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Public perceptions of the concept of green growth: application in Athens, Greece, during a period of economic crisis.

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Abstract

The global world’s financial crisis of 2008–2009 caused a global recession that greatly affected the economy of Greece. Since then, Greece faces a severe financial crisis and governments announced, among other measures to tackle this crisis, the implementation of green growth strategies. The aim of this study is the investigation of public’s perceptions of green growth strategies that have been implemented so far, the investigation of the effect of the socioeconomic characteristics on these perceptions and the identification of patterns of attitudes toward the concept of green growth. For this purpose, a questionnaire was constructed and addressed to 500 inhabitants of Athens. The majority of the respondents believe that economic growth can be enhanced by green growth. On the other hand, most of the respondents, mainly younger and more educated people, express a strong prejudice for its adoption by enterprises and its implementation by the state. Overall, results reveal that despite the announcements of the political parties concerning green growth policy, the majority of the respondents accepts and applauds green growth as a theoretical concept rather than counting its benefits as an already implemented policy. These findings consist an important assessment tool for policy makers that can be used to redesign policies in order to achieve the goals of green growth and to meet the real needs of the citizens in a period of economic crisis.

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Abbreviations

CSR:

Corporate Social Responsibility

ELSTAT:

Hellenic Statistical Authority

KMO Test:

Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Test

OECD:

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

PCA:

Principal Component Analysis

PCs:

Principal Components

RES:

Renewable Energy Sources

SPSS:

Statistical Package for Social Sciences

WCED:

World Commission on Environment and Development

WTP:

Willingness To Pay

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Technology and Policy of Energy and Environment, School of Science and Technology, Hellenic Open University, Parodos Aristotelous 18, 26335, Patra, Greece

    Efi Drimili, Ζoi Gareiou & Efthimios Zervas

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  1. Efi Drimili
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  2. Ζoi Gareiou
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  3. Efthimios Zervas
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Correspondence to Efthimios Zervas.

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Drimili, E., Gareiou, Ζ. & Zervas, E. Public perceptions of the concept of green growth: application in Athens, Greece, during a period of economic crisis.. Environ Dev Sustain 22, 6053–6076 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-019-00462-w

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