The real reasons why people reduce their carbon footprints : what motivates adults in Western Sydney to take actions that help mitigate climate change?

Abstract

The strong international body of knowledge on the pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour of individuals includes very little on the reasons why individuals take actions that assist in mitigating climate change. This has been a little explored area especially in the Australian context. This research assists in filling this knowledge gap through identifying the motivations of individuals when they habitually engage in behaviours that deliver lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions than do likely alternative actions. The knowledge can be used to assist alignment of climate change mitigation policies and programs with the actual motivations of individuals, thus improving chances of success. The study characterises climate change as a "wicked' problem and social dilemma in which we are all complicit. The study author is a sustainability practitioner who was working in local government in Western Sydney during the research period and the approach was transdisciplinary. The focus research question was "What motivates adults in Western Sydney to undertake actions that help mitigate climate change?' The research used a convergent parallel mixed methods design which was qualitative and inductive. It included the Climate Action Scale (CAS), a new deductive social research instrument specially developed by and for the study to facilitate engagement with respondents. The CAS formed the basis for a survey of 300 people. Additional in-depth data on motivations were gathered through 24 one-hour interviews with respondents who had demonstrated pro-environmental and/or climate change mitigation behaviour, and analysis of 30 relevant post-graduate student assignments. Study findings raise a range of implications useful for informing the development of climate change mitigation policy and programs. Value-action gaps were found to be caused by external conditions and/or situations in which other personal values were considered higher priorities than environmental values. Lack of perceived temporal urgency and lack of socially proximal threat were seen to undermine strong immediate mitigation action. Findings indicated programs were accepted and well-utilised when they provided high convenience and when costs were shared such that they imposed no obvious additional cost on individuals. Intentional motivation as an adaptive response to climate change and changes in personal behaviour that spark stronger pro-mitigation attitudes were seen to be able to cause chicken-and-egg cycles of continuous mitigation improvement. Further research was recommended to ascertain: if there is a tendency for reciprocal obligation to result from pro-environmental programs with direct benefits to participants; whether cultural and/or other demographic differences influence the degree of acceptance of programs; whether cultural and demographic factors affect use of public transport and/or private cars; whether there are particular circumstances in which normative influence is more or less likely to be explicitly recognised by an individual and reported in social research and; how household decision-making processes affect environmental management and sustainability issues. Due to the localised nature of the research, the ability to generalise findings may be limited.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English