Using Communication Theory to Unpack Environmental Behavior

One of the biggest challenges of environmental education is figuring out how and why people decide to engage in environmental behavior. Borrowing from the fields of communication and marketing research, this study's researchers used a case study in Nevada to shed light on people's decision-making processes related to environmentally sustainable behaviors. The findings could help inform the way that environmental educators address environmental behaviors, more generally, and energy-related behaviors, more specifically.

The researchers used diffusion theory—an applied communication theory developed by scholar Everett Rogers—to consider peoples' decisions to retrofit their homes with energy-efficient appliances and infrastructures. Diffusion theory considers the various stages that innovations, such as the adoption of solar panels, reach as they work their way through a population. Rogers uses the following terms to describe people in the five stages of adopting and diffusing innovations: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. He further theorized that each individual who will eventually adopt usage of a product or idea will go through the stages of initial awareness, interest, product evaluation, trial, and, finally, adoption.

Just as researchers and practitioners have used diffusion theory for targeted sales marketing, this study's researchers found it to be helpful in examining how and why certain people retrofitted their homes in an energy-efficient manner. In an effort to target early adopters, the researchers used a purposive sample of owner-occupied single-family homes in four Nevada neighborhoods in an area serviced by EnergyFit, a nonprofit organization that oversees a home-energy conservation program. Out of 3,939 surveys mailed to households, the researchers received 288 responses, equaling a 7.3% return rate, which the authors indicate is about average for a mail survey.

The researchers asked consumers whether they had made, and subsequently liked (or did not like), various energy-efficient retrofit changes in their homes. The researchers asked a series of hypothetical questions, based on scenarios such as imagining they had $1,000 to invest in a water- or energy-saving device. On a scale of 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (very likely), researchers asked respondents to indicate the likelihood that they would, for example, purchase better insulated windows or doors, purchase more efficient appliances, replace current heating/cooling systems, or install solar panels. The researchers also measured values and attitudes toward energy-efficiency and retrofit changes using questions inquiring about topics, such as the consumers' likelihood to invest in their homes, access to information, and attitudes toward the environment and finances. At the end of the survey, the researchers asked about the consumers' intentions to take the actions described in the survey in the next two to four months.

Using diffusion theory, the researchers analyzed the results by what values or attitudes might cause the participants to undertake, or adopt, an energy-efficient retrofitting process. The authors defined the dependent variable as a participant's intention to take action, and they defined the independent variable as a participant's likelihood to spend $1,000 on various retrofits. The researchers then tested each independent variable against the dependent variable and participants' values and attitudes.

The results revealed that participants' motivations to adopt an innovation—in this case, an energy-efficient retrofit—are complicated. The researchers found that a variety of factors could explain the adoption of the innovative action, including: participants' likelihood to invest in their homes (9.5% of the time); the amount of information provided (9%); participants' attitudes (8.6%); participants' environmental orientations (8.6%); and participants' financial attitudes (8.2%).

This complex picture of motivations suggests that a variety of factors influence participants' decisions about their homes. If program designers understand what those factors might be, they could then design programs, such as EnergyFit, to address peoples' multifaceted motivations. More broadly, knowing that multiple factors influence environmental decision-making may help environmental educators layer their messaging to speak more effectively to participants' differing motivations for environmental behavior.