An introduction to the ESRC new opportunities programme
Environment and human behaviour

by Paul Ekins
Policy Studies Institute Programme Academic Co-ordinator

Introduction
2.1 Root causes of human behaviour towards the environment
2.2 Popular responses to environmental change
2.3 Public policy responses to environmental change
2.4 Organisations and human behaviour
3. Key issues for environment and human behaviour
3.1 Rapid Climate Change – Vulnerability, adaptability and resilience
3.2 Global Environmental Change and Food Systems
3.3 Sustainable Mobility and Human Behaviour
3.4 Urban Systems, Long Term Climate Change and Human Behaviour
3.5 Tourism and the Environment
3.6 Natural Capital
3.7 Other Research Areas
4. Conclusion

Introduction
A New Opportunities Programme is the ESRC Research Priorities Board's mechanism for synthesising existing research, and /or engaging in preliminary research to set the agenda for future research investment. This introductory paper to the ESRC's Environment and Human Behaviour New Opportunities Programme combines and brings up to date two documents that were available before the programme was commissioned – the ESRC's Call for Proposals, and a paper 'Some Initial Thoughts and Considerations' written by the Programme Co-ordinator – and illustrates these with some reference to the projects now commissioned under the programme.

The Call for Proposals concentrated on a number of possible research areas, in order to illustrate the sorts of topics and questions with which the programme is concerned. The 'Initial Thoughts' paper focused on some of the major factors that drive or influence human behaviour, in these topic areas and more generally. With regard to human behaviour, the programme is seeking to derive insights into three fundamental questions:

  1. Why do people behave as they do towards the natural environment?
  2. How do/will people seek to adapt their behaviour in response to environmental change, especially rapid environmental change?
  3. What public policy approaches might persuade people to change their behaviour, either to mitigate the extent of environmental change (where it is negative), or to adapt to it in ways that do not exacerbate it, and to change their behaviour in ways that are least costly for society as a whole?

Individual research projects are approaching their subjects in their own ways, and may be concerned only with one, or even a part of one, of these questions. But it is hoped that the programme as a whole will be able to draw some broad conclusions about all these questions, applied to the diverse areas with which the projects are concerned.

Research under this programme will directly contribute to the priority theme Environment and Human Behaviour, one of seven priority themes of the ESRC. It is also likely to be relevant to the priority themes: Work and Organisations; Knowledge, Communication and Learning; Economic Performance and Development; Lifecourse, Lifestyles and Health; and Social Stability and Exclusion. It is intended that research will build on previous work under the Global Environmental Change Programme, and work undertaken at the Transport Studies Unit, CSERGE and the Tyndall Centre. It will also be complementary to the Research Groups on Poverty in the Developing World, the Sustainable Technologies Programme, and the Centre on Corporate Responsibility. This research will be interdisciplinary, drawing on as many disciplinary perspectives as possible, including those from economics, psychology, sociology, environmental planning, geography, transport research, natural science and engineering.

 

Discussion of the fundamental questions

2.1 Root causes of human behaviour towards the environment

Whatever the role of individual factors, human behaviour towards the environment will be influenced by two more general considerations:

  1. Genetic predisposition: human genetic characteristics have changed little since hunter-gatherer days, and it may be that archaic genetic dispositions, that evolved over that much longer period of human development, are relevant to modern attitudes and behaviours towards the environment.
  2. Social and cultural context: the social and cultural norms of the societies in which individuals grow up and live will also certainly affect their attitudes and behaviours towards the environment. These norms can change far more quickly than genetic predispositions (and, together with individual factors, may over-ride those predispositions).

