Towards a better understanding of people’s underlying ecological worldviews in New Zealand

Abstract

As a way of mitigating adverse environmental effects, sustainable construction practices require the cooperation of all stakeholders. Assessing people’s underlying ecological worldviews could be a first step in changing behaviours towards more sustainable approaches. Affecting behavioural change requires a better understanding of people’s beliefs and values as drivers in decision-making processes. The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale is a method for measuring people’s ecological worldviews, and those who demonstrate a pro-ecological score on it will also tend to support environmental actions. This can, in turn, lead to increased uptake of environmentally conscious building construction practices. This paper reports on the findings of research aimed at understanding the levels of support New Zealanders hold for the environment. The study consulted 662 residents in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, most of whom were building industry stakeholders, using an international 6-item NEP rating scale. Each of these three cities faces distinct environmental challenges in the near future, yet the results suggest that their residents have relatively consistent pro-ecological attitudes. The results also revealed that these respondents have more positive outlooks when compared with other similar studies. However, when comparing the sample according to demographic characteristics such as education level, occupation and whether or not they owned a home, significant differences emerged.