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Do Pro-environmental Behaviors and Awareness Contribute to Improve Subjective Well-being?

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Abstract

In this paper, we study the influence of both environmental awareness and behaviors on subjective well-being (SWB). By using ordered logit techniques in a sample from Granada, a city in southern Spain, we find that concern about the environment and voluntary work actions to preserve it are relevant for SWB. When both are combined, namely when a person is concerned and volunteers, the influence on SWB is greater. These results introduce the SWB dimension in the knowledge-concern-action paradox, which states that even if the individual is concerned about the environment, this concern does not always translate into personal action to preserve it. Actions such as habits related to water saving inside the household are not significant in explaining SWB, but using devices that save water increases it. In summary, our results suggest that actions and awareness have either a positive or no significant influence on SWB, but never a negative influence.

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Notes

  1. The SWB approach as a proxy for utility is supported by the claim that the best way to determine people’s satisfaction with their own life is by asking them directly (Veenhoven 1991, 1996). The individuals are normally asked, generally speaking, how happy they are with their life as a whole and are requested to reply in verbal categories, usually on a scale of 4, 7, or 11, from “very or extremely unhappy” to “very or extremely happy.” These categories are considered to be ordinal, allowing for interpersonal comparability (Van Praag et al. 2003). In many studies, the question of happiness is approached by one in which individuals are asked how satisfied they are with their lives. This is due to the fact that the terms “life satisfaction,” “happiness,” and “subjective well-being” are usually used as synonyms. Although, conceptually, they are interpreted to be different (Diener et al. 1999), considering them as an equivalent is in part justified by the high correlation between the responses to the questions in which individuals are asked respectively how happy and how satisfied they are (Blanchflower and Oswald 2004). Within this paper, we refer indistinctively to life satisfaction, happiness, and subjective well-being.

  2. The effects of air pollution have been explored by Welsch (2002, 2006, 2007), using measures of self-reported well-being to determine how prosperity and environmental conditions relate to it. Those studies calculate the trade-off between income and pollution to keep happiness unchanged. For instance, Welsch (2006), using data from 10 European countries for the period 1990–1997, estimates that the value determined by citizens of an improvement in air quality (measured as a simultaneous improvement in nitrogen and lead concentration) ranges from $1076 in Greece up to $3859 in Denmark. In this vein, some other researches has followed this methodology to determine the monetary valuation of climate (Frijters and Van Praag 1998; Rehdanz and Maddison 2005; Ferreira and Moro 2009), drought (Carroll et al. 2009), and flood (Luechinger and Raschky 2009).

  3. Other studies try to explain this paradox focusing on several constraints to environmental action posed by diverse issues. One of these issues refers to institutional factors such as the lack of provision of necessary infrastructure, for example public transportation or recycling management (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002). Other constraints are related to day-to-day responsibilities such as caring for the well-being of the family (Myers and Macnaghten 1998). In relation to this, it is adduced that people find it more difficult to hold pro-environmental behaviors when they are not aligned with their personal priorities or responsibilities (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002). This would be the case of, for instance, reducing emissions by having a smaller car even if they can afford to have a bigger one. In addition, financial means are also usually mentioned as a constraint to pro-environmental behavior, given that eco-friendly products are normally more expensive than others (Kennedy et al. 2009).

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Acknowledgments

Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (Project ECO2009-08824/ECON and Project ECO2012-32189), the Government of Andalucia (Project P11-SEJ-7039) and CEI BioTic programme from Universidad de Granada (mP_CP_3) is acknowledged. We also thank two anonymous referees for their useful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Estructura Económica, Facultad de Economía, Universidad de Valencia, Avenida de los Naranjos s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Marta Suárez-Varela

  2. Departamento de Economía Aplicada and Instituto Universitario del Agua, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Cartuja s/n, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Jorge Guardiola & Francisco González-Gómez

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  1. Marta Suárez-Varela
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  2. Jorge Guardiola
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  3. Francisco González-Gómez
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Correspondence to Jorge Guardiola.

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Suárez-Varela, M., Guardiola, J. & González-Gómez, F. Do Pro-environmental Behaviors and Awareness Contribute to Improve Subjective Well-being?. Applied Research Quality Life 11, 429–444 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-014-9372-9

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