environmental responsibilities into a long-term, multi-stakeholder strategic orientation that guides both day-to-day decisions and the design of enduring organizational systems (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011; Gerard et al., 2017). While transformational and ethical leadership operate primarily through dyadic exchanges or moral inspiration, and while green leadership concentrates on discrete environmental initiatives, sustainable leadership embeds environmental stewardship within a broader triple-bottom-line framework that simultaneously attends to financial viability, social equity and ecological integrity (Eustachio et al., 2023; Liao, 2022). This systemic perspective stresses the design of durable structures, cultures and capabilities, such as innovation systems, high-involvement work practices, stakeholder engagement routines and long-term performance metrics, that can maintain sustainability performance across economic cycles, leadership transitions and shifting external pressures (Akinwalere et al., 2025).

These conceptual distinctions have important theoretical implications for understanding how leadership shapes green organizational climate and eco-citizenship behavior. First, sustainable leadership’s integrated, long-term orientation implies that employees do not merely learn isolated “green” behaviors from leaders; they also infer that environmental priorities are embedded in the organization’s enduring purpose, core decision rules and strategic commitments. This deeper, systemic embedding is more likely to crystallize into strong, durable green organizational climates that persist even when short-term economic or operational pressures intensify – a dynamic that is particularly salient in emerging-economy manufacturing contexts where firms face acute resource constraints and competing demands (Han et al., 2025; Zhao and Liang, 2023). Second, because sustainable leadership operates through both formal structures (policies, systems, metrics) and informal mechanisms (vision, communication, modeling), it is better positioned to institutionalize environmental norms and to create reliable exchange conditions that sustain eco-citizenship behaviors over time. By contrast, leadership styles that concentrate on short-term inspiration, isolated green campaigns or dyadic moral exchanges may struggle to anchor durable environmental expectations when leaders change or when economic pressures mount.

Accordingly, we argue that sustainable leadership provides distinct theoretical leverage for explaining the formation of green organizational climates and the maintenance of eco-citizenship behaviors in challenging, resource-constrained environments. Notably, sustainable leadership aligns closely with the concept of regenerative leadership, which emphasizes eco-citizenship and positions organizational sustainability within broader civilizational commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals (Rendtorff, 2019). By articulating this theoretical distinctiveness, we clarify what sustainable leadership uniquely contributes to established leadership–climate–behavior frameworks and demonstrate why it is a particularly appropriate construct for understanding environmental sustainability dynamics in emerging-economy manufacturing settings.

Building on the broader, long-term and systemic orientation outlined above, sustainable leadership shapes employees’ discretionary eco-friendly behaviors primarily through social learning processes that communicate the enduring centrality of environmental stewardship to organizational success. Leaders serve as salient role models whose visible actions signal what is appropriate and effective at work. When leaders consistently demonstrate environmental responsibility, such as instituting recycling routines, reducing waste or making environmental consequences explicit in decisions, employees attend to, encode and reproduce these behaviors, especially when they observe positive outcomes and recognition for “doing green” (Bandura, and Walters, 1977). Empirical studies support this role-model pathway: managers’ exemplary environmental engagement is mirrored by employees as organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, strengthening everyday pro-environmental acts such as conserving energy, minimizing waste and helping peers adopt eco-practices (Boiral et al., 2015). Related evidence shows that when leaders behave responsibly and champion green values, followers replicate those standards in their own tasks (Voegtlin et al., 2012; Afsar et al., 2020). Leaders can also catalyze value internalization by articulating a compelling moral purpose around environmental stewardship, which heightens identification with sustainability aims and sustains voluntary effort (Egri and Herman, 2000; Afsar et al., 2016). Taken together, sustainable leaders transmit pro-environmental scripts, provide vicarious reinforcement and normalize green conduct, thereby elevating eco-citizenship behaviors across the workforce.

