BOX 1
Recommendations in International Declarations and Conventions on
“Environmental Awareness and Environmental Education”
AGENDA 21
Chapter 4: Changing consumption patterns – Focusing on unsustainable patterns of
pro-duction and consumption
– Developing national policies and strategies to encourage changes in unsustainable con-sumption patterns
Chapter 23: Strengthening the role of major groups
Chapter 24: Global action for women towards sus-tainable and equitable development
Chapter 25: Children and youth in sustainable de-velopment
Chapter 26: Recognizing and strengthening the role of indigenous people and their commu-nities
Chapter 27: Strengthening the role of non-govern-mental organizations: partners for sustainable development
Chapter 28: Local authorities’ initiatives in sup-port of AGENDA 21
Chapter 29: Strengthening the role of workers and their trade unions
Chapter 30: Strengthening the role of business and industry
Chapter 31: Scientific and technological commu-nity
Chapter 32: Strengthening the role of farmers Chapter 36: Promoting education, public
aware-ness and training
– Reorienting education towards sustainable development
– Increasing public awareness – Promoting training
Framework Convention on Climate Change Art. 6: Education, training and public awareness at national/regional level:
– Promote and facilitate the development and implementation of educational and public awareness programmes on climate change and its effects.
– Promote and facilitate public access to infor-mation on climate change and its effects.
– Promote and facilitate public participation in addressing climate change and its effects and
developing adequate responses.
– Promote and facilitate training of scientific, technical and managerial personnel.
at international level:
– Cooperate in and promote the development and exchange of educational and public awareness material on climate change and its effects.
– Cooperate in and promote the development and implementation of education and train-ing programmes, includtrain-ing the strengthentrain-ing of national institutions and the exchange or secondment of personnel to train experts in this field, in particular for developing coun-tries.
Convention on Biological Diversity Art. 12: Research and Training
– Establish and maintain programmes for sci-entific and technical education and training in measures for the identification, conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and its components and provide support for such education and training for the specific needs of developing countries.
Art. 13: Public Education and Awareness
– Promote and encourage understanding of the importance of, and the measures required for, the conservation of biological diversity, as well as its propagation through media, and the inclusion of these topics in educational programmes.
– Cooperate, as appropriate, with other States and international organizations in developing educational and public awareness pro-grammes, with respect to conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
Rio Declaration Principle 8:
– States should reduce and eliminate unsustain-able patterns of production and consumption.
Principle 10:
– Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level.
– At the national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to information con-cerning the environment ...., and the opportu-nity to participate in decision-making pro-cesses.
– States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making
infor-21 Environmentally Related Behavior and Its Determinants B 1.2
most important statements in that report are sum-marized and expanded on below.
There is no single overall theory of environmen-tally related behavior but there is a whole range of theoretical and empirically supported models for conceptualizing such behavior (including both envi-ronmentally harmful and envienvi-ronmentally sound modes of behavior) and its determinants. What is common to these models is the large number of fac-tors that influence environmentally relevant behav-ior. It is difficult to weight these individual factors, particularly because the determinants in question interact with each other. For this reason it appears meaningful to view potential conditions of environ-mentally relevant behavior, including
– perception and assessment of environmental cir-cumstances,
– environmentally relevant knowledge and infor-mation processing,
– attitudes and value orientations,
– incentives to act (motivational and reinforcement factors),
– opportunities and offers to act,
– perceived consequences of actions (feedback) and – perceived actions of reference groups and model
persons,
as relatively equal in importance and to take them into account in each case when designing specific intervention measures (WBGU, 1993). At any rate, one must avoid the all too frequent presumption that
“environmental awareness” (as one conditioning fac-tor) can be equated to the actual environmental be-havior.
Depending on the disciplinary perspective (psy-chology, sociology, other empirical social sciences), the term “environmental awareness” is defined on
the basis of different aspects, several of which are presented here for illustrative purposes (Box 2).
In addition to this list of viewpoints and proposed definitions, which is by no means an exhaustive one, there are numerous ad hoc definitions from demos-copic surveys where responses to single questions are frequently interpreted as an expression of “environ-mental awareness”. Such surveys in particular, paw-ned off as instantaneous, diagnostic snapshots, tend to dominate the social discourse and thus contribute to “watering down” the term even more.
The lack of clarity regarding “environmental awareness” might suggest doing away with this term in a scientific context completely and, instead, for ex-ample, directly referring to the three components of a psychological concept of environmental awareness (cognition, affect, intention) as determinants of envi-ronmentally related behavior. As a rule, this is pre-cisely what is attempted within the framework of the various conceptualizations of environmentally re-lated behavior. Such an approach becomes necessary in any case when an operational definition is re-quired for the collection of data.
The model developed by Fietkau and Kessel (1981) can now be regarded as an almost “classic”
theoretical approach to conceptualizing “environ-mental behavior”, to which many researchers have made reference explicitly or implicitly since then. On the basis of plausibility considerations, the authors postulate a “framework of order”, within which the factors of environmentally relevant knowledge, envi-ronmentally relevant attitudes/values, offered modes of behavior, incentives to act, perceived behav-ior/consequences and environmentally relevant be-havior are intertwined in an intricate web of interre-mation widely available.
Convention to Combat Desertification Art. 3: Principles
– Taking decisions on the design and imple-mentation of programmes to combat deser-tification and/or mitigate the effects of drought with the participation of populations and local communities.
– Development of cooperation among all levels of government, communities, non-govern-mental organizations and landholders to es-tablish a better understanding of the nature and value of land and scarce water resources in affected areas and to work towards their sustainable use.
Art. 19: Capacity building, education and public awareness
– Promotion of capacity building – that is to say, institution building, training and develop-ment of relevant local and national capacities – in efforts to combat desertification and mit-igate the effects of drought.
– Undertaking and supporting public aware-ness and educational programmes ... to pro-mote understanding of the causes and effects of desertification and drought.
– Establishing and strengthening networks of regional education and training centres to combat desertification and mitigate the ef-fects of drought.
22 B 1 Environmental Awareness and Environmental Education
lationships (Fig. 1), though without any weighting of these factors.
Another theoretical conceptualization originates from Stern and Oskamp (1987) and is based on a heuristic multi-level causal model that implies a kind of “logical” sequence of factors (from background factors to observable effects of behavior), again as-suming dynamic feedback effects between the indi-vidual levels (particularly through learning and self-justification effects in the sense of reducing contra-dictions in the “conceptual structure” of individuals, so-called cognitive dissonances) (Tab. 1).
In contrast to these theoretical models, there are empirically supported conceptualizations. Urban’s
“structural model of environmental awareness”
(1986), for example, is based on a theoretical three-component concept of environmental awareness (va-lue orientations, attitudes, willingness to act) and de-termines statistically significant interrelationships between conditional factors on the basis of question-naire data (Fig. 2).This provides indications of the di-versity of the factors to be taken into account (e.g. ed-ucation, age, occupational sector, offered modes of behavior) as well as of the sometimes only moderate interrelationships between these factors. Urban him-self developed his model further (Urban, 1991), re-sulting in, among other things, considerable changes in the composition of the determinants.
In summary, one can say that environmentally re-lated behavior has been conceptualized in a number
of ways, both with regard to content and methodo-logically. A single model of behavior has not yet ma-terialized. Consequently, social and behavioral sci-ence research as well as policy-related applications are still compelled to assume a wide range of influ-encing factors that can only be defined in concrete terms with regard to specific intervention plans.
1.3
Social Perception of Problems and
Environmental Protection: Empirical Findings By virtue of the international declarations and conventions adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and in the following period, the governments of the Parties have documented the great importance attached to the areas of “environmental protection” and “devel-opment” in their respective national priorities. But what are the priorities of the people with regard to those problems perceived as most pressing? What in-fluences are they subjected to? Do they change over time? Can general trends be discerned? What differ-ences exist between individual nations and cultures and what can they be attributed to?
A first approach to answering these questions can be provided by a comparative analysis of sociological survey data on the perceived (relative) “importance”
of the problems of a society (agenda setting surveys);
BOX 2
“Environmental Awareness”: Viewpoints and Proposed Definitions
– Environmental awareness in an everyday sen-se: sensitivity to environmental crises; fears, dissatisfaction and concern with regard to neg-ative changes in the environment.
– Environmental awareness as basic ecological understanding: “ecological awareness of prob-lems” (Billig, 1994).
– Environmental awareness as an individual va-lue orientation: attaching great vava-lue to nature and to environmental protection (Lantermann and Döring-Seipel, 1990).
– Environmental awareness as an individual atti-tude composed of three components: cognitive
(knowledge, rational assessments), affective (concern, expressions of feelings) and conative component (behavioral intentions) (Spada, 1990, with reference to Rosenberg and Hov-land, 1960).
– Environmental awareness as an attitude, with the addition of the component of actual behav-ior (Schahn and Holzer, 1990).
– Environmental awareness as an awareness of ecological responsibility with components of ecological thinking, ecological control and mo-ral notions (Lecher and Hoff, 1993).
– Environmental awareness as the sum of the no-tions, opinions, feelings and intentions shared by a society with regard to people-environment topics (sociological notion of environmental awareness).
suitable surveys have been conducted, at least in the industrialized countries, for some time now.
Such survey data is often difficult to access be-cause the surveying institutes are usually privately run. In these cases one is forced to fall back on secon-dary sources that often contain gaps in their descrip-tion of the methodological approach. This applies particularly to data from countries outside of Ger-many that was not collected within the framework of international survey programs. In addition, it can be presumed that systematic, continuous surveying has, in fact, only been carried out in the western industri-alized countries up to now, and even there this prac-tice has not gone beyond the preliminary stage.
1.3.1
Methodological Problems of Survey Research The methodological limits of survey studies often emerge very quickly upon closer analysis so that, de-spite their omnipresence in social discourse, state-ments made on the basis of survey data can only be meaningfully interpreted through critical considera-tion of the marginal methodological condiconsidera-tions. This caveat applies more or less to all statements based on survey data, and even, for example, to attempts to monetarize environmental assets by means of the ex-pressed willingness to pay (see below) and is, for this reason, expressly considered before the presentation of the respective study results.A good illustration can be provided by an example from recent German agenda setting surveys (Box 3).
23 Methodological Problems of Survey Research B 1.3
Level of Type of variable Examples causality
8 Background factors Income, education, number of household members, local temperature conditions 7 Structural factors Size of dwelling unit, appliance-ownership
Institutional factors Owner/renter status, direct or indirect payment for energy
6 Recent events Difficulty paying energy bills, experiences with shortages, fuel price increases 5 General attitudes Concern about national energy situation
General beliefs Belief households can help with national energy problems
4 Specific attitudes Sense of personal obligation to use energy efficiently
Specific beliefs Belief that using less heat threatens family health
Specific knowledge Knowledge that water heater is a major energy user
3 Behavioral commitment Commitment to cut household energy use 15%
Behavioral intention Intention to install a solar heating system 2 Resource-using Length of time air conditioner is kept on
behavior
Resource-saving Insulating attic, lowering winter thermostat
behavior setting
1 Resource use Kilowatt-hours per month
0 Observable Lower energy costs, elimination of drafts, effects family quarrels over thermostat
Table 1
An approximate causal model of resource use with examples from residential energy consumption.
Source: Stern and Oskamp, 1987
24 B 1 Environmental Awareness and Environmental Education
Under the premise that the research institutes mentioned are reputable institutions conducting seri-ous research work, the striking differences in the re-sults can be predominantly attributed to the respec-tive methodological approach. In particular, the way in which the question is formulated (open versus clo-sed) is obviously a significant factor.
If no alternative responses to choose from are gi-ven and the surveyed persons are asked to name is-sues, problem areas or the like spontaneously (open formulation of the question), aspects of environmen-tal protection normally rank in the middle of their
“list of priorities” at best. Current individual prefer-ences are revealed more clearly with this approach, though in a distorted manner due to the involuntary application of availability heuristics (“media topical-ity”: WBGU, 1993). The result may vary, depending on whether the designation of a number of equally weighted issues or a ranking is requested, and the number of responses requested also plays a role. Fi-nally the study results can also be influenced by whether the categories for allocating the responses
are formed a priori or after the survey, how many the-re athe-re, the degthe-ree of diffethe-rentiation, etc.
If, on the other hand, the surveyed persons are gi-ven a list of issues to be evaluated within the frame-work of a closed formulation of the question, socially desirable developments such as environmental pro-tection receive high values (effect of “social desir-ability” effect). However, closed formulations of questions must also be differentiated as to whether the surveyed persons have to choose a certain num-ber of given alternative responses or rank them. Fre-quently each of the alternatives have to be evaluated on the basis of scales (e.g. from “very important” to
“very unimportant”). The concrete formulation and degree of differentiation of the scale (graduation) as well as the presence of remaining categories (“don’t know”, “no opinion”) may have an influence on the results. Just the selection of the given information (number, degree of differentiation, choice of words, etc.) represents a central problem when using a clo-sed formulation of the question.
Figure 1 Model for
conceptualization of
“environmentally relevant behavior”.
Source: Fietkau and Kessel, 1981 Environmentally
relevant attitudes, values
Environmentally relevant knowledge
Environmentally relevant behavior
Incentives to act
Perceived behavior/
consequences
Mechanisms Bases for changing
environmental awareness Offered modes of
behavior
Creating incentives to act
Creating feedback mechanisms (making consequences
of action visible) Creating ways of achieving
environmentally conscious behavior
Conveying environmentally relevant values
Conveying environmentally relevant knowledge
Offered modes of behavior as behavioral
determinants
Incentives to act as behavioral determinants
Attitudes and values as behavioral determinants
Feedback effect of behavior, via the perception of behavior and consequences of action on the part
of the actor himself/herself, on attitudes and values
Change in attitudes through increase
in knowledge
Attitudes as an incentive to acquire
knowledge
25 Methodological Problems of Survey Research B 1.3.1
Besides the aspects mentioned, the arrangement of the questionnaire within a study and related sensi-tization and anchoring effects, the exact formulation and the spatial and time reference framework of-fered to the surveyed persons play a role with regard to methodology. Further influencing factors include
the representativeness of the respective sample (as a rule 1,000-2,000 persons are surveyed and conclu-sions regarding the entire population are drawn from the result) as well as many other marginal conditions of the studies that can scarcely be checked
com-Age Occupational
sector Education
Environmentally related value orientations
Critical attitude towards science and technology
Environmentally related attitudes
Environmentally related willingness to act
Environmentally relevant behavior
Perception of ecological harm
Degree of familiarity with social modes of behavior
offered Figure 2
Statistical estimate of a theoretically specified causal model of
environmental awareness and environmental behavior (data base:
questionnaire study with 216 grown-up Germans surveyed).
Source: Urban, 1986 Urban conceives environmental awareness as a combination of environmentally related value orientations, attitudes and
corresponding willingness to act which is supposed to predict self reported environmentally relevant
behavior. The variables of age, occupational sector, education, critical attitude towards science and technology, perception of ecological pressure as well as familiarity with socially organized modes of behavior proved to be statistically significant factors (level of significance: 5%; influence exerted in the direction indicated by the arrows) in a causal, path analysis model. The path coefficients and the explained variance in the targeted variables regarding environmental awareness and environmental behavior are not presented. All influences are positive, with the exception of the relationship between the variables of age and environmentally related value orientations.
BOX 3
Methodological Problems in Survey Research – an Example
According to a study by the Sample-Institut in May 1994, 83% of the Germans surveyed (in east-ern and westeast-ern Germany) considered the solu-tion of problems related to “pollusolu-tion” to be “im-portant” or “very im“im-portant” (Sample-Institut, 1994). These issues were ranked 2nd among im-portant social problems, following “unemploy-ment”. Those surveyed had to classify various gi-ven issues on a scale of five from “not important at all” to “very important” (closed formulation of the question).
At the same time (May 1994), but with a differ-ent methodology, the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (Election Research Group “ZDF-Politbarome-ter”) determined that “unemployment” (55%), followed by “asylum issues/foreign citizens”
(31%) and “right-wing radicalism” (17%), were the “most important issues” for the old German States. “Environmental protection” follows here in 5th place with only 13% (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, 1994). The following ranking resulted for the new German States: “unemployment” (79%), followed by “law and order” (17%), “problems connected with unification” (14%) and “asylum issues/foreign citizens” (10%). All other issues mentioned were below 10% and the issue of “en-vironmental protection” was not in the top ten at all. Thus the (western states) value of 13% can be considered as representing the maximum for the entire Federal Republic of Germany. The proce-dure followed by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (Election Research Group) differs from that of the Sample-Institut in that the surveyed persons themselves were able to state up to two “most im-portant issues” without being given any to choose from (open formulation of the question).
pletely (e.g. characteristics and modes of behavior of
pletely (e.g. characteristics and modes of behavior of