However human behaviour may be formed and determined, there is widespread evidence that it is currently damaging the environment in a wide variety of ways. Some effects are purely local and their principal immediate impacts are on human health (for example, local air or water pollution). Others, at local, regional or global level, may have profound impacts on ecosystems and environmental processes. Climate change is obviously the clearest current example of such an effect, and it may have an impact on every ecosystem, and hence every human society, in the world. Few people damage the environment on purpose. Rather environmental damage is the largely unintended result of a range of interacting trends, situations, perceptions and motivations. These include:

  • Population growth: ceteris paribus a large human population will occupy more space and use more resources (thereby having a larger environmental impact) than a small one.
  • Economic growth: ceteris paribus a large economy will use more environmental resources, and produce more wastes (thereby having a larger environmental impact) than a small one. The distribution of economic activity (for example, between manufacturing and services) and which parts of the economy are growing will also be relevant here.
  • Scientific ignorance or uncertainty: scientists may not understand natural systems sufficiently to be able to predict the results of human behaviour (for example, for the first three decades of the use of CFCs, scientists did not even suspect that these chemicals would damage the ozone layer).
  • Popular ignorance: even when scientific knowledge about certain environmental effects is well-established, people may the ignorant about
    • The existence of the effect
    • The nature of the effect
    • Their contribution to the effect
    • How they can reduce their contribution to the effect, or its impact on them.
  • The power of preferences: even when people have full information about the (negative) effect and the contribution of certain behaviours to it, the attraction of these behaviours may be so great that people may not be prepared to change them.
  • The force of habit: even when people have full information about the (negative) effect and the contribution of certain behaviours to it, these behaviours may be so fundamental to people's habits and lifestyles that their change is regarded as an unacceptable disruption.
  • Different perceptions: people may not have the same perceptions of what constitutes an environmental problem (for example, those who drop litter may be expected to be less negatively affected by heavily littered environments than those who do not).

2.2 Popular responses to environmental change
The responses of people to environmental change will obviously depend to a great extent on the change in question. A fundamental issue is people's perceptions and understandings of the change and its impacts on them. All the factors listed above under 'popular ignorance' are likely to be relevant here.

People's understandings of environmental change now, or likely environmental change in the future, can result in a number of different kinds of action:

  1. Self-interested actions: people and organisations may be expected to minimise their exposure to negative effects. The impacts of their actions on markets and other social structures may be profound (for example, recurring flooding due to climate change would be likely to have a large effect on insurance premia and house prices in affected areas). Self-interested actions in relation to negative effects may also include attempts to persuade government to mitigate the effects' impacts on those affected (for example, through compensation).
  2. Altruistic behaviour: altruistic behaviour, individually or through old or new charities or other organisations, may be expected from some people in response to the negative effects from environmental change on others.
  3. Community-based mutual regulation: history provides many examples (for example, mediaeval or crofting commons, allocation of water rights, fishery protection) of more or less formal community arrangements to manage pressure on local environmental resources. Many of these approaches may still be relevant.
  4. Pressure for public policy: pressure will build on governments for public policy changes which will either facilitate adaptation to environmental change or, where it is negative, mitigate its future extent. This leads to consideration of the third overarching question posed at the start.

2.3 Public policy responses to environmental change
Public policy may seek to change human behaviour towards the environment in a number of ways:

  1. By changing people's underlying values, beliefs and worldviews: policy is not generally very effective at bringing about these fundamental kinds of changes, which tend to evolve more slowly in society. But it is possible for policy to contribute to such changes over time.
  2. By providing information: information can both educate people about, and change their attitudes to, environmentally relevant issues. Environmental balance sheets or other indicator systems can evaluate alternative courses of action.
  3. By changing incentives: policy can give people incentives (financial or other kinds of positive incentives or negative sanctions) to change their behaviour. Such policies (for example energy taxes or those related to motoring) may involve difficult decisions, which will need careful political analysis.

Even if successful in their immediate objectives, whether such policies actually succeed in changing behaviour will depend on whether they are sufficient to overcome the numerous barriers to change that exist at many different levels, and in different ways for different issues. The barriers may be institutional or infrastructural, related to social norms or expectations, derive from existing habits, lifestyles or preferences, or reflect shortages of time or money, or other priorities. A single barrier of any of these kinds may be enough to prevent a public policy from having its desired effect and, if the policy includes a sanction for not changing behaviour, may generate political opposition so that it cannot be implemented.