The Ghanaian manufacturing sector presents a theoretically and practically suitable context to examine these variables. Manufacturing activities concentrate material, energy and waste decisions inside coordinated workflows where leader exemplars are highly observable, which amplifies social learning effects. Ghana’s emerging-economy manufacturing landscape also exhibits heterogeneous environmental practices and uneven resource constraints across firms. Such variance increases the salience of leader modeling to reduce uncertainty about “how to act green” in day-to-day operations and creates measurable between-firm differences in green extra-role behavior. Further, sustainability is increasingly consequential for Ghanaian manufacturers due to cost pressures linked to resource efficiency, evolving stakeholder expectations and regulatory and supply-chain demands. In such an environment, leadership approaches that focus on short-term inspiration or narrow green campaigns may struggle to anchor durable environmental norms. Sustainable leadership’s integrated, long-term logic that embeds environmental stewardship into core strategic and operational choices is therefore particularly pertinent for stabilizing green climate and eco-citizenship behavior over time. These conditions heighten employees’ motivation to emulate credible leadership cues and make the social learning pathway both tractable and impactful. Accordingly, we expect that employees under sustainable leaders in Ghanaian manufacturing will more frequently engage in eco-citizenship behaviors because leadership modeling clarifies norms, builds efficacy and demonstrates the practical value of environmental stewardship. We, thus, hypothesize:

Leadership is a primary driver of organizational climate, including sustainability priorities. Upper echelons theory explains that top managers imprint their values on policies, practices and norms, which crystallize into shared perceptions of “how we do things here.” When leaders prioritize environmental stewardship, they design systems that reward green conduct, allocate resources to environmental programs and monitor performance on sustainability indicators. Employees then infer that environmentally responsible behavior is valued, which strengthens a green organizational climate (Iqbal et al., 2021; Keil et al., 2025; Xiao et al., 2024; Xu et al., 2022).

SET clarifies the microprocesses that translate leadership emphasis into climate strength. Employees observe leaders’ visible, repeated sustainability actions, encode these behaviors as effective scripts and reproduce them when the organization reinforces such conduct (Ahsan, 2025; Bandura and Walters, 1977). Leaders shape attention and priorities by what they consistently demonstrate, control and reward; this modeling and vicarious reinforcement make environmental care salient and normatively appropriate across units (Kuenzi and Schminke, 2009). Formal levers, such as eco-policies, sustainability committees and environmental management systems, institutionalize the modeled standards. Informal levers, including a compelling green vision and credible communication, signal durability and authenticity, which fosters employee trust and value internalization (Gomez-Trujillo et al., 2024; Unsworth et al., 2021; Zhu et al., 2005). Because sustainable leadership embeds environmental priorities within a broader, integrated commitment to economic, social and ecological goals – rather than treating environmental initiatives as temporary add-ons – employees infer that green expectations are durable and deeply institutionalized. This perception of enduring organizational commitment strengthens climate formation and anchors shared expectations that environmental stewardship is central to “how we do things here.” Evidence from diverse settings shows that strong managerial commitment to environmental issues corresponds with more robust green climates and higher pro-environmental behavior among employees (Zientara and Zamojska, 2018; Ferguson and Langford, 2006). However, if leadership signals are ambiguous, the social learning cycle weakens and climate formation stalls (Anthony Swaim et al., 2016). Therefore, leaders must model sustainability consistently, align rewards and routines with green goals and make vicarious reinforcement visible. Under these conditions, sustainable leadership should positively relate to green organizational climate by establishing clear behavioral exemplars and shared expectations that employees learn to follow. Based on the argument above, we hypothesize that:

A green organizational climate creates exchange conditions that enable employees’ voluntary pro-environmental behaviors. When employees collectively perceive strong organizational support for sustainability, they infer that the organization values and cares for their environmental efforts. This perceived organizational support functions as a socioemotional resource that elicits felt obligation and reciprocity, which increases extra-role environmental contributions such as eco-citizenship behaviors (Lamm et al., 2013; Blau, 1964). In this exchange logic, injunctive signals that management approves, and rewards eco-friendly actions clarify what the organization esteems, while fair recognition and access to resources for green initiatives strengthen trust and commitment, further motivating discretionary effort. Expectancy theory provides a complementary motivational account. The theory posits that that individuals are more inclined to exert discretionary effort when they perceive a clear linkage between their effort, performance and the attainment of outcomes they value (Vroom, 1964). Therefore, a strong green climate can increase perceived instrumentality and valence by making recognition, support and environmental impact more visible.

Green climate also amplifies social information that shapes exchange expectations among peers. When employees observe colleagues routinely engaging in recycling, energy conservation or green volunteering, they read these behaviors as cues about valued contributions and anticipated returns. Conformity to these expectations reflects a desire to maintain high-quality exchange relationships with both the organization and coworkers, not only to “fit in” but to uphold reciprocity norms that govern cooperative work contexts. Opportunities for voice and participation in environmental decision-making signal respect and enhance perceived support, which increases willingness to invest in proactive sustainability behaviors that exceed formal role requirements (DuBois and Dubois, 2012; Robertson and Barling, 2013). Even employees with moderate initial environmental values tend to escalate their effort when they perceive reliable, fair and enduring organizational reciprocity around sustainability. In sum, a supportive green climate reduces social and structural barriers while enriching exchange-based motivators, thereby broadening and sustaining eco-citizenship behaviors. Based on this reasoning and supporting evidence, we hypothesize:

We argue that green organizational climate mediates the effect of sustainable leadership on employees’ eco-citizenship behavior. Sustainable leaders shape climate by repeatedly modeling pro-environmental conduct and making sustainability a visible performance priority (Rafiq et al., 2024; Robertson and Barling, 2013). Through social learning processes, employees observe leaders’ concrete behaviors, encode them as effective scripts and generalize them into shared expectations when such behaviors are consistently recognized and resourced (Ahsan, 2025). These modeled cues accumulate into a strong green climate that clarifies what is appropriate, efficacious and expected at work.

Concurrently, a green climate functions as an exchange context. When the organization signals durable support for environmental initiatives through policies, resources and fair recognition, employees infer socioemotional benefits and develop a felt obligation to reciprocate (De Roeck and Delobbe, 2012; Raza et al., 2021). Perceived organizational support activates reciprocity norms and strengthens commitment, which increases extra-role environmental contributions (Bizri and Hamieh, 2020). Thus, climate transmits leadership influence in two complementary ways: it institutionalizes learned behavioral standards and it stabilizes exchange expectations that motivate discretionary effort. Therefore, leaders can directly prompt eco-behaviors through immediate modeling or direct exchanges, yet a substantial portion of their influence operates indirectly via the climate employees experience daily. This dual pathway distinguishes sustainable leadership from narrower leadership styles that rely primarily on inspirational motivation or moral role modeling alone. In sum, sustainable leadership is associated with a green organizational climate that teaches employees how to act and gives them reasons to go beyond formal requirements, thereby elevating eco-citizenship behavior. We, therefore, hypothesize that:

The study focused on employees in Ghana’s manufacturing industry, specifically firms operating in the food-processing and pharmaceutical/chemical subsectors. These sectors were selected because of their relatively high environmental footprints and the increasing relevance of sustainability-oriented practices, including waste management and hazardous-material handling (Akuma et al., 2024). Participating firms were drawn from two major industrial regions in Ghana, namely, Ashanti and Greater Accra, to capture some degree of regional diversity. The sampling frame covered employees occupying operational, supervisory and managerial roles, as the study required responses from individuals positioned to observe leadership behavior, experience organizational climate and report workplace eco-citizenship behavior.

Following examples from previous studies (e.g. Mensah et al., 2024, 2025), we relied on a non-probability convenience sampling strategy because organizational access constrained the sampling frame. Human resource departments in participating firms circulated paper questionnaires on-site and shared an online survey link with employees who were available and willing to participate. In some firms, HR staff distributed the survey to diverse units and shifts to enhance heterogeneity. Respondents received assurances of confidentiality and were informed that the study was for academic purposes. Because access was negotiated at the organizational level and responses were collected anonymously at the employee level, the unit of analysis is the individual employee, even though the sampling frame spanned multiple firms.

We designed the study as cross-sectional because the focal constructs reflect contemporaneous perceptions and reported behaviors. Climate, in particular, is conceptualized as employees’ shared perception of environmental policies and practices, which a cross-sectional survey can capture as a snapshot of the prevailing interpretive context. We therefore interpret the SEM paths as theory-consistent associations rather than causal effects, and we address causal limitations explicitly. Data collection lasted approximately four months in 2020. We distributed 350 questionnaires and received 320 responses. After removing incomplete questionnaires, the final sample comprised 301 usable responses. This sample size exceeds commonly recommended minimums for SEM and provides adequate statistical power (Hair et al., 2010).

The sample consisted of 301 employees drawn from Ghana’s manufacturing industry. As presented in Table 1, male respondents constituted a slight majority (54.8%), although female employees were also well represented (45.2%). The respondents were predominantly young, with over half aged 20–30 years (56.1%) and a further 35.9% aged 31–40 years. In terms of education, most participants had at least undergraduate-level education (57.1%), while 27.2% had postgraduate qualifications, indicating a relatively educated sample. The majority occupied operational roles (57.8%), followed by supervisory positions (32.6%), with relatively few in managerial roles (9.6%). By firm type, most respondents were drawn from food-processing firms (65.1%), while the remainder came from pharmaceutical firms (34.9%). Overall, the sample reflects a youthful, educated and operationally oriented workforce, with stronger representation from the food-processing subsector.

