The Effect of COVID-19 on the Environmental Impact of Our Lifestyles and on Environmental Concern

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2020, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic made it necessary to change our lifestyles (e.g., restrictions on transport or travelling and forced telework). This has also changed the environmental impact of our lifestyles. To quantify that impact, we used surveys to calculate the Ecological Footprint (EF) and environmental concern of Belgian respondents in 2021 and compared this to the EF-situation in 2017, before COVID-19. We observed that the EF became significantly lower during the COVID-19 crisis. Of course, this change in behaviour is the result of compulsory measures. Therefore, we asked about people’s willingness to reduce the EF permanently, particularly after COVID-19 and on a voluntary basis. We observed that, in 2021, respondents had a strong desire to return to a pre-COVID-19 lifestyle and that they are even less concerned about the environment than they were in the period before COVID-19. Moreover, these results hold after taking into account the effect of different explanatory variables in a multivariate analysis. As a general conclusion, there is little or no evidence that COVID-19 will fundamentally change the environmental impact of our behaviour or our environmental concern if there is no associated public intervention. There is a need for policies that make use of the potential created by COVID-19 (e.g., stimulate working from home and increased cycling).

Environmentally Responsible Purchase Intention in Pacific Alliance Countries: Geographic and Gender Evidence in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This study has confirmed the influence of environmental awareness (EC) on consumers’ sustainable purchase intention (ERPI) in Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Chile. This result is in line with previous studies [ 116 ], which point out that environmental awareness (EA) is an essential motivator for developing behavioral intention. Likewise, this result is contrasted with the findings of [ 59 ], in which the authors point out that environmental knowledge significantly and positively influences green purchasing intentions.…”

COVID-19 Effects on Environmentally Responsible Behavior: A Social Impact Perspective from Latin American Countries

“…Third, our evidence indicates that COVID-19 determined Environmental Consciousness (EC) in Latin American countries. In line with previous studies, our results show that Environmental Consciousness (EC) is an essential motivator for developing behavioral intention [ 1 , 41 ]. It is important to note that the results show that the pandemic scenario positively influenced the relationship between Environmental Consciousness (EC) and Environmentally Responsible Purchase Intention (ERPI) in all countries and all generations, demonstrating that this worldwide crisis has generated an effect on consumers, which could demonstrate the starting point towards a transition that establishes environmentally friendly behaviors [ 5 , 75 ]…”

“…This explanatory model is composed of five independent variables that collectively explain a phenomenon related to the dependent variable, Environmental Responsibly Purchase intention [ 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 ]. The results show evidence that supports the hypothesis proposed in prior studies concerning COVID-19’s influence as a phenomenon that has affected the population regarding environmental issues in society [ 1 , 4 ]. In terms of research findings (see Table 7 ), our main theoretical contribution is that our evidence supports the idea that Attitude (ATT), Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC), and Environmental Consciousness (EC) would influence the Environmentally Responsible Purchase Intention (ERPI), which are discussed as follows.…”

“…Currently, society has shown a massive interest in Environmental Consciousness (CE), where industries are concerned with mitigating environmental damage resulting from their economic activities [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Since December 2019, the international health crisis related to COVID-19 allowed the evaluation of environmental impacts in different contexts.…”

The effect of social network sites usage in climate change awareness in Latin America

“…By comparison with the initial debate about climate change, public opinion has progressively aligned with scientific consensus (Nisbet & Myers, 2007 ; Poushter & Huang, 2019 ), and levels of environmental concern remain generally high (Leiserowitz et al, 2022 ) even after the appearance of other global priorities like of COVID-19 pandemic (Brügger et al, 2021 ; Drews et al, 2022 ; Van Ootegem et al, 2022 ). However, while the environmental crisis and climate change, in particular, are global phenomena (Beck, 1992 , 2009 ; Crutzen, 2002 ; Giddens, 1990 ; Urry, 2011 ), studies of environmental concern at the individual level have traditionally focused on the so-called developed countries—mostly the USA and Western Europe (Chryst et al, 2018 ; Harring et al, 2011 ; Pisano & Lubell, 2017 ; Tranter & Booth, 2015 ; Tuitjer & Dirksmeier, 2021 ).…”