Policy making needs to identify these barriers and explicitly incorporate measures which will overcome them. For example, information will need to be provided in such a way that it wins attention against a host of competing messages. To be effective changed values or attitudes will need to be accompanied by a commitment to action and knowledge how to carry it out. It may be necessary to generate this commitment, or trust or confidence, through seeking to inspire leadership locally or by supporting community institutions or initiatives. Recommended behaviours must be feasible and acceptable (including being perceived to be equitable) in daily social life. Incentives to change behaviour must be sufficient to compensate for disincentives, especially in terms of time or disruption to daily routines. There must be a clear perceived benefit - to the individual, local community or wider society - from the behaviour change. Many of these points seem obvious, but they introduce a complexity into policy making which is not always effectively addressed.

2.4 Organisations and human behaviour
Much environmentally relevant human behaviour is carried out through or on behalf of organisations. Organisations are not just an aggregate of the characteristics of the individuals which in some sense belong to or act for them. They have their own aims and objectives, criteria for operation and success, culture and norms, as well, of course, as being major owners of land and other assets.

Many of the same considerations discussed earlier in this section will still apply, but in this case they will need to be analysed and interpreted in terms of the organisational characteristics above, also taking into account the social context within which the organisation is operating and the expectations which society has of it. Relevant issues include the role of the public and private sectors, scale issues such as the differences in response between large multinational companies and small and medium enterprises, and the balance to be struck between central and devolved action and decision making.

 

3. Key issues for environment and human behaviour
The ESRC's Call for Proposals for this research programme. The Call listed six topics as illustrative, but not definitive, areas for research under the programme, drawing on the findings of previous ESRC research programmes, especially the Global Environmental Change programme, where appropriate. These topics have in common: opportunities identified from, but not covered by, these earlier programmes, and a requirement for interdisciplinarity.

3.1 Rapid Climate Change – Vulnerability, adaptability and resilience
Many natural scientists suggest that changes in global thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic have been the source of past rapid climatic fluctuations. Ocean circulation has been shown to be highly sensitive to changes in freshwater discharge – even small changes in the amount of freshwater entering the North Atlantic (as a result of melting polar ice from global warming, for example) could force a large and rapid shift in patterns of circulation. The impact of changes in ocean circulation could be catastrophic, leading to rapid cooling in the climate of Northwest Europe, at the very least by an average of 2 to 5 degrees, accompanied by a dramatic decrease in precipitation – leading to Siberian winter conditions.

The socio-economic implications of such events would be enormous, impacting on: fuel poverty, the location of industrial activities; agriculture, levels of energy demand and supply; transport systems; and indeed lifestyles and culture within the UK. Previous research has focused on the impacts of, and ability to adapt to, long term, gradual warming – the social and economic implications of rapid climatic change have not been researched. Research will focus on: consideration of the social and economic impacts of rapid climate change in the UK and Europe; the vulnerability and resilience of the UK to rapid climate change; and the ability of the UK to adapt to rapid climatic fluctuations.

NERC have recently announced rapid climate change in NW Europe as a new scientific priority. In 1999 the UK and Norwegian Governments agreed to collaborate on natural science issues related to rapid climate change. It is hoped, by including this topic in this programme, to extend this work to include the social sciences.

Project: Exploring Vulnerability to Rapid Climate Change in Europe
This project seeks to assess the sensitivity and vulnerability to rapid climate change of different parts of society and the economy, and to explore how society might seek to adapt to it.

Project: Crises as Catalysts for Adaptation: Human Responses to Major Floods
This project will assess the influence of four major flood events, and their socio-economic, cultural and political contexts, on public policy, and the mechanisms that were used to effect change in public policy and human behaviour. Project: Rapid Climate Change in the UK: Towards an Institutional Theory of Adaptation This project will seek to identify the key elements of organisational structure and management that could facilitate adaptation to rapid environmental change, and synthesise these into a theoretical framework for examining organisations' adaptive potential in these circumstances.

Project: Predicting Thresholds of Social Behavioral Responses to Rapid Climate Change
The project will seek to understand what constitutes 'rapid' climate change, whether it involves thresholds of change, and how difference in social context and background might affect individuals' responses to it.

3.2 Global Environmental Change and Food Systems
Human activity is leading to globally important environmental changes – such as in change, supplies of freshwater, the cycling of nitrogen and carbon, and biodiversity. The impact of these biophysical changes will complicate the task of providing sufficient food of the right quality to many sections of society.

Not all individuals and sections of society are equally vulnerable to the effects of global environmental change on the provision of food. The capacity to cope with existing and anticipated changes in biophysical conditions, and the ability to perceive global environmental change and adapt accordingly, is highly variable. Vulnerability of food provision is a consequence of the interaction of biophysical conditions and socio-economic factors. Understanding the link between global environmental change and societal well being, and promoting effective intervention strategies requires an innovative interdisciplinary approach. Research needs in this area include: food provision; impacts of environmental change and vulnerability in selected parts of the world; adaptation and coping mechanisms; and environmental and socio-economic consequences of adaptations to environmental change.

Project: Integrating Social Vulnerability into Research on Food Systems and Global Change
By exploring and synthesising different analytical perspectives, the project aims to enhance understanding of how concepts of vulnerability of social aspects of food systems to global environmental change can be integrated with vulnerability concepts from natural science.

3.3 Sustainable Mobility and Human Behaviour
Historically, transport improvements have offered new opportunities and choices, not merely reductions in the time and monetary costs of established journeys. As a result, the spatial patterning of human activity has been increasingly dynamic. Car ownership has become a central feature of lives in the West, and further increases in the volume of car traffic have been projected. This is not simply due to increasing levels of affluence, but the result of successive generations growing up within a culture characterised by greater mobility in general, and personal car use in particular. In a period in which mass car ownership has dominated mobility, there have been significant changes in other economic and social factors, such as the nature and terms of employment, the economic participation of women, leisure activities, and the composition of social networks. This period has also been characterised by growing levels of traffic congestion and pollution. Promising topics for research are: choices, preferences and behaviour; managing supply and demand; acceptable transport alternatives, especially air and high-speed train; and the role of new technologies.

Project: Taxation Futures for Sustainable Mobility
This project will explore whether it is possible to restructure transport taxation in order to make it more successful at changing transport behaviour, while maintaining government revenues.

3.4 Urban Systems, Long Term Climate Change and Human Behaviour
Urban environments are particularly important when considering climate change; they account for a large proportion of carbon emissions; they are the locations of the wealth-creating enterprises that would be affected by climate change; and they include large proportions of the population that would be vulnerable to climate change. A co-evolutionary perspective is beginning to emerge in which the interactions between social patterns, cultures, local economies and the physical conditions of climatic variability and climate change are considered. The impacts of climate change on cities in the UK may result in beneficial impacts - lifestyle, community and health improvements. However, impacts may also be detrimental, for example increases in the incidence of flooding. Response to climate change mediates the eventual impact climate will have on urban systems. There are two possible responses – mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions, and adaptation to climate change. Mitigation may be achieved through building design, energy efficiency measures, new transport strategies. Adaptation may necessitate the re-design, re-building and re-configuration of urban spaces. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recently noted in 2000 that major retrofitting of our urban housing stock might be necessary to achieve radical (-60%) cuts in carbon emissions by 2050. This challenge poses major questions for planners, economists, building engineers and architects. How could such a major programme be implemented? How can mitigation and adaptation be best designed so that they are mutually compatible and mutually-reinforcing in their effects? How do we avoid the situation where the adaptation to climate change results in generation of more carbon emissions, as in the installation of air conditioning? Key areas for research in this area are mutually compatible mitigation and adaptation strategies, and the whole range of issues covered under the general heading of sustainable urban systems.

Project: Future Comforts: Re-conditioning Urban Environments
This project will explore how social conceptions of thermal need and comfort, in the context of buildings, have become established, and how more sustainable conceptions might take root in future.

3.5 Tourism and the Environment
Since the Rio Earth Summit there has been a steady increase in awareness of the importance of environmental issues associated with travel and tourism. As one of the world's fastest growing industries tourism can have widespread environmental, social and economic consequences. The task of managing the natural environment and the changes that are occurring will grow in importance as the demand for tourism increases. The long-term success of tourism depends not only on the management of cultural resources, built attractions and infrastructure, but also on the conservation and protection of the natural environment.

