IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v4y2012i7p1561-1579d18836.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer Panel on the Readiness of Finns to Behave in a More Pro-Environmental Manner

Author

Listed:
  • Noora Valkila

    (Aalto University, School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, P.O. Box 12100, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland)

  • Arto Saari

    (Aalto University, School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, P.O. Box 12100, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland)

Abstract

Due to climate change, there is an urgent need to take measures toward reducing greenhouse gases and energy consumption. It is therefore vital to examine peoples’ attitudes and the potential for a more pro-environmental readiness. Consumer panels were used in the gathering of data, even with such small subsamples, statistical significance of difference cannot be assessed. The research subjects participating were randomly selected from two different residential areas and three different age groups. The consumer panels examined the environmental attitudes of the research subjects as well as their readiness to adopt a more pro-environmental lifestyle under four theme headings: Urban structure, household energy consumption, mobility and lifestyle. The results suggest that all the research subjects are very much ready to reduce their consumption, but not quite ready to invest in expensive, but environmentally-friendly equipment. Young and elderly research subjects seemed more prepared to make pro-environmental changes than middle-aged subjects. Place of residence also seemed to have an impact on the adoption threshold: Research subjects living in more densely populated suburbs seemed to be more willing to give up driving, whereas those living in sparsely populated areas seemed to be more willing to invest in expensive, but environmentally-friendly equipment and give up flying for vacations.

Suggested Citation

  • Noora Valkila & Arto Saari, 2012. "Consumer Panel on the Readiness of Finns to Behave in a More Pro-Environmental Manner," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(7), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:4:y:2012:i:7:p:1561-1579:d:18836
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/7/1561/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/7/1561/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abrahamse, Wokje & Steg, Linda, 2009. "How do socio-demographic and psychological factors relate to households' direct and indirect energy use and savings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 711-720, October.
    2. Herring, Horace, 2006. "Energy efficiency—a critical view," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 10-20.
    3. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cody Jones, 2013. "Moving Beyond Profit: Expanding Research to Better Understand Business Environmental Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(6), pages 1-29, June.
    2. Anna Claudelin & Ville Uusitalo & Sanna Pekkola & Maija Leino & Suvi Konsti-Laakso, 2017. "The Role of Consumers in the Transition toward Low-Carbon Living," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-15, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zbigniew Bohdanowicz & Beata Łopaciuk-Gonczaryk & Jarosław Kowalski & Cezary Biele, 2021. "Households’ Electrical Energy Conservation and Management: An Ecological Break-Through, or the Same Old Consumption-Growth Path?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-21, October.
    2. López, Ramón E. & Yoon, Sang W., 2020. "Sustainable development: Structural transformation and the consumer demand," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 22-38.
    3. Burman, Esfand & Mumovic, Dejan & Kimpian, Judit, 2014. "Towards measurement and verification of energy performance under the framework of the European directive for energy performance of buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 153-163.
    4. Stéphane Hallegatte, 2008. "A Proposal for a New Prescriptive Discounting Scheme: The Intergenerational Discount Rate," Working Papers 2008.47, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Strand, Jon, 2011. "Carbon offsets with endogenous environmental policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 371-378, March.
    6. Oliver Schenker, 2013. "Exchanging Goods and Damages: The Role of Trade on the Distribution of Climate Change Costs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 54(2), pages 261-282, February.
    7. Liu, Chang & Lin, Boqiang, 2020. "Is increasing-block electricity pricing effectively carried out in China? A case study in Shanghai and Shenzhen," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    8. Alejandro Lopez-Feldman, 2013. "Climate change, agriculture, and poverty: A household level analysis for rural Mexico," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(2), pages 1126-1139.
    9. Bikki Jaggi & Alessandra Allini & Riccardo Macchioni & Annamaria Zampella, 2018. "Do investors find carbon information useful? Evidence from Italian firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1031-1056, May.
    10. Steve Newbold & Charles Griffiths & Christopher C. Moore & Ann Wolverton & Elizabeth Kopits, 2010. "The "Social Cost of Carbon" Made Simple," NCEE Working Paper Series 201007, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Aug 2010.
    11. Richard Tol, 2011. "Regulating knowledge monopolies: the case of the IPCC," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 827-839, October.
    12. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    13. Grüll, Georg & Taschini, Luca, 2011. "Cap-and-trade properties under different hybrid scheme designs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 107-118, January.
    14. Sam Fankhauser & Cameron Hepburn, 2009. "Carbon markets in space and time," GRI Working Papers 3, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    15. Maxmillan Martin & Yi hyun Kang & Motasim Billah & Tasneem Siddiqui & Richard Black & Dominic Kniveton, 2017. "Climate-influenced migration in Bangladesh: The need for a policy realignment," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35, pages 357-379, October.
    16. Dietz, Simon & Gollier, Christian & Kessler, Louise, 2018. "The climate beta," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 258-274.
    17. Stefano Bartolini & Francesco Sarracino, 2021. "Happier and Sustainable. Possibilities for a post-growth society," Department of Economics University of Siena 855, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    18. Sheng, Yu & Xu, Xinpeng, 2019. "The productivity impact of climate change: Evidence from Australia's Millennium drought," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 182-191.
    19. George Halkos & Iacovos Psarianos, 2016. "Exploring the effect of including the environment in the neoclassical growth model," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 18(3), pages 339-358, July.
    20. Mr. Jon Strand, 2007. "Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Supply for the G-7 Countries, with Emphasis on Germany," IMF Working Papers 2007/299, International Monetary Fund.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:4:y:2012:i:7:p:1561-1579:d:18836. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.