**1. Introduction**

Due to the adverse consequences of industrial pollution and waste, climate change, and resource depletion, the effects of environmental issues on the quality of life have increased in recent years [1–35]. The world is witnessing an aggressive violation of nature. In response, companies nowadays have to find a way to balance the relationships between economic development, resources, and ecology [4]. This balance has been among the most complex and important managerial challenges of the twentyfirst century [2].

Consequently, the implementation of environmentally friendly policies is an emergent priority on the policymakers and managers' agenda. Studies on green marketing, green economics, green accounting, green management, and green supply chain management have increased [36]. Thus, the need to integrate green management within human resources is what we call green human resource management (GHRM). In this respect, green human resource management (GHRM), as a management function, has received great deal of attention in the environmental management literature recently [37].

Despite the growing number of studies on GHRM, several researchers outlined the lack of empirical studies from the African continent [20–26, 38]. Thus, researchers need to conduct empirical research in Africa instead of limiting themselves to Asia, Europe, and America, especially, Africa, which is suffering from severe environmental degradation and environment-related humanitarian disasters [26]. Furthermore, researchers need to investigate the current status of GHRM in the African context given the socioeconomic development challenges and other pressing priorities facing developing African organizations [19].

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, The North African country of Morocco is the fifth-largest economy in Africa and considered to have the most competitive economy in North Africa. Morocco participates fully in international efforts to preserve the environment. For instance, the country has set up many foundations to strengthen its environmental policy, such as the Green Morocco Plan or plan Maroc vert. In addition to the governmental authority in charge of the environment, the Mohammed VI Foundation for the Protection of the Environment plays a key role in the development of many educational and preservation projects [39].

Along with the kingdom commitment and efforts for the good of the whole planet, GHRM should be taken into account in order to assume the environmental responsibility of companies. Thus, this paper aims to investigate GHRM in Morocco.

Given the "newness" of this concept in Morocco, the first aim of this study is to gain insight on the awareness of GHRM. Unless awareness is created, adoption is out of question. In this regard, we believe that assessing awareness on GHRM is an effective way to gain insight on its actual or potential implementation.

Additionally, according to Pardhi et Chaudhary, [25] the focus of the researchers was mostly toward the GHRM and its importance. However, to best of our knowledge, no effort has been made to studying the perceived importance of GHRM by policymakers. Thus, this paper was carried out to examine the HR managers and directors' perceived importance of GHRM.

Moreover, this paper calls into question the main challenges that may hinder GHRM's implementation. Assessing GHRM challenges may build resilience capacity**,** which would enable managers to create a proactive strategy as well as to predict potential problems and solutions. As posited by Kodua et al. [14], studying GHRM challenges serves as a valuable reference to policymakers and practitioners to help them take suitable measures to mitigate the GHRM implementation barriers and consequently promote it. Thus, we believe that investigating challenges related to GHRM may lay a solid foundation for its implementation success and promotion among managers.

Besides, to make sure that the nonawareness of GHRM will not influence our findings, and that GHRM practices (GHRMP) may be implemented implicitly without referring to the term GHRM, we aimed to examine the connection between environmental and HRM strategies within companies as well as to highlight the efforts made

*Green Human Resource Management: An Exploratory Study from Moroccan ISO 14001… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105565*

by HRM staff to meet environmental management requirements. Thus, the fourth aim of this paper is to emphasize the connection between environmental concern and HRM in the selected companies.

Furthermore, an essential prerequisite for launching GHRM in companies is to identify the key requirements for business decisions to implement it. Thus, the fifth aim of this paper is to improve the understanding of the requirements for GHRM's implementation. Understanding the necessary requirements is crucial in order to understand the key practices that need to be analyzed and developed to best implement GHRM and for researchers to better understand the issues and the managerial difficulties that need to be addressed.

Finally, studying GHRMP status and feasibility is able to help in determining the viability of this process by identifying the factors that can promote or refrain from its success. For this reason, this study aims to provide a broad picture as well as a detailed analysis of the potential risks associated to GHRMP in reality. Thus, feasibility of practices may give to HRMS the chance to "get it right" before committing time, money, and business resources to some GHRMP that may not fit in Morocco.

The exploration of the questions above is crucial, as this investigation can offer a theoretical foundation for rendering GHRM more rational and valuable to the company's decision-makers. Overall, this study aims to (a) shed light on the awareness and perceived importance of GHRM among HR managers and directors; (b) explore the connection between environmental concerns and HR strategies in the selected companies; (c) investigate the challenges related to GHRM's implementation; (d) explore GHRM requirements; (e) highlight HR managers' and directors' perceptions of the various GHRMP and their feasibility in the Moroccan context.

In this respect, we selected four ISO14001 certified companies as this certification requires companies to always manage environmental policy and improve environmental performance according to the standard requirements [10]. Additionally, environmental management system (EMS) as a regulatory framework requires from companies to document the procedures and policies that guide the environmental impact of the firm [40].

This article is structured as follows. The first section examines the literature review of GHRM, the second section presents the research methodology, the third section presents the results, while the fourth section presents discussion.
