Social Preferences Towards the Environment: Assessing and Quantifying Public Support for Sustainable Development

This chapter establishes a framework for assessing and quantifying how country-level social preferences align with progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on environmental preferences and their relationship to sustainable development progress. Using data from the World Values Survey (WVS), we explore how social preferences relate to achieving SDGs, particularly within the Planet dimension of the 5Ps framework. Through multivariate statistical analysis of WVS and SDG indicators (Canonical Correlation Analysis), we examine the diversity of public attitudes towards environmental sustainability across all countries covered by Wave-7 of WVS, providing insights into the role of public attitudes in either advancing or obstructing specific SDG targets. While we identify canonical correlations as latent constructs, this study does not assert causal relationships between public attitudes and SDG outcomes. Key findings reveal global and regional trends that offer comparative insights into environmental preferences among nations, highlighting patterns and variations in support for sustainability initiatives. The differing roles of social groups emphasise the need for tailored policy interventions. Negative correlations between certain social groups and SDGs suggest that achieving environmental goals requires balancing conflicting priorities and encouraging cross-group dialogue. By aligning public attitudes with SDG priorities, this framework provides tools for designing interventions that enhance public engagement and accelerate progress towards sustainable development objectives. The proposed framework offers a data-driven basis for sustainability governance, allowing decision-makers to anticipate potential societal resistance to SDG initiatives and develop policies that promote cross-group dialogue and collaboration.