Can Green Building Promote Pro-Environmental Behaviours? The Psychological Model and Design Strategy

Xiaohuan Xie,Shiyu Qin,Ming Yi,Zhonghua Gou

doi:10.3390/su12187714

Abstract

A green building has a long lasting benefit through cultivating the occupants’ energy and resource-saving behaviours. To understand how green buildings can cultivate occupants’ pro-environment behaviours, the research applied the value–belief–norm model to investigate 17 pro-environmental behaviours which are related to a variety of green building design strategies. Two green and two non-green certified office buildings in the city of Shenzhen in China were surveyed, based on which structural equation modelling was established to confirm the relationship between personal values, environmental beliefs and norms that lead to pro-environment behaviours. Green and non-green building occupants showed significant differences in altruistic values, environmental awareness, personal norms, and pro-environmental behaviours. Green building users had more frequent pro-environmental behaviours than those in non-green buildings. The strategies that require fewer additional efforts were more likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours, such as meeting daily needs within walking distance and adjusting sunshades, while the strategies that need extra physical efforts (taking stairs) or knowledge (garbage sorting) were less likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours. This study pointed out important intervention opportunities and discussed the possible design implications for green building guidelines and programmes to cultivate green occupants and their corresponding pro-environmental behaviours.

Highlights

Over the last 30 years, the green building concept has emerged in response to the initiative of sustainable development and swept the building industry
The focus of this study is to discuss the psychological motivation formed from the pro-environmental behaviours in office buildings as well as the guidance and promotion of existing green building design strategies on users’ pro-environmental behaviours
Based on the field investigation and data analysis for four buildings in Shenzhen, this paper holds the argument that green buildings can promote pro-environmental behaviours and can cultivate green occupants through the pro-environmental behaviours

Summary

Introduction

Over the last 30 years, the green building concept has emerged in response to the initiative of sustainable development and swept the building industry. On the one hand, building scientists have started to understand the probability and patterns of user’s behaviours in order to increase the accuracy of energy modelling at the design stage [5,6,7]; on the other hand, psychologists have started to understand the internal personal factors that drive the energy- and resource-saving behaviours in order to propose design strategies and programmes for effective intervention [8,9] The former is helping green buildings meet the urgent need of more energy-efficient building design solutions and the latter is shaping building users to anticipate a long-term green effect. This research aims to validate the current psychological model about pro-environmental behaviours in the context of green buildings and to determine the effective design strategies that encourage pro-environmental behaviours

Objectives

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion