Shades of green behaviour under heterogeneous subjective risk and social domains

Contemporary environmental challenges necessitate individual engagement in a diverse array of pro-environmental behaviours, contributing to broader social and economic mitigation efforts. The present study examines individual attitudes and behavioural intentions across a wide range of sustainable decisions, including both routine daily actions and more deliberate, occasional choices. Green behaviour – supporting community resilience and sustainability – is conceptualised both as individual action, influenced by perceived and observed risk, and as social action linked to other-regarding preferences, shaped by institutional trust and theories of social capital. The findings reveal considerable heterogeneity in the decision-making process and subsequent actions. Personal experience with natural disasters is more strongly associated with curtailment behaviours and lifestyle downshifting, whereas social proximity bias more effectively predicts the willingness to contribute financially through increased prices, taxes or charitable donations. This economic commitment is further moderated by trust in both formal and informal institutions, as well as by the level of social capital. Moreover, both direct experience and perceived social proximity help to explain many habitual green behaviours. The perceived temporal proximity of climate change impacts is also linked to intentions to undertake occasional and planned green investments. The study concludes that, although the sustainable transition represents a collective goal, it requires nuanced and diversified eco-social and behavioural policy approaches, given that different green behaviours are driven by distinct motivational factors.