Social science research shows that real growth in tourism is actually concentrated on domestic markets, contradicting the casual observer's impression of increasingly dominant international activity. This has important implications for the environment as the domestic tourist market targets more environment-oriented activities, and domestic tourists primarily use private vehicles to reach their destinations, with additional environmental implications - such as air pollution and increased pressures on transport infrastructure. Research needs in this area include: understanding the drivers of tourism - choices, preferences and behaviour; exploring growth in Eco-tourism; managing the environment for tourism; and environmental impacts of tourist activities.

Project: Indigenous Peoples, Environmental Change and Tourism in Extreme Environments
The project will explore a range of issues associated with environmental change, traditional (indigenous) cultures and tourism development in extreme environments, including these cultures' socio-cultural perceptions of the environment and the negative environmental and social consequences of this being ignored in the development of tourism.

3.6 Natural Capital
The definition of capital as accumulated wealth in the form of investments, factories and equipment is a familiar one. Human capital has had increasing attention over the last 30 years. However, 'natural capital', which comprises the resources we use – both non-renewable and renewable has received far less attention. Although these resources are often considered in terms of material inputs, their most important value lies in the services they provide. These resources include living systems that help provide a healthy environment: clean air and water, climatic stability and waste processing.

Historically, economic development has faced a number of limiting factors that have prevented growth, such as access to labour, financial capital and technology. For the first time however, limits to increased prosperity are not likely to be due to a lack of manufactured capital, but a lack of natural capital to provide essential services. Among other topics in this area, research is needed on the valuation of natural capital; on the relationship between natural capital and quality of life; and on growth models based on natural capital.

Project: Natural Capital: Metaphor, Learning and Human Behaviour
The idea of natural capital has become an important component of the sustainable development discourse, emphasising the productivity of natural systems and allowing this to be compared with that of other forms of capital. But it may also be understood as a metaphor, useful for learning about and understanding natural systems. The project will explore this role of natural capital and its implications for education, theory and policy related to sustainability.

3.7 Other Research Areas
As noted above, the six research areas listed in the Call for Proposals were only intended to be illustrative of the kinds of areas it was envisaged the research would cover. In the event, projects were commissioned in a range of other areas as well.

Project: Listening to Children: Environmental Perspectives and the School Curriculum
This project will seek to understand how children in a relatively deprived urban setting understand their environment, and how the relevance of the school curriculum to these experiences, and the children's environmental activism, can be increased in a participatory way.

Project: Tilting at Windmills? The Attitude-Behaviour Gap in Renewable Energy Conflicts
This project will explore the complex human attitudes and behaviour in respect of proposed renewable energy developments, particularly wind farms, thereby deepening understanding between these attitudes and behaviour, and human values and renewable technologies, which may be used to inform policy making.

Project: UK Small Firms and Their Response to Environmental Pressures
This project will explore small firms' attitudes towards, and responses to, the environment and environmental regulation, in order to compare these with predictions from ecological modernisation theory and to generate policy-relevant insights into small firms' environmental behaviour.

Project: Middle Class Environmental Values in India: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue
This project will explore the environmental values of India's sizeable middle classes, with reference especially to their dynamism, complexity and influence in relation to various environmental issues and threats.

Project: Appraisal, Institutional Learning and Sustainability: Defining a New Agenda
This project will explore the role of appraisal in the political process, and the ways in which it may help to modify the beliefs, values and behaviour of individuals and organisations, with a view to developing a new theoretical framework for appraisal, and appraisal practice that is better informed by social science.

Project: Environmental Issues and Human Behaviour in Low-Income Areas of the UK
Focusing on low-income communities, this project will examine the relationship between human behaviour and environmental issues, and between the environmental issues that are most relevant locally and wider national concerns with sustainable development, with a view to informing policy initiatives for positive social and environmental change.

 

4. Conclusion
It is clear that the potential subject matter for this research programme spans many different disciplines and can be approached in many different ways. The size of the programme will not allow all of them to be covered, but the projects between them cover a broad range of the relevant issues. It is to be hoped that in the course of the programme interesting connections between the projects will emerge, and the programme as a whole will prove to be more than the sum of its parts. This in turn may generate a really rich agenda for further research work, so that this fascinating area may become much better understood than at present.

Professor Paul Ekins
Policy Studies Institute
January 2003