How Do Environmental Concerns and Governance Performance Affect Public Environmental Participation: A Case Study of Waste Sorting in Urban China.

Hang Yin,Kuiming Wang,Yixiong Huang

doi:10.3390/ijerph18199947

Abstract

Environmental pollution threatens public health and has become a social concern in recent years. Despite the conditions for public participation in environmental governance have improved considerably, the level of public engagement in government projects still falls short of expectations. Therefore, this article introduced two key variables, hoping to answer the following research question that how environmental concerns and governance performance affect public environmental participation. Through principal component analysis of the data from the “Survey of Chinese Urban Residents’ Attitudes toward Environmental Protection”, the findings of this article are as follows: First, public environmental concerns have no significant impact on their environmental engagement; second, the improvement of residents’ confidence in the government performance of environmental management reduces their willingness to participate in official projects. The higher the confidence in the government’s performance, the lower the level of public engagement is. Moreover, due to the consideration of self-interest or lack of environmental awareness, those who oppose waste incineration in waste terminal disposal tend to take a non-participatory role in waste sorting programs. Therefore, we suggest that the government have more diverse shareholders in environmental protection, so it should expand public participation through education, publicity, mobilization, and incentives.

Highlights

IntroductionSince the 1980s, the rise of civil society has led to a greater diversity of stakeholders in social governance
This paper aims to explore the effects of public environmental concerns and governance performance on public participation in official environmental protection through empirical data analysis on waste sorting schemes in China to provide approaches and suggestions for the implementation of official policies in achieving the improvement of environmental quality goals
Through the principal component analysis of the data, we find that environmental concerns and governance performance are two different principal components for the public

Summary

Introduction

Since the 1980s, the rise of civil society has led to a greater diversity of stakeholders in social governance. The state or the government is no longer the only dominant party in social governance, and the will and opinion of the public are becoming increasingly important. In recent years, public participation has become increasingly critical in urban environmental governance [1,2,3,4]. Due to excessive growth of domestic waste and disputes over disposal methods, such as waste incineration and landfills, public health has been threatened and many popular protests have even been triggered. The government alone cannot cope with all environmental challenges, and public engagement and support can facilitate the achievement of environmental protection goals. Compared with state-led environmental projects, voluntary public participation has two advantages

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Discussion

Conclusion