Julian Agyeman

Mind the Gap: Why Do People Act Environmentally and What Are the Barriers to Pro-Environmental Behavior?.

Numerous theoretical frameworks have been developed to explain the gap between the possession of environmental knowledge and environmental awareness, and displaying pro-environmental behavior. Although many hundreds of studies have been undertaken, no definitive explanation has yet been found. Our article describes a few of the most influential and commonly used analytical frameworks: early US linear progression models; altruism, empathy and prosocial behavior models; and finally, sociological models. All of the models we discuss (and many of the ones we do not such as economic models, psychological models that look at behavior in general, social marketing models and that have become known as deliberative and inclusionary processes or procedures (DIPS)) have some validity in certain circumstances. This indicates that the question of what shapes pro-environmental behavior is such a complex one that it cannot be visualized through one single framework or diagram. We then analyze the factors that have been found to have some influence, positive or negative, on pro-environmental behavior such as demographic factors, external factors (e.g. institutional, economic, social and cultural) and internal factors (e.g. motivation, pro-environmental knowledge, awareness, values, attitudes, emotion, locus of control, responsibilities and priorities). Although we point out that developing a model that tries to incorporate all factors might neither be feasible nor useful, we feel that it can help illuminate this complex field. Accordingly, we propose our own model based on the work of Fliegenschnee and Schelakovsky (1998) who were influenced by Fietkau and Kessel (1981).

Exploring the Nexus: Bringing Together Sustainability, Environmental Justice and Equity

In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that the issue of environmental quality is inextricably linked to that of human equality at all scales. This article examines the differing traditions and approaches of environmental justice and sustainability, and explores some of their theoretical bases. It also briefly reviews human rights and environmental security issues in order to discern the potential for common ground between the two main traditions. The authors argue that there are indications of convergence between these traditions and that this convergence is happening primarily through the activities of progressive NGOs, academics and local community organisations world-wide. What is now needed is for governments at local, regional, national and international levels to learn from these organisations and to seek to embed the central principles and practical approaches of environmental justice within emerging sustainable development policy.

Toward Just Sustainability in Urban Communities: Building Equity Rights with Sustainable Solutions

Two concepts that provide new directions for public policy, environmental justice and sustainability, are both highly contested. Each has tremendous potential to effect long-lasting change. Despite the historically different origins of these two concepts and their attendant movements, there exists an area of theoretical compatibility between them. This conceptual overlap is a critical nexus for a broad social movement to create livable, sustainable communities for all people in the future. The goal of this articleis to illustrate the nexus in the United States. The authors do this by presenting a range of local or regionally based practical models in five areas of common concern to both environmental justice and sustainability: land use planning, solid waste, toxic chemical use, residential energy use, and transportation. These models address both environmental justice principles while working toward greater sustainability in urbanized areas.

Cooling the campus

A community‐based social marketing (CBSM) campaign to reduce student electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions was undertaken at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Social marketing methods follow a commercial marketing model and involve market research into the planning, pricing, communication, distribution, and evaluation of methods designed to encourage a desired behavior change rather than a product. Two upper‐class suite‐style dorms were used in the study. Residents of the control dormitory were exposed to an educational program on climate change detailing how their electricity and computer use creates greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of the experimental dorm were exposed to the same educational program as well as a social marketing campaign encouraging students to turn personal computers off when not in use. Before and after surveys suggested that the social marketing campaign had a greater impact on student environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors than the educational program...

Toward a ‘just’ sustainability?

Why should race and class, justice and equity play a role in sustainability? Has the current environmentally focused sustainability movement not done a good job? Irrespective of whether we take a global, national or more local focus, a moral or practical approach, inequity and injustice resulting from, among other things, racism and classism are bad for the environment and bad for a broadly conceived notion of sustainability. What is more, as most of the environmental justice literature (see, for instance, Agyeman, Bullard, and Evans 2003) and Shellenberger and Nordhaus (2004) have shown in the United States, the environmental sustainability movement does not have an analysis or theory of change with strategies for dealing with these issues. Indeed, Shellenberger and Nordhaus (2004, 12) in The Death of Environmentalism, their stinging indictment of the US environmental movement, ask:

Culture, Recognition, and the Negotiation of Difference Some Thoughts on Cultural Competency in Planning Education

Recognizing, understanding, and engaging difference, diversity, and cultural heterogeneity in creative and productive ways requires cultural competency. In this article, we first define culture, difference, and equality as a platform to call for a broader conception of culture in the planning profession than that implicit in multiculturalism. Second, we discuss how a broader appreciation of culture is the foundation of planning for intercultural communities, which provides a new rationale for understanding why cultural competency skills are central to planning education. Finally, we offer a framework for planning schools to integrate cultural competency themes across the curriculum.

Local Environment @ 20

Twenty years ago in Volume 1, No 1 of Local Environment, my then co-editor Bob Evans and I wrote our opening Editorial “From Global to Local”. In it we reflected on the post – Rio Earth Summit and the “new environmental agenda of linked social, economic and environmental issues”. We used that phrase because at that time because, certainly in the UK where we were based, it was easier to morph the (old) environmental agenda into a “new” environmental agenda of sustainability, than it was to create a whole new agenda around sustainability. The vehicle for this change was Local Agenda 21 (LA21), and it was willingly taken up by UK local authorities hungry for a new role after the kicking they had received under successive Thatcher governments. Why, because in LA21, local government had a new role:

Action, experience, behaviour and technology: why it’s just not the same?

As I (re)read Jensen and Schnack’s ‘Action competence approach in environmental education’ and Payne’s ‘The technics of environmental education’ I was reminded of a Thanksgiving Dinner a few years ago, where I sat next to the mother of the chair of my department. Then in her mid 90s and still very alert, in her younger days, she had been a teacher in New York City and a civil rights activist. Her concern was that ‘people are not taking action these days, not like we used to’. By ‘action’, she meant hitting the streets, protesting, getting in people’s faces. I pondered this statement for a moment and then responded, perhaps a little defensively, ‘I think they are taking action. It’s just that the medium, forms and forum for action have changed. I think a lot of action is organized and taken via the Internet’. She looked at me, and while she didn’t say it, I think she wanted to say ‘but it’s just not the same’. Her point of course was that in her mind, an ‘action’ such as a civil rights protest had to be conspicuous, ‘visible’ and on the street, as opposed to being ‘invisible’, on the Internet. Perhaps she felt that mediated action through the Internet is somehow less valuable than what she perceived to be the non-mediated, visible action of her youth. Using this as a starting point, I want to look at concepts that crop up frequently in the two papers I read, namely experience and action, behaviour shifts, and action competence. To do this, I want to try to provide some answers to two (linked) questions that arise in my mind, one from each paper: