Exploring Urban Sustainability Understanding and Behaviour: A Systematic Review towards a Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Social, environmental, and economic problems related to urban living have surpassed the agenda of policy and decision-makers as well as general public opinion in recent decades. To address urban and environmental issues, it is pivotal to examine how people think, feel, judge, and act with respect to sustainability. While some prominent theories exist and various attempts have been made to propose synthesized models, there are still gaps and discrepancies within the literature of environmental psychological theories. As such, the aim of this paper is to critically review the literature by focusing on a few of the most influential environmental, prosocial, and psychological behaviour theories, which include Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), Norm Activation Theory (NAT), Value-Belief-Norm Theory (VBN), and the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP). The Scopus database has been searched systematically for the relevant studies. This paper concludes that an integrative approach to urban sustainability understanding and behaviour is needed. A framework is presented that consists of three layers of clustered components: (1) internal socio-psychological determinants, (2) personality traits, and (3) influencing external factors such as social, cultural, economic, and institutional factors. The model proposed in the study provides opportunities to further develop theoretical approaches and establish new measures of an Urban Sustainability Understanding and Behaviour assessment.

Sustainability Understanding and Behaviors across Urban Areas: A Case Study on Istanbul City

“…Considering the above requirements, a novel conceptual framework was proposed in Topal et al [35] based on an in-depth literature search. A simplified version of the proposed conceptual framework is shown in Figure 1, which outlines the multiple linkages between awareness, perception, attitude, and behavior.…”

“…A simplified version of the proposed conceptual framework is shown in Figure 1, which outlines the multiple linkages between awareness, perception, attitude, and behavior. Moreover, the associations between these socio-psychological processes and a range of influencing factors and personality traits have been specified [35]. The development process of the conceptual framework consists of four stages, which are presented in Figure 2.…”

“…Topal et al [31] provided a systematic review of the influencing factors of urban sustainability behavior(s), fulfilling the requirements of stage 1. Topal et al [35] thereafter examined prominent environmental and sustainability behavior theories (stage 2), investigated socio-psychological determinants of urban sustainability understanding and behavior (stage 3), and synthesized these findings into a newly developed conceptual framework (stage 4), which has formed the basis for this current study.…”

“…As stated earlier, the questions were based on the findings of an in-depth literature review [31] and conceptual framework [35] created by the current authors. The details of the questionnaire are given in Appendix A.…”

The impact of COVID-19 related regulations and restrictions on mobility and potential for sustained climate mitigation across the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK: A data-based commentary.

“…Changes in human behaviour are necessary to achieve climate targets and behavioural sciences can contribute to tackling climate change by understanding current behaviours and identifying ways in which behaviours could change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014; Nielsen et al, 2020;Steg & Vlek, 2008). Decades of work within the behaviour change field has provided insights into how to develop and deliver behaviour change interventions (Lambe et al, 2020;Michie et al, 2013;Steg et al, 2015;Steg & Vlek, 2008;Stern, 2000;Topal et al, 2021;White et al, 2019). These insights remain under-exploited in government policies to tackle climate change, which often remain largely technology-focused (Whitmarsh, 2020).…”