Abstract
China has promoted green campuses for decades. To better explore the current extent of pro-environmental awareness and behaviors of types of stakeholders (student, faculty members, and administrators) on campus, this study investigated the relationship between pro-environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviors along with the influences of motivators, barriers, and culture (face (reputation) and group pressure). A questionnaire survey was conducted with a sample of the three types of stakeholders at Tianjin University, one of the largest academic institutions and the earliest to implement green campus development initiatives in China. Structural equation modeling tested a causal model of awareness, behaviors, and other explanatory variables. The results found that pro-environmental behaviors were more likely than awareness and the respondents engaged in private more than in public pro-environmental behaviors. Chinese social and cultural factors influenced pro-environmental behavior, particularly among the administrators, which informs our understanding of the reasons for the awareness-behavior gap. China’s universities focus on eco-technology and energy management rather than on dissemination and publicity. The results suggest that advancing a pro-environmental cultural atmosphere and a consistent sustainability policy might significantly foster pro-environmental behaviors on university campuses.
Highlights
Since the beginning of China’s economic reform and opening-up in 1978, economic development and environmental protection have been two key emphases in China, which issue to prioritize barely reached consensus until President Xi Jinping systematically elucidated the spiritual meaning of the “New Normal” in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation on December 9, 2014
To better explore the current extent of pro-environmental awareness and behaviors of types of stakeholders on campus, this study investigated the relationship between pro-environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviors along with the influences of motivators, barriers, and culture (face and group pressure)
Following previous studies arguing that study sites like universities should be researched as multi-stakeholder units of increasing sophistication and complexity, this study examined the relationships between environmental awareness and environmental behavior from a multi-stakeholder perspective
Summary
Since the beginning of China’s economic reform and opening-up in 1978, economic development and environmental protection have been two key emphases in China, which issue to prioritize barely reached consensus until President Xi Jinping systematically elucidated the spiritual meaning of the “New Normal” in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation on December 9, 2014. He emphasized a new guiding ideology of slowing the economic growth and promoting a green, low-carbon, and sustainable type of development.. Universities have devised initiatives to study their influences on the environment (Lozano, 2010; Lukman et al, 2013; Tarah, 2007), and many studies have focused on student perceptions of
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