Pro-environmental behaviour

Despite the increasing awareness of the consequences of waste, there is no consensus on how and why consumers engage in recycling, making it challenging to design behavioural interventions that might promote recycling, especially in organisational settings. This study is designed to explain consumers’ recycling behaviour and how it differs across contexts, particularly between home and work settings. Using personal accounts of 367 employees from different organisations in the UK,
this study explores recycling behaviour at home and work including its motivations and barriers. The findings show that recycling behaviour is different across contexts due to many disparate factors underlying people’s waste generation and recycling behaviours from one context to another. According to the findings, buying and consumption behaviour and waste generation patterns influence the way consumers engage in recycling. The study further demonstrates that contextual factors and
individual circumstances are important contributors to consumption behaviour, waste production, and recycling behaviour. While recycling behaviour has been investigated extensively, the findings of this study indicate the need for consumption and waste production patterns to be taken into consideration when designing recycling interventions, enhancing the prospect of a circular economy. This study contributes to theory and practice by associating recycling behaviour with buying and
consumption behaviour, including waste generation patterns.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss a novel life cycle approach to education for sustainable development (ESD) where the students become “design thinkers”. Design/methodology/approach A case study on the creation, development and utilisation of educational games by university students is presented. The paper discusses the case study in the context of Kolb’s experiential learning and dynamic matching model, Perry’s stages of intellectual development and Beech and Macintosh’s processual learning model. The data used were from questionnaire feedback from the pupils who played the games and students who designed the games. Further qualitative feedback was collected from local schools involved in playing the games created by the students. Findings Overall, the students responded positively to the assessment and would like to see more of this type of assessment. They enjoyed the creativity involved and the process of developing the games. For the majority of the skill sets mea...

Carbon Rationing Action Groups (CRAGs) are grassroots voluntary groups of citizens concerned about climate change, who set themselves a carbon allowance each year and provide support to members seeking to reduce their direct carbon emissions from household energy use and personal transport. Some groups have a financial penalty for carbon emitted in excess of the ration, and systems whereby under-emitters are rewarded using the monies collected from over-emitters. CRAGs therefore operate the nearest scheme in existence to the proposed policy of Personal Carbon Trading (PCT). This paper reports the findings of a study of the opinions and experiences of individuals involved in CRAGs (‘CRAGgers’). In general, interviewees have made significant behavioural changes and emissions reductions, but many would be unwilling to sell spare carbon allowances within a national PCT system. The choices made by CRAGgers with respect to the design and operation of their ‘carbon accounting’, their experiences of reducing fossil fuel energy use, and their views on personal carbon trading at CRAG and national level are discussed. Some possible implications for PCT and other policies are considered, as well as the limitations of CRAGs in informing an understanding of the potential impacts and operation of PCT.

By including the context within which consumers' pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors are formed, this research provides a comprehensive delineation of the process that leads from context to behavior. This is the first study to examine context factors as subjective perceptions made by consumers about aspects of their own situation, specifically the extent to which they perceive having more or less time, money, and power available. In contrast to previous research considering one type of behavior (such as recycling), this study recognizes pro-environmental behavior as a heterogeneous, multi-dimensional construct, and includes both public and private sphere behaviors. Pro-environmental business managers and policy-makers may not be in a position to impact objective contextual factors that consumers face, however, they may influence perceptions and attitudes. This study identifies specifically which variables may be of more interest to modulate, so as to increase proenvironmental behavior.

1. The biodiversity crisis demands greater engagement in pro-nature conservation behaviours. Research has examined factors which account for general pro-environmental behaviour; that is, behaviour geared to minimizing one's impact on the environment. Yet, a dearth of research exists examining factors that account for pro-nature conservation behaviour specifically—behaviour that directly and actively supports conservation of biodiversity.
2. This study is the first of its kind to use a validated scale of pro-nature conservaion behaviour. Using online data from a United Kingdom population survey of 1,298 adults (16+ years), we examined factors (composed of nine variable-blocks of items) that accounted for pro-nature conservation behaviour.
3. These were: individual characteristics (demographics, nature connectedness), nature experiences (time spent in nature, engaging with nature through simple activities, indirect engagement with nature), knowledge and attitudes (knowledge/study of nature, valuing and concern for nature) and pro-environmental behaviour.
4. Together, these explained 70% of the variation in people's actions for nature.
5. Importantly, in a linear regression examining the relative importance of these variables to the prediction of pro-nature conservation behaviour, time in nature did not emerge as significant.
6. Engaging in simple nature activities (which is related to nature connectedness) emerged as the largest significant contributor to pro-nature conservation behaviour. Commonality analysis revealed that variables worked together, with nature connectedness and engagement in simple activities being involved in the largest portion of explained variance.
7. Overall, findings from the current study reinforce the critical role that having a close relationship with nature through simple everyday engagement plays in pro-nature conservation behaviour. Policy recommendations are made.
https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10117

