Environmental Impact and Pro-Environmental Behavior: Correlations to Income and Environmental Concern

Heidi Bruderer Enzler and Andreas Diekmann

No 9, ETH Zurich Sociology Working Papers from ETH Zurich, Chair of Sociology

Abstract: Switzerland, like many other countries, has set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Private households play a significant part in achieving these aims. Therefore, it is important to know which factors are related to emissions. So far, most studies have focused on income, household size and other structural factors while neglecting the potential relevance of attitudinal variables such as environmental concern. Those studies that did examine environmental attitudes were mostly based on "intent-oriented" measures of pro-environmental behavior instead of actual environmental impacts. The present study brings these lines of research together by analyzing the relationship between emissions, income and environmental attitudes within a framework of multivariate analysis. Furthermore, three specific emissions domains – mobility, housing and food – are analyzed separately and the results are compared to those based on a scale of pro-environmental behavior. All analyses are based on data from a large representative general population survey, the Swiss Environmental Survey 2007 (n = 3,369), and a subsequent life cycle analysis. The results indicate that higher income and lower levels of environmental concern are both associated with higher emissions. Furthermore, overall emissions are higher for younger, male respondents with higher education, living in smaller households with cars. For emissions by mobility, being economically active is a further predictor of higher emissions. For housing, the pattern is slightly different, in that females and older respondents are attributed higher emissions. In the case of food, however, there is no clear-cut association between emissions and income. In conclusion, this study clearly indicates that next to income, environmental concern is an important predictor of GHG emissions, even when controlling for the effects of income. A very similar pattern of correlations was found for intent-oriented pro-environmental behavior.

Keywords: Environmental impact; greenhouse gas emissions; pro-environmental behavior; income; environmental concern (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2015-11-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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