Due to organizations’ unsatisfactory and ineffective environmental performance, scholars focused on employee behavioral improvements rather than relying primarily on technological advancements. This study intended the role of strategic HR practices toward talent retention through job satisfaction and employee work engagement in Pakistan’s education sectors. Additionally, this study examined the moderating impact of psychological empowerment on job satisfaction and work engagement toward talent retention and how they affect universities’ environmental performance. Past empirical research projects and related theories have helped in the creation of the conceptual model. The relevant associations were investigated in this study using a sample of 332 employees from the education sector of Pakistan. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method is used to evaluate these elements in the current research investigation. The analysis showed that strategic HR practices positively influence talent retention in the education sector. Work engagement and job satisfaction positively mediate the relationship between strategic HR practices and talent retention. Furthermore, psychological empowerment positively moderates the relationship between job satisfaction and work engagement toward talent retention. Executives and policy-makers of education sectors get benefit from strategic HR practices in an environmentally friendly setting by learning how to foster a culture to improve sustainability and talent retention that sets organizational environmental values.