Recently, tourism scholars have recognized that travel can create transformation, including (1) personal benefits such as improved wellbeing and personal growth and (2) societal benefits such as increased open-mindedness and more positive pro-environmental attitudes, motivations, and behaviors. Expanding and integrating this research, this experimental study tests whether travel experiences, with eudaimonic elements of self-discovery and a sense of meaning, lead to these benefits and tests a proposed process where these experiences influence personal changes that subsequently create societal benefits. Specifically, using an online MTurk sample (n = 481) with a broad range of recent vacation experiences, we test whether (1) post-trip self-reflection on eudaimonic travel experiences (2) creates affective responses (3) that lead to self-transcendent changes and (4) subsequent post-trip philanthropy among recent travelers. Results of structural equation modeling indicate that philanthropic effects of travel were initiated by the eudaimonic self-reflections via eudaimonic affect and self-transcendent outcomes. This study contributes to the research linking eudaimonia and travel and provides insights into the ways that the travel industry can be harnessed as a potent tool for promoting personal meaning, self-transcendence, and prosocial outcomes. ARTICLE HISTORY

Despite the increasing awareness of the consequences of waste, there is no consensus on how and why consumers engage in recycling, making it challenging to design behavioural interventions that might promote recycling, especially in organisational settings. This study is designed to explain consumers’ recycling behaviour and how it differs across contexts, particularly between home and work settings. Using personal accounts of 367 employees from different organisations in the UK, this study explores recycling behaviour at home and work including its motivations and barriers. The findings show that recycling behaviour is different across contexts due to many disparate factors underlying people’s waste generation and recycling behaviours from one context to another. According to the findings, buying and consumption behaviour and waste generation patterns influence the way consumers engage in recycling. The study further demonstrates that contextual factors and individual circumstances...

Western Australia (WA) is experiencing severe water shortages associated with a drying climate. Suburban
gardens in and around WA’s capital city of Perth however, continue to be dominated by water
dependent European style gardens featuring green lawns and introduced species. One area in metropolitan
Perth going against this norm is the local government district of Fremantle. Residents within this
city council have shown widespread adoption of native gardens: a seemingly obvious means of reducing
water use and increasing local biodiversity. In an endeavour to understand the differences in garden
design preferences, the aim of this research was to explore cultural and psychological drivers of native
gardening within the city of Fremantle. Twelve in-depth, face-to-face semi-structured interviews were
conducted with Fremantle homeowners. Participants had converted their garden from a traditional European
design in favour of an aesthetic based on native species. Drivers such as knowledge, functionality,
and social norms emerged, and interestingly resembled the same sorts of drivers previously identified
as driving European style gardening practices in Australia. We account for the tension of same drivers
yet different design due to differences in social and cultural values. Specifically, the dominant worldview
in Fremantle is pro-environmental and this driver appears to shape the social context in which gardening
decisions are made, making for a more accepting setting for residents to adopt alternative garden
designs. Findings from this research are of value to water and environmental policy makers, urban local
governments, and environmental educators.

The award winning Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature critically explores the relationships among human beings, their environments, and the religious dimensions of life. Further information and sample entries can be found at the urls provided here or via Bron Taylor's website at www.brontaylor.com.

The Steenbreek program is a private Dutch program which aims to involve citizens, municipalities and other stakeholders in replacing pavement with vegetation in private gardens. The Dutch approach is characterized by minimal governmental incentives or policy, which leaves a niche for private initiatives like Steenbreek, that mainly work on behavioural change. The aim of this paper is to build a model based on theory that can be used to improve and better evaluate depaving actions that are based on behavioural change. We tested this garden greening behaviour model in the Steenbreek program. The main result is that the model provides an understanding of the ‘how and why’ of the Steenbreek initiatives. Based on this we are able to provide recommendations for the improvement of future initiatives. Steenbreek covers a wide range of projects that together, in very different ways, take into account elements of the theoretical framework; either more on information factors, or on supporting ...

Data from the environment modules of the International Social Survey Programme in 1993, 2000, and 2010 were analyzed to explore attitudinal dimensions, trends and significant predictors of public and private behavior in the Philippines. Factor analyses of attitude items indicate a consistent grouping of negatively connoted perceptions towards nature and science in the three datasets. A series of OLS and logistic regressions were conducted to determine significant predictors of attitudes and behaviors. Perceptions of specific environmental problems and fatalism were consistent significant predictors of negative attitudes. No significant increases were found in environmental behaviors among Filipinos over the past two decades, with Jonckheere’s test indicating a significant decreasing trend. Educational attainment was the only consistently significant indicator for behaviors such as driving less, signing petitions, donating money, joining groups, and participating in public protests for the environment. These findings provide an understanding of Filipino attitudes towards science and nature, and improvements in behavior may be achieved with further integration of environmental education, and promotion to educated people to specifically engage in new forms of environmental behaviors. The implications of these results are discussed, along with opportunities for future research.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n6p87

Despite good intentions, the increasing number of plastic bag bans aimed at alleviating marine plastic pollution saw a correlated increase in the number of unintended consequences that emerged alongside the bans, suggesting that human behavior towards plastic bag consumption have not changed, but merely shifted, and are feeding into other major international environmental catastrophes. Nudge theory, which helps people make better choices for themselves without inhibiting their free will, is a potential solution that has been shown to play a subtle but important role in providing options under circumstances where complex information needs to be streamlined for the wider community, avoiding any unintended consequences and behavioural shifts that might arise from instruments that diminishes autonomy. It is therefore timely to look into the insights of nudge theory to encourage a positive behavioural change to reduce plastic bag consumption. Here we apply a systematic literature review to show how successful applications of nudges in supermarkets can be leveraged to reduce plastic bag consumption. We find that the current applications of nudges in various industries worldwide, including supermarkets have produced positive and encouraging results, as well as producing lasting behavioural change among the wider community. Supermarkets are identified as a powerful deployment site of these nudges due to their positioning as a dominant provider of plastic bags to the wider community, as well as being the largest and leading provider of daily food needs. Finally, we synthesise our findings to produce a coherent and testable framework of actionable interventions that supermarkets can employ to nudge customers towards reduced plastic bag reliance, accompanied with a visual timeline of a customer shopping in a supermarket experiencing these nudges.

This paper presents steps adopted for the development and validation of Pro-Environmental Behavior Scale. (PEBS). This scale is a forty six item instrument to measure the specific pro environmental behaviours of secondary school students/adolescent population of India. The PEBS measures the students' actions in response to environmental concerns. This scale is developed by using a dimension procedure. The items are positively as well as negatively keyed and are grouped into five factors (dimensions) namely Green consumer behaviour ,waste reduction behaviour, Recycling and reuse behaviour, Conservation behaviour and Lobbying litigation and administrative intervention. An attempt was made to cover almost all types of environmental friendly behaviors. It shows excellent psychometric properties including item to total score coefficient of correlation ranging to .56 and item to dimension score coefficient of correlation ranging to .59. Based on’t’ values only those items which showed a significant difference between high and low groups at least at .05 levels were  included in the final form of the scale. Reliability has been established by test- retest method and Split-Half method.

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of environmental concern, perceived value, personal norms, and willingness to pay on generation Z’s purchase intention for recycled clothing.

Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected from five Indian universities. A total of 497 usable responses were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for examining the validity and reliability of the scales. Further, the structural equation modeling was used to assess the relationship among the constructs.

Findings
Findings suggested that willingness to pay, environmental concern, perceived value, and personal norms influence generation Z’s purchase intention for recycled clothing. Willingness to pay, environmental concern, and perceived value were major predictors of purchase intention for recycled clothing.

Practical implications
This study holds much importance to the marketers of recycled clothing as it provides useful insights for formulating the appropriate promotional strategies. The study also contributes to the consumer behavior literature by addressing the existing research gap.

Originality/value
Most of the studies existing in this area have focused on the manufacturing side only except few which explored the consumption side of recycled clothing. Hence, the current study is an attempt to fill this research gap.

Due to climatic changes across the globe, alignment of processes and products according to international environment standards is a rising concern for business stakeholders. Though this reform process to minimize environmental impact is occurring across different industries and countries but at a varying pace. Therefore, environmental management is still naïve and often compromised. If it is left unaddressed, it would lead to massive protests and social movements in future which will be messy to deal with, since climate change is occurring at an alarming pace. Moreover, the environmental consciousness is rising among masses, it is inevitable to deceive stakeholders for long time in this information era where controlling information is impossible. Corporate scandals and information/data leaks regarding greenwashing can lead to social protests and corporate defamation. Although in most of the countries environmental reporting is not a legal requirement however it is a societal requirement in different communities. Organizations use obfuscation eco-friendly claims, vague visual imagery, selective disclosure of corporate reports, and misleading communication modes to intentionally portray false environment-friendly claims of poor environmental performance to maintain positive social image by deceiving stakeholders. These symbolic strategic practices have stark difference with the real environmental impact. human resource managers and employees play significant role in developing and implementing such environment friendly organizational culture. Therefore, human resource function can facilitate by designing systems to build green organizational culture in organizations. In this research paper the pre-existing literature on green organizational culture in organizations is be reviewed, since in the last decade many researches were conducted on this issue. This review will give a holistic view of existing literature to the future researchers and will help them to identify research gap. Moreover, it will help practitioners and decision makers in knowing the advantages and disadvantages of green culture in organizations, so that they will understand whole impact of opting it.

Despite good intentions, the increasing number of plastic bag bans aimed at alleviating marine plastic pollution saw a correlated increase in the number of unintended consequences that emerged alongside the bans, suggesting that human behavior towards plastic bag consumption have not changed, but merely shifted, and are feeding into other major international environmental catastrophes. Nudge theory, which helps people make better choices for themselves without inhibiting their free will, is a potential solution that has been shown to play a subtle but important role in providing options under circumstances where complex information needs to be streamlined for the wider community, avoiding any unintended consequences and behavioural shifts that might arise from instruments that diminishes autonomy. It is therefore timely to look into the insights of nudge theory to encourage a positive behavioural change to reduce plastic bag consumption. Here we apply a systematic literature review ...

The nature connectedness research suggests that (re)creating human-nature connections can address both escalating ecological issues and rising mental health concerns by fostering (ecological) self-realization. Given that the nature connectedness literature oversimplifies experience of ecological self, however, there remains a need to explore lived ecological self experience, and how this experience influences mental health and environmental behaviour. In this exploratory interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), I sought to flesh out the nature connectedness research by investigating ecological self experience among a small group of gifted adults (n=8) who measure relatively high in nature connectedness. Three research questions guided the study. The project’s primary research question was: How do gifted adults experience ecological self? Two secondary, theory-driven sub-questions refined the project further: 1. How does experience of ecological self influence mental health? 2. How does experience of ecological self influence environmental behaviour? Analysis of data collected via two semi-structured interviews held with each participant reveal that while ecological self experiences might often enhance mental health, nature experiences can also be intense, distressing, and/or ambivalent, and environmental concerns can precipitate anguish and anger. Findings also illustrate how experience of ecological self can be inconsistent: conceptions of the human-nature relationship varied, and experience of ecological self seemed to oscillate along with diurnal and seasonal cycles and appeared to evolve over the lifespan. Finally, results demonstrate that while ecological self experience may motivate pro-environmental behaviour, movement from experience to action is not automatic. Findings show how a variety of intra- and interpersonal factors can hinder pro-ecological engagement. Taken together, study results nuance the nature connectedness literature by illustrating the complexity of ecological self experience. While (re)creating human-nature connections can be considered one approach to addressing escalating ecological issues and rising mental health concerns, findings from this project suggest that the back-to-nature strategy is not a cure-all.

Massive diffusion of green technologies is significant for building a cleaner world. However, the process of technology diffusion is usually slow and complex. An in-depth understanding of the mechanism regarding green technology diffusion is an essential precondition for effectively stimulating this process. Green technology diffusion heavily involves both social and technological changes. Although existing studies have provided rich knowledge about identifying critical drivers and barriers affecting green technology diffusion, research that considers consumers' pro-environmental attitudes and green technology diffusion as an evolving system is still sparse. Aiming at exploring the co-evolution of consumers' pro-environmental attitudes and green technology diffusion, this paper builds an agent-based model that integrates the relative agreement model with technology diffusion theories to conduct a sequence of controlled numerical experiments, which progressively unveil how attitudinal and technological factors impact green technology diffusion. The main findings include that (1) improving consumers' pro-environmental attitudes is prominently beneficial to green technology diffusion and maturation; (2) technology maturity has very limited impact on consumers' first-time purchases but significantly affects consumers' satisfaction, which would further impact consumers' repeat purchases; (3) consumers that do not support green technologies frequently emerge during the evolution of attitudes (despite the high technology maturity), which corresponds to the emergence of the anti-environmental groups observed in the real world; (4) active interactions between non-adopters enable their attitudes to converge, which results in the polarization of consumers' attitudes.

Theoretical advances in research on the antecedents of human behavior have offered promising explanations for why people choose to undertake environmentally friendly action. This investigation provides further insight on the psychological processes driving self-reported behavioral engagement among visitors to Channel Islands National Park in the United States.We used latent variable structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized structure stipulated by the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory of environmentalism. Biospheric-altruistic values geared toward non-human species and concern for other people positively predicted environmental worldview and pro-environmental behavior, whereas egoistic values negatively influenced moral norm activation. Consistent with previous  research, findings also showed that belief structures and personal moral norms gave rise to conservation behaviors reported by
visitors to the park.

The need for a more sustainable lifestyle is a key focus for several countries. Using a questionnaire survey conducted in Hungary, this paper examines how culture influences environmentally conscious behaviour. Having investigated the direct impact of Hofstede's cultural dimensions on pro-environmental behaviour, we found that the culture of a country hardly affects actual environmentally conscious behaviour. The findings indicate that only individualism and power distance have a significant but weak negative impact on pro-environmental behaviour. Based on the findings, we can state that a positive change in culture is a necessary but not sufficient condition for making a country greener.

Objective – In particular, this study focuses on exploring characteristics of individuals or personality that correlate with the tendency to perform recycling behaviour among the university students using Theory of Planned behaviour.
Methodology/Technique  –  Since behavioral changes are one of the determinant to ensure the achievements of recycling programs, this paper intend to study on variables that could improve individual involvement on pro-environmental behavior.
Findings - However, results shown that the overall recycling rate in the country is still low compared to other poor countries such as India.
Novelty – Recycling has grown in interest, both in the past and present as there were many studies focusing on this. Over the decades, the Malaysian Government has been struggling to increase the recycling rate in the country through campaigns and advertisements and providing recycling facilities in public.

Climate change, sustainability & psychosocial defence mechanisms: How do we respond when we are made to feel responsible for environmental problems?

The issue: We are living through a period of unprecedented environmental problems (e.g. climate change, pollution, deforestation, peak oil, overconsumption and waste) linked to human behaviour
The problem: The primary effect of increased knowledge of these problems, was assumed to be positive behaviour change – more sustainable & pro-environmental behaviours…
… However: research findings tell us the information, knowledge, even attitude change do not necessarily translate into action
This infographic visually maps how contemporary research in psychology explains inaction despite increased knowledge about environmental problems.

Hotel guests’ behaviour is crucial to reduce water depletion, energy use and carbon emissions. In this covert field experiment we assessed the effectiveness of real-time feedback provided by smart water-saving technology in fostering hotel guests to shorten their showers. A 12,06% reduction in showering time (N=1,962) confirms that real-time feedback is effective in eliciting pro-environmental behaviour, even in hedonic contexts. Moreover, results suggest that even with no real-time feedback, the regular shower in a hotel may be shorter than at home. Tourism can be a force for good and the use of technology can shape pro-environmental behaviour among the public.

Recent research suggests that occupants’ behavior has a huge impact on the energy performance of the building, but is also regarded as a leading factor in uncertainty when determining the effectiveness of the energy systems. Green buildings that fail to meet predicted performance indicate the same. Due to inaccurate description of occupant behavior and the complexity in measuring or quantifying occupant behaviour, human influences on the built environment has been either simplified or ignored in the pre-design, design and construction stages.
This research aims to explore the relationship between the design process and occupant behavior to understand the potential areas of improvement and changes (in the design process) that could provide efficient solutions in terms of energy conservation. For this, the design process of a successful eco-village was studied and analyzed along with the other design processes. The analysis revealed that the existing design process intents to prioritize environmental and economic factors over social factors. To improve and stabilize this the research also proposes a theoretical framework that could function as a supporting diagram for designers in understanding the behavioral needs of occupants and devising the strategies accordingly. The existing behavioral theories were studied along with the energy-saving strategies to understand the variables involved and the correlation between them. The framework works in four stages; identifying the primary determinants, defining the targets, choosing an appropriate energy strategy and evaluating the strategies based on previously reported discomfort. To determine the usability of the proposed framework, it was assessed based on the impressions of four experts from various disciplines. The result shows that though the framework presents a number of unavoidable uncertainties, it is applicable and is a necessary step in the right direction.

