The use of NEP scale to evaluate the environmental worldview of the employees in the city of Kacanik in Republic of Kosovo

Abstract

The tendency for higher economic development with the aim of increasing the citizens’ standard of living has led many natural resources in Kosovo to be overused and degraded. This environmental degradation is nowadays presented in the form of air, water and soil pollution. To cope with environmental problems in a society, its citizens, especially the young generations, need environmental education which plays a very important role for development of environmental attitudes and beliefs, which should be friendly and protective for environment and natural resources. In our survey, we used 15-item NEP scale to evaluate the environmental worldview of three groups of employees in city of Kacanik, in order to see if they have pro-anthropocentric approach, Dominance Social Paradigm which declares that natural sources are eternal, so they can be broadly utilized to fulfill human demands, or pro-ecological view, New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) that expects the integral part of the ecosystem is human being and natural resources cannot be utilized without control because they are insufficient. Our results show that all groups of respondents have a high pro-NEP score, higher than 45%, which means that the citizens are conscious about environmental problems in their city and country in general; thus, they have environmental concerns and are ready to support environmental policies for a sustainable economic development.