Can Green Building Promote Pro-Environmental Behaviours? The Psychological Model and Design Strategy

Abstract

A green building has a long lasting benefit through cultivating the occupants’ energy and resource-saving behaviours. To understand how green buildings can cultivate occupants’ pro-environment behaviours, the research applied the value–belief–norm model to investigate 17 pro-environmental behaviours which are related to a variety of green building design strategies. Two green and two non-green certified office buildings in the city of Shenzhen in China were surveyed, based on which structural equation modelling was established to confirm the relationship between personal values, environmental beliefs and norms that lead to pro-environment behaviours. Green and non-green building occupants showed significant differences in altruistic values, environmental awareness, personal norms, and pro-environmental behaviours. Green building users had more frequent pro-environmental behaviours than those in non-green buildings. The strategies that require fewer additional efforts were more likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours, such as meeting daily needs within walking distance and adjusting sunshades, while the strategies that need extra physical efforts (taking stairs) or knowledge (garbage sorting) were less likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours. This study pointed out important intervention opportunities and discussed the possible design implications for green building guidelines and programmes to cultivate green occupants and their corresponding pro-environmental behaviours.

Influence of Millennials’ eco-literacy and biospheric values on green purchases: the mediating effect of attitude

“…Werff et al, ( 2014 ) found that customers’ perceptions of environmentally friendly products are strongly influenced by their perceptions of biospheric values. Green values often influence pro-environmental behaviour (Xie et al, 2020 ). It is also found that customers participate in ecological activities when their environmental feelings are strong (Meijers et al, 2019 ).…”

Organizational practices promoting employees’ pro-environmental behaviors in a Visegrad Group country: How much does company ownership matter?

“…When discussing various initiatives undertaken to educate employees, it is worth noting that Jackson and Seo [ 57 ] provided examples of companies that build employee gardens, thus stimulating employee gardening activities and, as a result, teaching employees what environmental sustainability means. Likewise, Xie et al [ 25 ] emphasized the importance of green office buildings in promoting PEB. In turn, Oppong-Tawiah et al [ 7 ] promote gamification.…”

Does Government-Led Publicity Enhance Corporate Green Behavior? Empirical Evidence from Green Xuanguan in China

“…In recent years, with the popularity of social responsibility beyond economic concerns, more and more researchers discuss green risks from such a comprehensive perspective. corporate social responsibility (CSR), which requires corporations to follow the community regulations, adapt the local social value changes [95,96], attach importance to public opinion [97] and invest in environmentally friendly areas, becomes a key rule of corporate sustainability [33,34]. Branco and Rodrigues [34] discussed the internal and external advantages of taking CSR from a resource-based perspective.…”