The study adopted already existing validated scales from the literature to measure each construct. Sustainable leadership was measure using scales adopted from McCann and Holt (2010). Example of the items included “My leader acts in a sustainable environmentally responsible manner.” Each item was measured on a five-point scale from 1 = not at all to 5 = frequently. Cronbach’s alpha score was 0.91. Green organizational climate was measured using scales adopted from Chou (2014). Example of the items included “Our industry has publicly publicized environmental policies.” Each item was measured on a five-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Cronbach’s alpha value was 0.89. Eco-citizenship behavior was measured using scales adopted from Boiral and Paillé (2012). It focused on eco-initiatives, eco-engagements and eco-helping. Example of the items included “I voluntarily carry out environmental actions at work.” Each item was measured on a five-point scale from 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely agree. Cronbach’s alpha value was 0.93.

We tested for the validity and reliability of the items using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in LISREL 8.5. We relied on commonly used and accepted fit indices, which is used to assess model fit in empirical research. These include the normed chi-square (χ²/df), root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA), goodness-of-fit index (GFI), comparative fit index (CFI) and non-normed fit index (NNFI) (Hair et al., 2010). Literature suggests that for convergent validity to be established, GFI and CFI should be more than 0.9 (Perry et al., 2015), RMSEA and SRMR are also expected not to be more than 0.08. The normed chi-square (χ²/df) is also expected to be less than 5 with the p-value of the chi-square greater than 0.05 (Hair et al., 2010). The CFA affirmed that the three theoretical constructs were empirically distinguishable and measured reliably. The CFA model (with sustainable leadership, green climate and eco-behavior as three latent factors and their corresponding items as indicators) demonstrated a good fit to the data: χ² = 674.02, df = 272, χ²/df = 2.48, CFI = 0.98, GFI = 0.95, NNFI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.07. As displayed in Table 2, all factor loadings were positive and significant (t-values > 9). Table 2 shows the standardized factor loadings for each item, along with composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) for each construct. All loadings exceeded 0.60, except a few slightly lower (e.g. 0.62), and most were in the 0.70–0.84 range, indicating strong item-factor associations. The CR values ranged from 0.88 (green climate) to 0.93 (eco-behavior), and AVE values ranged from 0.50–0.58, exceeding the typical threshold of 0.50 for convergent validity. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for each construct were similarly high (α = 0.91, 0.89, 0.93 for leadership, climate, behavior, respectively), reinforcing internal consistency.

The study took a greater concern to check for common method bias since the data was collected from a single source. We followed the statistical procedure used by Cote and Buckley (1987). This procedure was recently used by Mensah et al. (2026) and Okyere et al. (2026). Following their example, three competing models were estimated. The first is the method-only model (Model 1). Under this model, all the items were loaded on a single latent factor, and the fit indices were χ2/DF = 6,185.92/495 = 12.50; RMSEA = 0.196; NNFI = 0.57; and CFI = 0.59. The second is the trait-only model (Model 2) in which each item was loaded on its own latent factor and the fit indices were χ2/DF = 1,376.13/492 = 2.80; RMSEA = 0.077; NNFI = 0.85; and CFI = 0.86. The third was the method and trait model (Model 3) which involved the inclusion of a common factor which linked all the indicators in the second model given χ2/DF = 1,033.55/456 = 2.27; RMSEA = 0.065; NNFI = 0.88; and CFI = 0.90. Cote and Buckley (1987) indicated that to check for the presence of trait factors, then the trait-only model (Model 2) should have significantly better fit indices than the method-only model (Model 1) and also, the method and trait model (Model 3) should have a significantly better fit index than the method-only model (Model 1). As indicated, it can be realized that the assessment of the three models shows that Models 2 and 3 are better than Model 1, and that difference between Models 2 and 3 are not statistically significant. Thus, the fit indices for the method and traits model (Model 3) have significantly lower chi-square goodness of fit than Model 1 and 2. Achieving these two conditions suggests that trait factors are present and that common method bias is not a problem in the data. While these results suggest that common method bias is unlikely to be a major concern in this study, some residual bias cannot be entirely ruled out given the single-source, self-report design. Future research should replicate findings using multi-source and multi-method approaches to further mitigate this limitation. Table 3 presents the initial correlations between the variables of interest. The results show that the variables are significantly correlated and multicollinearity is not a concern in the data set.

The fit indices for the structural model indicated a better fit (χ²/df = 2.25; p = 0.00; RMSEA = 0.06; GFI = 0.85; CFI = 0.91; SRMR = 0.06; NNFI = 0.90). The results as presented in Table 4 and Figure 2 shows that among the control variables, only education has a significant effect on green organizational climate (β = −0.15; t = −2.78) and eco-citizenship behavior (β = −0.11; t = −2.36). The results of the hypothesized path show that sustainable leadership showed a significant positive association with eco-citizenship behavior (β = 0.24; t = 3.63), suggesting that leaders who integrate environmental responsibilities into daily and long-term decisions are linked to employees voluntarily engaging in ecological behaviors beyond formal role requirements. Sustainable leadership showed a significant positive association with green organizational climate (β = 0.55; t = 7.15), suggesting that leaders who embed sustainability in organizational systems, policies and practices are linked to employees collectively perceiving a stronger green climate. In turn, green organizational climate was significantly and positively associated with eco-citizenship behavior (β = 0.50; t = 6.15), suggesting that a clear and supportive green climate is linked to employees aligning their discretionary behaviors with the organization’s environmental goals. Finally, green organizational climate significantly transmitted the association between sustainable leadership and eco-citizenship behavior (indirect effect β = 0.28; t = 4.66), suggesting that sustainable leadership is associated with higher eco-citizenship, in part through its association with a green climate that translates leaders’ sustainability focus into concrete cues for employees. Table 5 presents the summary of the results.

Our findings highlight the critical role of sustainable leadership in promoting environmental sustainability within organizations and clarify the processes through which this occurs. Importantly, these findings demonstrate what sustainable leadership uniquely contributes beyond other leadership styles (such as transformational, ethical or green leadership) that have been examined in prior leadership–climate–behavior research. First, we found a positive and significant relationship between sustainable leadership and employees’ eco-citizenship behaviors (H1). This finding collaborates with the SLT which posits that employees attend to and encode leaders’ visible sustainability practices as effective behavioral scripts, which they subsequently reproduce when such conduct is consistently reinforced (Bandura and Walters, 1977). Sustainable leadership’s systemic and enduring orientation to environmental stewardship, rather than discrete green campaigns or inspirational episodes, appears to provide employees with coherent, long-term scripts that sustain eco-citizenship behaviors even under operational pressures (Rendtorff, 2025). Empirical studies corroborate this modeling pathway: leaders’ personal engagement in environmental actions predicts employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment (Boiral et al., 2015), responsible and ethical leadership strengthens followers’ pro-environmental behavior (Voegtlin et al., 2012; Afsar et al., 2016; Afsar et al., 2020) and leadership support catalyzes individual green initiatives and advocacy (Saleem et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2024; Zhou et al., 2022). Consistent with this evidence, our findings suggest that firms with sustainability-oriented leaders are likely to report more frequent discretionary eco-friendly behaviors such as waste reduction, resource conservation and peer encouragement.

Second, sustainable leadership positively related to green organizational climate (H2). In social learning terms, climate strength reflects the cumulative salience, consistency and consequence of modeled cues that leaders broadcast. When leaders repeatedly communicate environmental priorities, align routines and metrics with sustainability and recognize green contributions, employees observe vicarious reinforcement and converge on shared expectations that environmental stewardship is both valued and efficacious. Because sustainable leadership embeds environmental priorities into broader strategic commitments rather than treating them as add-on initiatives, employees infer that green expectations are durable and institutionalized, strengthening climate perceptions. Empirical work supports this climate-formation mechanism: top-management commitment and exemplar behavior are associated with stronger green climates and higher employee pro-environmental conduct (Norton et al., 2014; Zientara and Zamojska, 2018; Ferguson and Langford, 2006). In this study, the association between sustainable leadership and green climate was significant, indicating that leadership modeling is a central mechanism through which sustainability values crystallize into widely shared norms at the workplace.

