The Effects of Environmental Management Systems on Source Separation in the Work and Home Settings

Maria Andersson,Chris Von Borgstede,Ola Eriksson

doi:10.3390/su4061292

Maria Andersson, Chris Von Borgstede + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su4061292

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Jun 15, 2012
Citations: 40	License type: CC BY 3.0

Affiliation: University of Gothenburg, University of Gävle

Abstract

Measures that challenge the generation of waste are needed to address the global problem of the increasing volumes of waste that are generated in both private homes and workplaces. Source separation at the workplace is commonly implemented by environmental management systems (EMS). In the present study, the relationship between source separation at work and at home was investigated. A questionnaire that maps psychological and behavioural predictors of source separation was distributed to employees at different workplaces. The results show that respondents with awareness of EMS report higher levels of source separation at work, stronger environmental concern, personal and social norms, and perceive source separation to be less difficult. Furthermore, the results support the notion that after the adoption of EMS at the workplace, source separation at work spills over into source separation in the household. The potential implications for environmental management systems are discussed.

Highlights

Source separation is an activity that takes place both in professional life and in private life
An interesting question to address is: What can be learnt from waste management policy measures in workplaces in relation to source separation in households? The present study explores the relationships between environmental management systems (EMS) and psychological variables, and whether EMS determine whether source separation behaviour at work affects source separation at home, i.e., whether or not there is a spill-over effect
We investigate whether psychological variables, such as environmental concern, beliefs, personal norms and social norms, as well as source separation differ between employees who are aware of EMS and employees who are unaware of EMS at different workplaces

Summary

Introduction

Source separation is an activity that takes place both in professional life (at the workplace) and in private life (management of household waste). In private households, such measures do not currently exist and instead, information provided by, for example, the municipal waste manager encourages people to perform source separation It is well-established in environmental psychology that the use of less forceful policy tools, such as information, increases reliance on psychological factors, such as pro-environmental attitudes and norms, so that people adopt environmentally relevant behaviors (e.g., [3]). The results did not support our expectation that social norms affect peoples’ waste sorting, which is probably due to the weak measure of social norms used in the present study Another result that ran counter to our expectation was that environmental concern had an effect on the degree of source separation when controlling for the other variables, whereas beliefs about the efficiency of source separation had no such effect.

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