Pro-environmental Decisions Research Articles

The Effect of Professional Social Norms on Corporate Environmental Compliance

While previous studies demonstrate the importance of social norms for explaining the pro-environmental behavior of individual consumers, very few studies examine the role of social norms in the context of businesses’ pro-environmental decisions. This study contributes to the rich social norm literature by exploring whether professional social norms influence the compliance decisions of regulated chemical manufacturing facilities. To this end, the empirical analysis uses data on major facilities regulated under the U.S. Clean Water Act to estimate the link from the compliance history of other major chemical manufacturing facilities operating in the same state to an individual facility’s current compliance decision. Using a fixed-effects model that includes a large set of confounding factors, we find a significant positive effect of other facilities’ compliance history: improvement in the average compliance history prompts the individual facility to increase its own performance. By controlling for other plausible channels that link facility’s compliance decisions, we interpret this relationship as reflecting descriptive professional norms. The relationship proves stronger for facilities that are either geographically or sectorally closer.

Assessing individual environmental capital and pro-climate behaviour: A residential sector choice experiment on heating investment preferences

Grasping how individual choices and exogenous factors shape agents' environmental preferences is essential to comprehending societal trends in pro-environmental behaviour. To this end, this paper proposes the concept of “individual environmental capital”. It investigates how an individual's past pro-environmental decisions relate to their future ones, particularly in terms of willingness to pay for improvements in air quality. A randomised information treatment choice experiment was conducted in Poland to gauge individual environmental capital, accounting for physical assets and expressed policy preferences. The investigation found that willingness to pay varied depending on levels of prior investment in environmental assets and declared support for environmental regulations. Results demonstrate that highlighting one's past pro-climate endeavours may fail to differentiate the valuation of environmental protection among those who have already invested in environmental capital. However, it does seem to relate to a higher valuation for those yet to transition their energy systems.

Exploring the Interplay of Pro-Environmental Attitudes, Dietary Choices, and Packaging Preferences: A Virtual Reality Restaurant Scenario Study

This research paper delves into the complex relationship between pro-environmental attitudes, dietary preferences, and packaging choices using a Virtual Reality (VR) restaurant scenario. The imperative is to address environmental concerns, particularly plastic waste and greenhouse gas emissions, as they pertain to sectors of the food service sector. This study seeks to understand the factors influencing environmental attitudes and behaviors, with a focus on dietary preferences and packaging choices using a VR restaurant scenario. This study explores connections between gender, education, interventions, and pro-environmental attitudes, as well as the correlation between vegetarian diets and sustainable behaviors. While the results suggest significant correlations between gender and pro-environmental attitudes and a potential connection between adopting vegetarian diets and pro-environmental attitudes, our study emphasizes the nuanced nature of these relationships. The findings underline the importance of interdisciplinary research and strategic interventions for fostering sustainable behaviors and reducing environmental impact. The use of VR simulation adds a novel dimension to understanding individuals’ choices in controlled environments, shedding light on the intricate dynamics of pro-environmental decision making. This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on sustainable behavior by offering insights into the interplay between personal preferences, environmental awareness, and choices with significant environmental implications.

The Value of ‘Planetary Facts’: science-based product data and disclosures beyond carbon

A system that enables businesses to quantify the environmental impacts of products, contextualise this data with scientifically determined limits (planetary boundaries), and communicate it with buyers in a way that is easy to understand has the potential to drive significant pro-environmental decision making and outcomes. An immense proportion of global decisions occur through a product lens. There is evidence of both business and purchaser demand for a system that supports easy-to-understand environmental data about products with scientific context. Governments and policymakers have a pivotal role to play in the successful implementation of such a system.

