Determinants of Household Pro-Environmental Practices: An Application of Australian Survey Data

Background

In Australia, as elsewhere, there has been increasing concern around the impact of human activity on climate change and with this, increasing interest in understanding how individuals and households can change their behavior or practices to become more environmentally friendly. To effect these changes, there has been an ever increasing body of literature around the issue of environmental education (Braun, Cottrell, & Dierkes, 2018; Gifford & Sussman, 2012; Pooley & O’Connor, 2000). While the link between environmentally friendly practices and climate concerns is often seen as being straight-forward, the factors that influence such behaviors are in fact complex and driven by a large array of factors (Giefer, Peterson, & Chen, 2019; Gifford & Nilsson, 2014; Li et al., 2019), an issue that has direct impact on the content and role of environmental education programs (Pooley & O’Connor, 2000). That is, if the role of environmental education is partly to motivate people to work towards solutions, then the importance of understanding the drivers of particular environmental practices is clear.

Within the literature, environmentally friendly behavior is often referred to as ‘pro-environmental’ behavior or behavior that can act to reduce a negative impact on the environment (Li et al., 2019). As such, pro-environmental behavior includes recycling and improving waste management, changing transport use, consuming ‘green’ energy purchasing energy efficient products or devices and undertaking political activism (Blankenberg & Alhusen, 2019), each being viewed as part of a smaller subset of behaviors including consumer behavior, environmental citizenship and policy support (Stern, 2000).

Developing a comprehensive understanding of pro-environmental behavior requires, in turn, an examination of the multiple factors thought to induce, determine and change the way behavior is undertaken (Steg & Vlek, 2009). Often pro-environmental behaviors can be seen as habitual such as setting the air conditioning to a given temperature and are therefore not necessarily a conscious behavior. At other times a given behavior is income constrained or context specific as in the case of installing photovoltaic cells for electricity generation or insulating homes (Stern, 2000). Given the potential complexity of the factors impacting on pro-environmental behavior, researchers including Stern (2000) have turned to theories and broad conceptualizations to help develop understanding. Stern (2000) for example utilizes a conceptualization built around a value-belief-norm theory that explains behavior in terms of: attitudinal factors such as norms and beliefs; contextual factors such as monetary incentives and costs, community expectations or government regulations; personal capabilities such as knowledge, skills and resources; and habit or routine which requires changing or breaking. Similar conceptual approaches are also present in the work of researchers including (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002) who developed a conceptual framework focusing on the role of demographic, external and internal factors in shaping behavior. External factors include institutional constraints, lack of financial control and means cultural norms and political support. Internal factors include an individual’s motivation, environmental knowledge and awareness, their values, the extent to which they have control to undertake action (locus of control), as well as their priorities. With reference to understanding potential educational solutions, it is.