Public Attitudes toward Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from Five Chinese Cities

Abstract

Raising public awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a critical prerequisite for their implementation. However, little is known about attitude formation among the public toward SDGs at the national level. We explored this topic in China, a country that has emerged as a leading world economy with strong transformational imperatives to work toward sustainable development. Following Chaiken’s heuristic–systematic model and using data from an online survey with 4128 valid respondents, this study investigated the factors that affect public support for SDGs and explains how individuals form supportive attitudes. Our empirical evidence showed that in China, first, public support is mainly shaped by demographic attributes (gender, age, and educational attainment), value predispositions (e.g., altruistic values and anthropocentric worldviews), and the level of SDG-relevant knowledge. Second, an interaction effect exists between value predispositions and knowledge among the public concerning support for SDGs. Third, the Chinese public views the implementation of SDGs as a part of development policy rather than environmental policy. This study provides empirical findings on the factors that account for public attitudes toward SDGs, outlining some useful implications for designing policy tools that would bolster SDG action.

Have Sustainable Development Goal Depictions Functioned as a Nudge for the Younger Generation before and during the COVID-19 Outbreak?

“…Concerns over sustainability and exposure to SDGs are statistically significant. The latter is consistent with Guan et al [50], who found that knowledge on SDGs is associated with support for SDGs. Trust in organizations was not statistically significant, which was not consistent with international surveys [14,17].…”

“…They are sometimes used interchangeably, but not identically, as the former embraces more than the environment. Although their focus was on attitudes toward public support for SDGs, not behavioral changes, Guan et al [50] found that male, younger cohorts, and better educated respondents were more Table 7 lists the logit model used to explore the predictors of behavioral change. The dependent variable was 1 if a respondent made changes and 0 if not; the respondents who answered that they did not know about SDGs (Table 6) were excluded to focus on the impact that SDGs have on behaviors.…”

“…They are sometimes used interchangeably, but not identically, as the former embraces more than the environment. Although their focus was on attitudes toward public support for SDGs, not behavioral changes, Guan et al [50] found that male, younger cohorts, and better educated respondents were more likely to support SDGs. Our findings were not consistent with their results in that our results show that female students are more likely to support SDGs.…”

Tracking Sustainable Development Goals – A Case Study of Pakistan

“…The goals of sustainability development encircle the economic, social and environmental perspectives. As per the findings of previous attitudinal surveys Sonetti, Brown [17]; Guan, Meng [18], the discrepancy between the attitude and action exist. Difference between the thinking and action prevails both at individual and national level.…”

“…The questionnaire has also been distributed among the selected organizations via internet. The items of the questionnaire has been adopted from the studies of [18,31].…”