What makes green persuasion effective? Evidence from a community-financed sanitation program in Indonesia

Understanding when and where face-to-face communication affects pro-environmental decisions is important for policymakers. We study a data set collected in a solicitation project intended to increase participation in a community-financed waste collection program in Indonesia. Two types of messages are developed and randomly assigned to 748 households. In addition, solicitors are randomly assigned to a control group or one of two treatment groups, and these groups are shuffled further midway through the project. These two orthogonal randomizations allow us to assess the impact of a combination of messages, solicitors and households. We find that the “help the children” message increases the probability of participation for households with a young child. Solicitor personality is associated with immediate participation but becomes nonsignificant after three months. Furthermore, a household is more likely to participate if a solicitor knows the respondent personally. These results suggest that, at least in the short term, important factors in encouraging behavioral changes include not only the contents of messages but also the type of sender of such messages. This paper highlights the possible impact of targeting and content-sender-receiver matching when persuasive communication is used as an environmental policy instrument.

The effect of deliberate ignorance and choice procedure on pro-environmental decisions

When people are given the opportunity to avoid unpleasant information about the possible negative consequences of their self-interested behavior on others, a significant number of people tend to avoid this information. Consequently, the choice to remain ignorant to the negative implications of one's actions has been shown to substantially reduce prosocial behavior when compared to situations in which people are aware of these consequences. Recent studies question the role of deliberate ignorance in environmental contexts. Participants did not avoid information regarding the negative consequence of their choices on a pro-environmental organization. In addition, the option to remain ignorant of this information did not affect their proenvironmental behavior. We argue that the procedure that should be followed in order to remain ignorant plays a critical role in shaping this decision. We employ a binary dictator game where the recipient is a nonprofit environmental organization, and manipulate the procedure that dictators have to follow to remain ignorant of the recipient's payment. We find a significant effect of the applied procedure on both the tendency to remain ignorant and the subsequent pro-environmental behavior.

“I” get license but “we” keep consistent: The role of self-construal in subsequent pro-environmental decision

How to motivate consumers to maintain environmentally responsible consumption choice rather than occasional green consumption is an important component of sustainability within modern society. Yet, past literature provides two contradictory routes for sequential pro-environmental decisions: consistency effect and licensing effect. The consistency effect builds on follows the logics of self-perception theory and implies that consumers tend to repeat their prior environmentally responsible and irresponsible decisions; the licensing effect follows a goal-based logic to highlight that past pro-environmental behaviour produces a “license” to engage in less pro-environmental behaviour. To reconcile these contradictory predictions, this study extends the existing literature by following a consistent, goal-based logic in theory and exploring self-construal as a moderator that switches from one mode of sequential pro-environmental decisions to the other. Three experimental studies affirm that self-consistency effect occurs for consumers with an accessible interdependent self-construal, but licensing effect is more pronounced for consumers with an accessible independent self-construal. In addition, the interdependent- consistency effect will be stronger and the independent-licensing effect will be weaker if consumers are reminded of high tendency of others’ pro-environmental behaviour in the first decision. Together, these results shed light on the downstream consequences for consumers of pro-environmental choice, with implications for the marketing and regulation of such products.

When and how pro-environmental attitudes turn into behavior: The role of costs, benefits, and self-control

Despite a strong consensus about humanity's responsibility for climate change, many people fail to behave in line with their pro-environmental attitudes, and the question of how to overcome this environmental attitude-behavior gap remains a puzzle. To address this lacuna, the present research provides further insights into motivational, dispositional, and structural factors underlying pro-environmental behavior. Based on a decision-task with actual environmental consequences (n = 1,536), we show that pro-environmental attitudes are more predictive of pro-environmental behavior when personal costs are low or environmental benefits are high. Importantly, self-control helps people to act in line with their attitudes, suggesting that self-control is a crucial trait for protecting people's long-term pro-environmental goals. We propose that mitigation strategies should take into account the motivational, dispositional, and structural complexity associated with pro-environmental decisions.

Engagement factors for household waste sorting in Ecuador: Improving perceived convenience and environmental attitudes enhances waste sorting capacity

This study contributes to developing a set of engagement factors to address waste mishandling and enhances waste sorting intention in households. Prior studies do not specify a set of factors to mobilize and empower households toward better waste sorting engagement. In addition, in Ecuador, waste separation rates are low, and household waste sorting reduces the separation efforts at collection facilities to increase the recycling efficiency for sustainable plastic waste management strategies. This study adopted the theory of planned behavior to understand waste sorting engagement factors, and the factors are described in qualitative information and linguistic preferences. Hence, this study applied the fuzzy Delphi method to screen out the less important attributes and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory to visualize the interrelationships among attributes. This study finds that waste sorting capacity is driven by environmental attitudes, perceived convenience, social norms and economic drivers. The results also indicated that households’ environmental attitudes, perceived convenience and economic drivers are causal factors that drive waste sorting engagement. For practitioners, separation knowledge, willingness to participate, pro-environmental decisions, and social responsibility arrangements are the driving criteria for improving waste sorting engagement and reducing and eliminating pollution. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Endogenous Preferences, Intrinsic Motivation, and the Evolution of Pro-Environmental Behavior

Environmental behavior changes over time, both within individuals and across cultures. Yet, economists, behavioral scientists, and environmentalists have a limited understanding of the drivers and dynamics of pro-social and pro-environmental behavior. This paper takes a model of endogenous preferences and uses a randomized control experiment to test one of its key predictions: increasing the intrinsic appreciation for pro-environmental behavior (i.e., warm glow) will increase the utility derived from making pro-environmental decisions and lead to an increase in pro-environmental behavior. This study uses a novel intervention that increases anticipated warm glow from performing pro-environmental behaviors via an intrinsically motivated effort-based task. We found that participants who worked at a task only to raise money for a non-profit increased their anticipated warm glow from carrying out future pro-environmental behaviors. When the opportunity to raise money for a non-profit was paired with an equal payment to the participant, the impact on anticipated warm glow disappeared. Those in the intrinsic motivation treatment group reported higher intentions to perform pro-environmental behaviors. The average treatment effect on reported pro-environmental behaviors, however, was not significant. A structural equation mediation model provides empirical support for the theoretical prediction that the intrinsic motivation intervention affects pro-environmental behaviors through the indirect mechanism of anticipated warm glow. This work adds to the growing evidence that anticipated warm glow is one of the strongest predictors of pro-environmental behavior. The responsiveness of anticipated warm glow to a simple intervention points to the importance of using endogenous preference modeling to fully capture the dynamic effects of environmental policies and to the potential to design policies and communications that activate intrinsic motivations for pro-environmental behavior.

The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions.

Strategies to mitigate climate change often center on clean technologies, such as electric vehicles and solar panels, while the mitigation potential of a quality educational experience is rarely discussed. In this paper, we investigate the long-term impact that an intensive one-year university course had on individual carbon emissions by surveying students at least five years after having taken the course. A majority of course graduates reported pro-environmental decisions (i.e., type of car to buy, food choices) that they attributed at least in part to experiences gained in the course. Furthermore, our carbon footprint analysis suggests that for the average course graduate, these decisions reduced their individual carbon emissions by 2.86 tons of CO2 per year. Surveys and focus group interviews identify that course graduates have developed a strong personal connection to climate change solutions, and this is realized in their daily behaviors and through their professional careers. The paper discusses in more detail the specific components of the course that are believed to be most impactful, and the uncertainties associated with this type of research design. Our analysis also demonstrates that if similar education programs were applied at scale, the potential reductions in carbon emissions would be of similar magnitude to other large-scale mitigation strategies, such as rooftop solar or electric vehicles.

I'm nice, therefore I go green: An investigation of pro-environmentalism in communal narcissists

This work investigates the role that communal narcissism plays in consumers' pro-environmental decisions. Five studies suggest that while communal narcissists claim that they are pro-environmental, their behaviors do not support such claims. The findings indicate that communal narcissists may see pro-environmental actions as communal means that could potentially serve their agentic, self-directed motives. However, when pro-environmental actions are expected to pose a threat to self-interest, the ‘me first’ aspect of narcissism plays a more dominant role, resulting in lack of inclinations to engage in pro-environmental actions. This work also provides evidence for two boundary conditions (product public visibility and perceived social benefits) under which communal narcissists may behave more pro-environmentally. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, as well as directions for future research are also discussed.

Understanding museum vacationers' eco-friendly decision-making process: strengthening the VBN framework

ABSTRACTIn the present research, the process of vacationers’ pro-environmental decision formation for environmentally responsible museums was examined. This research employed and broadened the value-belief-norm theory, using satisfaction with green product use, green trust, and frequency of past behavior for green product use as predictors. A structural equation modeling was utilized for modeling comparisons and hypothesis testing. A measurement model tested using the data gathered at museums was found to satisfactorily fit to the data. Newly integrated constructs significantly improved the prediction power of the theory. In addition, results of the structural equation modeling generally supported the proposed relationships. Moreover, a salient role of moral norm was identified. As expected, new environmental paradigm, awareness of consequences, ascribed responsibility, and moral norm played an important mediating role. A parsimonious model with greater prediction power than the original value-belief-norm theory was produced through modeling comparisons and the process of testing relationships among research variables. Our results offer a sufficient understanding of vacationers’ pro-environmental intention for eco-friendly museums.

The influence of anticipated pride and guilt on pro-environmental decision making.

The present research explores the relationship between anticipated emotions and pro-environmental decision making comparing two differently valenced emotions: anticipated pride and guilt. In an experimental design, we examined the causal effects of anticipated pride versus guilt on pro-environmental decision making and behavioral intentions by making anticipated emotions (i.e. pride and guilt) salient just prior to asking participants to make a series of environmental decisions. We find evidence that anticipating one’s positive future emotional state from green action just prior to making an environmental decision leads to higher pro-environmental behavioral intentions compared to anticipating one’s negative emotional state from inaction. This finding suggests a rethinking in the domain of environmental and climate change messaging, which has traditionally favored inducing negative emotions such as guilt to promote pro-environmental action. Furthermore, exploratory results comparing anticipated pride and guilt inductions to baseline behavior point toward a reactance eliciting effect of anticipated guilt.

What influences water conservation and towel reuse practices of hotel guests?

Understanding guests' water conservation and towel reuse behaviors is essential as sustainability is recently a vital issue in the hotel industry. Yet, guests' decision formation for such pro-environmental behaviors has not been sufficiently explored. This research filled such a void in the extant literature. Our empirical findings showed that guests' water conservation intention was a significant function of moral norm, anticipated feelings, and water saving behavior in everyday life. Our results also indicated that guests' towel reuse intention was significantly affected by moral norm, social norms, anticipated feelings, and towel reuse behavior in everyday life. Moreover, moral norm and descriptive norm were found to be the most influential factors determining water conservation and towel reuse intentions, respectively. This research adds to the extant literature in hospitality/tourism by providing valuable insights into how normative, affective, and habitual processes relate to guests’ pro-environmental decisions during their stay at a hotel.

Cognitive, affective, normative, and moral triggers of sustainable intentions among convention-goers

Given that little research has considered cognitive, affective, normative, and moral drivers altogether in accounting for individuals' eco-friendly decisions, the present study addressed this omission in the convention industry by demonstrating the vital impact of such factors on attendees' environmentally responsible decision-making processes. Cognitive, affective, normative, and moral factors were found to play a significant role in the proposed theoretical framework. Our model explained a satisfactory amount of the total variance in environmentally-friendly intentions. That is, our model adequately explicated convention travelers' pro-environmental decision formations. We believe that this research makes a meaningful contribution to advancing knowledge of how cognitive, affective, normative, and moral triggers are related in determining convention travelers' intentions to practice eco-friendly activities, accept inconveniences for the sake of environmental protection, and recommend other attendees to engage in environmentally responsible behaviors.

