The pro-environmental behaviours of People of Colour

Decades of research and practical experience have shown that to be effective, environmental decisions and actions should involve all stakeholders, which include all affected agents—meaning, everyone with a legitimate interest in the outcomes of the decisions and actions. So, a key question for sustainability is: What gets people to act for the environment? While social-science studies have shed some light on the answers for certain populations, this knowledge is lacking for marginalised groups, even though they disproportionately bear the burden of environmental problems. In the United States, these marginalised groups include People of Colour (POCs), whose relatively lower socio-economic status may further expose them to environmental hazards and reduce their engagement in environmentalism (this paper by Prof Christopher Schell is awesome).

Our research group is fundamentally concerned with conservation on an urbanising planet, and we are situated in New York City (NYC), where most residents are POCs. So, we are keen to improve our understanding of what motivates or hinders POCs from performing so-called pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs), which are basically all the things that people do to benefit the environment.

Social science has developed several conceptual frameworks to help guide research on human behaviour—we use the Theory of Planned Behaviour, developed by Isaac Ajzen in the early 1990s. According to this theory, any of our behaviours can be predicted by our behavioural intent. And this intent has three antecedents (predictors).

1. Behavioural attitude. This refers to how we “feel” about the behaviour in question, for example, whether it is good or bad.
2. Subjective norms. These norms are set by so-called referents: people and other entities whose opinions of us matter to us. And these norms describe how we think these norm referents “feel” about the behaviour in question and about us performing it.
3. Perceived behavioural control. This is about how easy or hard we think the behaviour is to do, for example, whether it is purely under our control.

We are applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour to study PEBs by POCs in Brooklyn, a community that Dimitri Mimy belongs to—this is, indeed, Dimitri’s MA thesis research project.

We are also evaluating the role played by urban green spaces in PEBs, based on research evidence that these spaces are integral to people’s connectedness to Nature and that people who are more connected to Nature are often more likely to practice PEBs.

From focus group discussions and interviews with knowledgeable stakeholders (e.g., POCs in NYC who hold conservation leadership roles), we have generated data on the PEBs that are relevant in our context. Now, our task is to build an online survey to measure the influence of each of the three antecedents of PEBs, and to identify green spaces near respondents’ homes and assess their use of them. Then, we can then use spatial tools to measure the quality of these green spaces. Finally, we can use structural equation modelling to reveal the contribution of each factor to PEBs by POCs.

Our findings may underpin recommendations for interventions to promote PEBs by revealing which social attitudes to account for, which norms to promote and which barriers to remove. And knowing how green spaces (access, use and quality) relate to PEBs may pinpoint strategic land-management decisions to boost the engagement of diverse stakeholders in conservation.