Individual environmental behavior: A key role in building low-carbon communities in China

Abstract

People’s social behavior, especially environmental behavior, has a great impact on energy consumption and carbon emission. This paper explores both categories of individual factors (e.g., values, habits, education, motivation, etc.) and social factors (e.g., institution, infrastructure, encouragement, etc.), to clarify the correlation between them and their sub-factors. Low-carbon campus is a representative type of low-carbon community which is less difficult to build than other communities because university students are well-educated and, to some extent, are more environmental aware and more willing to change their behaviors. The energy-saving and environment-friendly policies implemented on campus are collected and overviewed in this paper. Additionally, the leaders and employees from the related administration departments are interviewed, and the data of electricity amount and water usage are analyzed and a well-designed questionnaire is handed out in a survey. The survey investigates the environmental knowledge, energy use habits, attitude toward low-carbon transformation, comments on the current institution and so on. The results show that different groups of students have varied levels of environmental knowledge, energy use habits, and attitude toward low-carbon campus management. To improve energy conservation and cut carbon emission radically, advices on building low-carbon community are also proposed including professional curriculums of environmental protection, economic initiatives, effect management, good communications, and sound infrastructures and facilities.