Cultural Variability in the Link Between Environmental Concern and Support for Environmental Action

Research on sustainability behaviors has been based on the assumption that increasing personal concerns about the environment will increase proenvironmental action. We tested whether this assumption is more applicable to individualistic cultures than to collectivistic cultures. In Study 1, we compared 47 countries (N = 57,268) and found that they varied considerably in the degree to which environmental concern predicted support for proenvironmental action. National-level individualism explained the between-nation variability above and beyond the effects of other cultural values and independently of person-level individualism. In Study 2, we compared individualistic and collectivistic nations (United States vs. Japan; N = 251) and found culture-specific predictors of proenvironmental behavior. Environmental concern predicted environmentally friendly consumer choice among European Americans but not Japanese. For Japanese participants, perceived norms about environmental behavior predicted proenvironmental decision making. Facilitating sustainability across nations requires an understanding of how culture determines which psychological factors drive human action.

The Psychology of Environmental Decisions

Humanity faces an unprecedented set of global environmental problems. We argue that to promote pro-environmental decisions and to achieve public consensus on the need for action we must address individual and collective understanding (cognition) of environmental problems, as well as individual and collective commitments to take action to mitigate or prevent those problems. We review literature pertaining to psychological predispositions, mental models, framing, psychological distance, and the social context of decisions that help elucidate how these goals of cognition and commitment can be achieved. This article reveals the complex and multiply determined nature of environmental decisions. However, we argue that this complexity points to opportunities to reduce the inherent uncertainty surrounding global environmental challenges via appeals to the psychological mechanisms that underpin our decisions.

Consideration of future consequences and pro-environmental decision making in the context of persuasion and binding commitment

Based on the ABC model, which postulates that behavior (B) is a product of the interaction between attitudinal variables (A) and contextual factors (C), we studied the influence of social context on the effects of consideration of future consequences (CFC) within the framework of decision making about a pro-environmental behavior. The role of the external situation on the relationship between CFC and the studied behavior was observed through three types of situation: No-communication, persuasive communication and binding communication. The results showed a global effect of CFC on decision making with a moderating effect of the context: CFC had no effect in the least favoring condition (no-communication) nor in the most favoring condition (binding communication). We only observed an effect of CFC in the intermediate condition (persuasive communication). These results confirm the ABC model and highlight the value of taking account of the contextual factors in studying a psychological variable such as CFC.

Climate Change and Individual Decision Making: An Examination of Knowledge, Risk Perception, Self-Interest and their Interplay

In this essay, three separate yet interconnected components of pro-environmental decision making are considered: (a) knowledge, in the form of basic scientific understanding and procedural knowledge, (b) risk perception, as it relates to an individual’s direct experience of climate change and (c) self-interest, either monetary or status-driven. Drawing on a variety of sources in public policy, psychology, and economics, I examine the role of these concepts in inducing or discouraging pro-environmental behavior. Past researches have often overemphasized the weight of just one of those variables in the decision making. I argue, instead, that none of them alone is capable of bringing about the behavioral change required by the environmental crisis. Evidence shows that increasing the public’s scientific knowledge of climate change cannot unilaterally bring about a strong behavioral change. The same can be noticed even when knowledge is joined by risk-perception: deep psychological mechanisms may steer people towards inaction and apathy, despite their direct experience of the detrimental effects of climate change on their lives. Focusing on self-interest alone is similarly unable to induce pro-environmental behavior, due to a host of psychological factors. Instead, in all of the above cases an important missing ingredient may be found in providing the public with locally contextualized procedural knowledge in order to translate its knowledge and concern into action. The importance of this kind of practical knowledge has solid empirical and theoretical underpinnings, and is often overlooked in the climate-change debate that tends to focus on more high-level issues. Yet, for all its essential simplicity, it may carry important public-policy implications.