Third, the positive association between green organizational climate and eco-citizenship behaviors (H3) reflects exchange dynamics in which climate communicates organizational support and fairness, thereby eliciting reciprocity in the form of discretionary environmental effort. In a supportive green climate, employees perceive socioemotional resources such as respect, recognition and tangible backing for environmental initiatives, which strengthen perceived organizational support and a felt obligation to “give back” through extra-role green behaviors (Blau, 2017; Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). This interpretation is consistent with empirical studies showing that pro-environmental climates translate into higher employee green behavior because employees reciprocate the organization’s investment in sustainability with voluntary effort (Norton et al., 2015), including in hospitality (Chou, 2014; Kim et al., 2020) and the public sector (Robertson and Carleton, 2018). Concretely, resources and opportunities, such as recycling infrastructure, green volunteer programs and suggestion systems, function as exchange signals that the organization will value and recognize eco-initiatives, which lowers perceived risk and increases willingness to reciprocate. These findings extend the climate-drives-behavior assertion by specifying that supportive green climates work, in part, because they activate reciprocity norms that convert organizational support into sustained eco-citizenship behaviors.

Fourth, our results support that green organizational climate partially transmits the effect of sustainable leadership to employees’ eco-citizenship behavior (H4). Through social learning processes, leaders’ visible pro-environmental actions are observed, encoded and generalized into shared expectations; these cues accumulate into a green climate that teaches employees what is appropriate and efficacious at work. Through social exchange processes, the same climate signals durable organizational support and fairness around sustainability, which elicits reciprocity and a felt obligation to contribute discretionary environmental effort (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). The observed partial mediation indicates that leadership operates both directly, via immediate modeling, and indirectly, via the climate that institutionalizes modeled standards and exchange norms. This dual pathway distinguishes sustainable leadership from narrower leadership styles: while transformational or ethical leadership may primarily operate through direct dyadic influence or moral inspiration, sustainable leadership also shapes the organizational systems and climates that embed environmental norms into everyday routines. This evidence addresses recent calls to specify how leadership produces pro-environmental outcomes and demonstrates climate as a primary pathway of influence (Althnayan et al., 2023; Xiao et al., 2024). It complements prior leadership research in which climate or culture mediates links between leadership and employee outcomes and extends that logic to sustainability (Groves and LaRocca, 2011).

Recent integrative and review work further supports the importance of leadership and climate pathways for employee green behavior. For example, Zacher et al. (2024) synthesize multilevel antecedents and consequences of leader green behavior and emphasize climate and social learning processes as key transmission mechanisms. Keil et al. (2025) similarly emphasize leadership responsibility as a driver of corporate sustainability. In addition, Jankelová et al. (2025) review evidence on organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment and highlight the need for context-sensitive tests and mechanism clarity, which our Ghanaian manufacturing evidence addresses.

This study contributes to sustainable leadership and workplace sustainability scholarship in four ways, with a primary contribution being the clarification of what sustainable leadership offers beyond other leadership constructs in leadership–climate–behavior frameworks. First, we demonstrate that sustainable leadership provides distinct theoretical leverage for explaining green organizational climate and eco-citizenship behavior. Prior research has typically relied on transformational, ethical, responsible, servant or green/environmental leadership to explain pro-environmental employee behavior (e.g. Elshaer et al., 2024; Li et al., 2020; Saleem et al., 2020). While these frameworks emphasize inspirational influence, moral exemplars, stakeholder concern or explicit environmental advocacy, sustainable leadership is broader and more systemic: it embeds environmental priorities into enduring organizational structures, cultures and decision rules rather than treating them as discrete campaigns or dyadic exchanges. Our findings suggest that this systemic orientation enables sustainable leadership to shape durable green climates that persist even when short-term economic pressures intensify, a dynamic especially relevant in emerging-economy manufacturing contexts. By empirically testing this distinction, we clarify what sustainable leadership uniquely contributes to established leadership–climate–behavior models.

Second, our study provides mechanism clarity by showing that green organizational climate partially mediates the relationship between sustainable leadership and eco-citizenship behavior. This result indicates that sustainable leadership works not only through direct role modeling but also by shaping shared perceptions of environmental expectations and support. Using validated measures and combining social learning and social exchange logics, we specify how leaders create an interpretive context that both teaches employees what to do and motivates them to go beyond formal role requirements (Bandura and Walters, 1977; Blau, 1964). Third, we extend climate research by empirically linking sustainable leadership to a facet-specific green climate and by demonstrating that green climate predicts eco-citizenship behavior within a single SEM framework (Schneider et al., 2013; Norton et al., 2014). Fourth, the Ghanaian manufacturing setting strengthens the contextual scope of sustainable leadership research by testing a leadership–climate–behavior pathway in an under-researched Sub-Saharan African industrial context where sustainable leadership’s long-term, integrated orientation is particularly salient for reconciling competing efficiency, equity and environmental demands.

