Notes
Quantitative Analysis of the Impacts that Social Networks Exert on Environmental Activities in a Local Community
2012 Volume 42 Issue 4 Pages 947-961
Details
2012 Volume 42 Issue 4 Pages 947-961
Waste reduction is an important factor of environmental sustainability in local communities. This study investigated the impacts of social networks on participation in environmental activities such as waste reduction and recycling by employing logit models and using survey data. Despite considerable studies on the relationships between individual motives such as responsibility or interest in environmental problems and environmental activities, the relationships between face-to-face interactions and social networks in a local community has not been sufficiently identified.
This analysis examined the relationships between both traditional neighborhood associations and independent associations in a community and environmental activities such as participation in refusing plastic bags, green purchasing, ecological cooking, reusing, drop-off recycling, group collection, environmental learning and general environmental activities.
The empirical evidence indicates that neighborhood association variables are associated with positive outcomes of all variables of environmental activities. The estimation results also showed that the activeness of associations through sports and hobbies effects participation in refusing plastic bags and general environmental activities, and associations through political networks effects participation in ecological cooking and environmental learning as well as associations with neighbors.
This analysis shows that social networks have significant impacts on participation in refusing plastic bags, green purchasing, ecological cooking and reusing for reducing wastes. It is difficult to politically encourage people to participate, but these results suggest insights into the social networks are important to promote participation. In addition, each environmental activity is related to different types of social networks and the results indicate integration of traditional community-based and voluntary groups is effective to utilize networks for promoting participation in environmental activities.
JEL Classification: Q53, R53
