Residents’ Attitudes Towards Environmental Practice in Housing Management - Harmony or Conflict

1. Residents’ Attitudes Towards Environmental Practice in Housing Management- Harmony or Conflict Dr Inga Britt Werner, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

2. Objective • Understand how different forms of tenure can facilitate or hinder environmental-friendly habits • Identify conflicts between convenient daily habits and environmental-friendly behaviour Theoretical framework • Theory of planned behaviour, Aijzen 1991, Gärling et al, 1999 • ABC-theory, Stern 2000 IBW Wien 0407

3. Methods • Survey by postal questionnaire • Stratified randomised sample from three cities, mixed tenure, 600 households • Clustered samples from three other cities, rental and cooperative tenure, 700 households including pilot study • Revealed and stated preferences • Interviews with key-persons within housing companies IBW Wien 0407

4. Results 1 • Homeowners are well aware of environmental aspects of (some) of their daily habits. Still they cause the largest environmental impact per household, by high consumption of floor area and by doing most of their travelling by car • Residents renting or owning cooperatively tend to have less environmental awareness in their daily habits, but also less critical consumption IBW Wien 0407

5. Diagram 1, actual environmental practices, comparison for tenure IBW Wien 0407

6. Results 2 • The most common environmental measurements are such not very demanding to undertake; for example thoughtful use of electric appliances or practising some recycling • The most common stated additions to actual environmental practices concern direct payment for household use of energy and choice of consumer goods • Travel mode choice is not chosen as a field for added environmental measures IBW Wien 0407

7. Diagram 2, total env. practices IBW Wien 0407

8. Conclusions 1 • Tenure has implications for environmental behaviour, mainly through economic incentives • Behaviour is influenced by economic incentives, subjective norm and habit. Rewards and obstacles influence how conflicts between convenience and environmental corncerns are solved and how habits are formed IBW Wien 0407

9. Conclusions 2 • Homeownership and higher socio-economic position are linked. In this group big consumtion, high environmental impact and obvious environmental awareness exist together • Housing managers an politicians have cause to rethink target groups and measures for their environmental policies IBW Wien 0407

10. Coming Research • Understanding motives for environmental behaviour through d eep interviewing and focus-group interviews with different households representing different lifestyles and resources • Analysing the life cycle of households in the perspective of environmental impact IBW Wien 0407