Effects of Environmental Education Program with LCA Education Software:A Mechanism to Induce Pro-environmental Behavior

Abstract

Objective. Education is one of important and effective tactics to promote "sustainable consumption." In a highly developed consumer society it is required that consumers notice and understand environmental impacts of their consumption and life styles. In order to induce individual sense of responsibility for environmental issues and motivation for environment-friendly life style, it is important to make consumers understand the "link" between their life styles and global environmental problems such as global warming. Thus, the use of the concept of "life cycle thinking" in environmental education is expected to be effective. The authors have developed a novel environmental education program using LCA software "Global warming even in your bag?!" that runs on a personal computer and is easy to handle. This program can make learners recognize how much life cycle CO 2 was emitted from their own daily lives as well as how effectively they can reduce it by changing their behavior.The objective of the present study is to analyze psychological mechanism which forms the intention of proenvironmental behavior of students after implementing the developed program in junior high and high schools.Results and Discussion. The program was implemented in four school classes. Questionnaire surveys were conducted after each class to investigate the realization of the "link," the change in psychological factors (e.g. sense of responsibility), and the change in behavioral intention towards environment conservation. The survey data indicates that the students strongly recognized the "link," and increased sense of responsibility, perceived effectiveness and behavioral intention etc. Analyses of the survey data suggest that the recognition of the "link" between daily life and CO 2 emission based on life cycle thinking seems to increase sense of responsibility and perceived effectiveness, and then the two factors seem to induce the formation of behavioral intention.Conclusion. The use of "life cycle thinking" as a core concept in environmental education can help induce individual sense of responsibility for global warming as well as perceived effectiveness of behavioral change. In addition, the use of the LCA software also is effective to induce behavioral change because it can supply learners with the tailored information on current life cycle CO 2 emission and allows for the virtual experiences to reduce life cycle CO 2 emission.

Prospects and Challenges for Disseminating Life Cycle Thinking towards Environmental Conscious Behaviors in Daily Lives

“…Some studies provide evidence that people who have more social responsibility tend to engage in environmentally conscious behavior [12][13][14][15][16]. Hondo et al [17,18] argue that much effort has been made for raising awareness and knowledge whereas educational initiatives addressing change in attitude, skills and participation is insufficient. However, few studies have explored how we effectively foster environmentally conscious behavior.…”