We present a survey of 85 people involved in climate change education and mitigation, mainly in the UK, exploring the significant life experiences (SLEs) and formative influences that have contributed to their concern about climate change and their interest in climate change education and mitigation. In contrast with the findings of a large number of previous studies of environmentalists/environmental educators, outdoor experiences during childhood were not generally a major formative influence on the respondents. Although Western children nowadays commonly have fewer opportunities to enjoy such experiences, analysis showed that the differences were not due simply to changes over time. Uniquely in research on SLEs of environmentalists/environmental educators, we also examined respondents’ values and motivations, to further understand what inspires action. Social justice concerns were rated as more motivating than biospheric concerns by the sample as a whole, and altruistic and biospheric values were considered equally important as guiding principles. These findings have implications for the framing of climate change as an ‘environmental’ problem, and suggest that, contrary to conclusions that may have been drawn from past research, environmental education specifically directed towards stimulating engagement with climate change need not entail promoting outdoor experiences, nature connectedness, or biospheric values and motivations for action.

This study explored the antecedents and outcomes of negative emotional responses to climate change among people from a diverse range of cultural and national contexts. We analysed cross-sectional data gathered in 28 countries (N = 10,963). Our results show that negative emotional responses to climate change are positively related to the amount of attention people pay to climate change information, rates of exposure to information about climate change impacts, and perceived social expectations regarding emotional responding to climate change. Negative climate-related emotions were also positively related to pro-environmental behaviours and inversely associated with mental wellbeing. Notably, while negative climate-related emotions had a significant inverse association with mental wellbeing in all 28 countries, they only had a significant positive association with pro-environmental behaviour (46%) and environmental activism (25%) in a minority of countries. Our findings highlight the broad international significance of negative climate-related emotions as a plausible threat to mental wellbeing.

To assess the effectiveness of climate change communications, it is important to examine their long-term impacts on individuals’ attitudes and behavior. This article offers an example study and a discussion of the challenges of conducting long-term investigations of behavioral change related to climate change communications (a vital and underresearched area). The research reported is a longitudinal panel study of the impacts on UK viewers of the climate change movie The Age of Stupid. The heightened levels of concern, motivation to act, and sense of agency about action that were initially generated by the movie did not measurably persist over the long term. The results also show that behavioral intentions do not necessarily translate into action. Data analysis raised issues concerning the reliability of participants’ causal attributions of their behavior. This and other methodological challenges are discussed, and some ways of avoiding or lessening problems are suggested.

In order to engage in carbon management at the household level, individuals need to understand how their everyday activities contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, and how they can reduce their personal carbon footprint. This implies a need for 'carbon literacy', a term that has emerged in the literature in the last few years without being formally defined. This paper proposes a definition of carbon literacy and compares this with other, related concepts. I then present the results of two qualitative studies that reveal how three mechanisms help to increase carbon literacy: energy monitoring; carbon footprint statements; and peer/social learning through sharing information, skills and resources with others. The different aspects of carbon literacy that these mechanisms contribute to are highlighted. Especially notable is the significance of carbon footprint statements, which enable understanding of the relative emissions associated with different activities, and the value many interviewees placed on learning within a group. These two mechanisms enhance the impact of energy monitoring by individuals, which is part of the focus of schemes such as the introduction of 'smart' energy meters in several countries. The implications of these findings for policymakers and others who wish to promote carbon literacy are discussed.

This paper presents results from a survey of 344 individuals who engage in climate change mitigation action, contributing to debates about whether it is necessary to promote 'nature experiences' and biospheric values to encourage pro-environmental behaviour. We investigate three factors – values, motivations, and formative experiences – that underlie such behaviour but have usually been considered in isolation from each other. In contrast to previous studies of significant life experiences of environmentalists, outdoor/nature experiences were not frequently mentioned as influential. Altruistic concerns about climate change impacts on future human generations and poorer/vulnerable people were considered more motivating than other reasons for action. There was no significant difference in how respondents rated altruistic and biospheric values. Variations in responses from those involved in 'biospherically-oriented' (e.g. traditional environmental/conservation) organisations versus climate change groups suggest that there are different routes into climate change mitigation action, and our results show that it is not essential to cultivate biospheric values or love of nature to encourage such action.

