Environmental Action in the Home: Investigating the ‘Value-Action’ Gap

Abstract

Sustainable development relies on fundamental shifts in the attitudes held by individual citizens towards the environment, and their use of natural resources. Accordingly, this article examines the work that has been undertaken by a range of researchers from a variety of disciplines examining the links between environmental attitudes and behaviours. The development of a conceptual framework for organising the various barriers and motivations for individual environmental action is outlined. A case example of waste minimisation behaviour in Devon is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach adopted. The results indicate that fundamentally different factors predict a willingness to minimise waste, as opposed to actual behaviour. This is related to the growing social acceptance of environmental action among members of the public, which is not necessarily reflected in behaviour. The article positions this research within the wider context of existing research in geography on sustainable lifestyles, which has been focused primarily on the use of culturally-derived theories and qualitative methodologies.