Our findings offer actionable guidance for practitioners seeking to strengthen environmental sustainability. First, the findings suggest that managers can stimulate employees’ voluntary environmental actions by demonstrating sustainability in everyday decisions and by building a supportive green climate. Importantly, leaders should emphasize the long-term, systemic nature of sustainability commitments that embed environmental priorities into core strategic choices, performance metrics and organizational routines, rather than framing sustainability as temporary campaigns or compliance exercises. Leaders should translate sustainability goals into visible routines, allocate resources to environmental initiatives and recognize eco-citizenship contributions. These actions reinforce a shared perception that environmental stewardship is expected and valued, which the mediation results identify as a key pathway to eco-citizenship.

Second, manufacturing firms should embed sustainability-oriented behaviors into leadership development and performance management. Training can emphasize long-term thinking, stakeholder engagement and practical environmental decision making. Leadership development programs should explicitly distinguish sustainable leadership’s holistic, long-term orientation from narrower green advocacy or episodic environmental initiatives, helping leaders understand how to institutionalize environmental stewardship within organizational systems. Firms can also incorporate sustainability criteria into promotion and appraisal systems so that leadership behaviors that strengthen a green climate receive consistent reinforcement.

Third, at the organizational level, firms should institutionalize the climate signals that employees rely on. Clear environmental policies, measurable targets, accessible recycling and energy-saving infrastructure and opportunities for participation in green teams can reduce barriers and increase instrumentality for eco-initiatives. Communication that links individual actions to collective outcomes can further strengthen expectancy beliefs about the impact of discretionary effort (Vroom, 1964).

Finally, for policymakers and industry stakeholders, the results indicate that leadership and climate represent scalable levers for advancing national sustainability agendas. Regulators and industry associations can complement compliance instruments with guidance and incentives that encourage firms to develop internal green climates, such as recognition programs, sectoral sustainability benchmarks and leadership capacity-building initiatives. Such initiatives can support progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 13 (climate action), by mobilizing employee-level eco-citizenship in high-impact manufacturing activities.

This study examined how sustainable leadership relates to employees’ eco-citizenship behavior through green organizational climate. Using evidence from Ghana’s manufacturing sector, we show that sustainable leadership is positively associated with eco-citizenship behavior both directly and indirectly through green organizational climate. The mediation result clarifies that leaders shape employee behavior not only through immediate role modeling but also by building a shared climate in which environmental stewardship is expected, supported and reciprocated. By demonstrating what sustainable leadership uniquely contributes – namely, a systemic, enduring orientation that embeds environmental priorities into organizational routines and decision structures – we extend established leadership–climate–behavior frameworks and show why this construct is particularly valuable for understanding environmental sustainability in challenging emerging-economy contexts. The study strengthens both the theoretical precision and contextual scope of sustainable leadership and environmental behavior research by articulating sustainable leadership’s theoretical distinctiveness, specifying a climate-based mechanism grounded in social learning and social exchange and testing the model in a Sub-Saharan African manufacturing setting.

Despite offering useful insights, this study has limitations that suggest avenues for future research. First, the cross-sectional design constrains causal inference; longitudinal designs could track temporal dynamics among leadership, climate and outcomes. Second, the Ghanaian manufacturing sample enhances contextual diversity but limits generalizability, indicating replication across cultures, sectors and firm sizes. Future research should also include direct empirical comparisons of sustainable leadership with transformational, ethical and green leadership to quantitatively test the incremental predictive validity of sustainable leadership for green climate and eco-citizenship behavior. Third, reliance on single-source survey data raises common method concerns, although our CMB test suggests this was not a major concern; multi-source and multi-method designs are recommended. Fourth, we modeled a single mediator, green organizational climate, yet partial mediation indicates additional mechanisms such as environmental passion, value congruence, psychological safety or trust in leadership might be salient in future studies. Finally, our study emphasized direct and mediated effects, but boundary conditions may shape these links. Consequently, future research should test moderators, including pro-environmental values, moral identity, locus of control and resource constraints, while also incorporating objective environmental performance indicators to triangulate self-reports and strengthen both external validity and the robustness of findings.