Universities are both disseminators and producers of the climate knowledge needed to institute the social and cultural change required for climate adaptation and mitigation to occur. They also have the opportunity to lead and model pro-environmental behavior, yet often have large carbon budgets, partly caused by staff travel. This paper explores this topic via an institutional case study of what factors motivate the academic community to undertake plane travel and the implications this has for wielding wider societal influence in terms of pro-environmental behavior. We report on a year-long qualitative social science study of academic plane travel at the University of Adelaide, South Australia where we investigated the tension between academic requirements to travel and the institution's formal commitment to sustainability within the Campus Sustainability Plan. We found that, while many academics were worried about climate change, very few were willing to change their current practice and travel less because they are not institutionally incentivized to do so. There is a fear of not flying: plane travel is perceived as a key driver for career progression and this is an ongoing barrier to pro-environmental behavior. We conclude that institutional and political change will be required for individual change to occur and sustainable agendas to be met within academic communities.

The film The Age of Stupid depicts the world in 2055 devastated by climate change, combining this with documentary footage which illustrates many facets of the problems of climate change and fossil-fuel dependency. This study investigates the effects of the film on UK viewers’ attitudes and behaviour through a three-stage survey. Analysis of changes in attitudes focussed particularly on respondents’ concern about climate change, motivation to act, fear about the potential for catastrophe, beliefs about responsibility for action, and sense of agency. The film increased concern about climate change, motivation to act, and viewers’ sense of agency, although these effects had not persisted 10-14 weeks after seeing it. It was also successful in promoting some mitigation actions and behavioural change, although respondents reported barriers to further action, such as limited options for improving home energy efficiency among those in rented accommodation. However, filmgoers were atypical of the general public in that they exhibited very high levels of concern about climate change, knowledge about how to reduce their carbon emissions, and contact with organisations campaigning about climate change, before they saw the film. The paper considers how these factors may have enabled viewers to respond to the film as they did, as well as policy implications for those seeking to develop effective climate change communications.

This exploratory mixed-methods study uses in-depth interviews to investigate the values, motivations, and routes to engagement of UK citizens who have adopted lower-carbon lifestyles. Social justice, community, frugality, and personal integrity were common themes that emerged from the transcripts. Concern about ‘the environment’ per se is not the primary motivation for most interviewees’ action. Typically, they are more concerned about the plight of poorer people who will suffer from climate change. Although biospheric values are important to the participants, they tended to score altruistic values significantly higher on a survey instrument. Thus, it may not be necessary to promote biospheric values to encourage lower-carbon lifestyles. Participants’ narratives of how they became engaged with climate action reveal links to human rights issues and groups as much as environmental organisations and positive experiences in nature. Some interviewees offered very broad (positive) visions of what ‘a low-carbon lifestyle’ means to them. This, and the fact that ‘climate change’ is not necessarily seen as interesting even by these highly engaged people, reveals a need for climate change mitigation campaigns to promote a holistic view of a lower-carbon future, rather than simply offering a ‘to do’ list to ‘combat climate change’.

Environmental knowledge and awareness have small impacts on pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Decades of public information campaigns that inform the public how personal behaviors and consumer choices drive climate change have not changed behavior. Research into motivation for PEB change across disparate fields demonstrates new insights into what motivates behavioral change. This paper provides a review of those literatures, which have not been systematically brought together, in order to generate research questions and propose a new research agenda. The findings indicate the need to test how types of individuals, categorized by what motivates their behaviors, respond to different policy messaging tools.

This report documents the proceedings of a workshop designed to re-imagine water company water efficiency activities. Focussing specifically on behaviour change, where a growing body of social science research calls for fresh approaches ; de-centred from individual consumers and inclusive of social, technical and natural elements (Browne, 2014; Shove, 2003; Strengers, 2011; Sofoulis, 2014). 

In the workshop water efficiency experts worked together in small groups to map water intensive domestic practices and design initiatives, aiming to reconfigure consumer expectations of water and socio-technical context.

This report contains an overview of the theory and research findings that provide a jumping off-point for these discussions, along with an overview of the three initiatives designed by the teams. These provide early ideas as to what innovative approaches to behaviour change might incorporate and aim to provoke and sustain a conversation between academics and the water industry.

Feedback to the author is actively encouraged!