Sustainable human factors and change management systems have been gaining significant attention at global level for implementation of sustainable practices within organisations. With the rise in environmental degradation, the automotive sector has made efforts to adopt Sustainable Manufacturing (SM) practices to decrease the adverse effects on the environment instigated by emissions. Human Critical Success Factors (HCSFs) may play an important role in adoption of SM but in literature, no study has yet discussed the influence of HCSFs on the adoption of SM practices. The current work is an effort to fill this gap and to analyse the importance of HCSFs in adopting SM practices from a multi-automotive company perspective. In the first phase study, HCSFs were identified from existing literature and an empirical analysis was carried out to finalise identified HCSFs. In the second phase, to understand the influential relationship among these HCSFs, a DEMATEL approach was employed for developing a cause-effect model for each company. The result suggested that ‘Green motivation’, ‘Customer relationship management’, ‘Management leadership’, ‘Communication’ and ‘Strategic alignment’ are the highly significant causal HCSFs in efficient adoption of SM practices. The results of the study will help industry practitioners and managers to make strategic plans in the context of SM practices and its relationship with human factors for sustainable business development.