Energy conservation

As the global climate changes, identifying innovative ways to encourage reducing individual and collective carbon footprints is increasingly important. Previous research indicates increases in environmental learning—which includes environmental knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and concern—lead to pro-environmental behavior change. Studies in other contexts indicate that ambient learning displays may be one way to advance environmental learning in the workplace.

Heating and cooling large buildings make up a significant portion of overall energy use in the United States, but replacing the whole system may be financially infeasible. As a result, some organizations are implementing energy-reduction programs in their large buildings by making HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) systems more efficient.

Environment education (EE) programs in the European Union focus on the goal of promoting conservation behavior. However, previous research shows that increasing environmental knowledge or awareness is not enough to change behavior. One demonstrated tactic for promoting environmental behavior is for individuals to display a public pledge or commitment to a certain behavior change. But most previous studies on the use of commitments for environmental behavior change focus on adults.

Environmental activist Jane Goodall once said, “Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall we be saved.” This perspective suggests the importance of coupling a range of variables—such as emotion, skills development, or self-efficacy—in order to influence environmental behavior. This study explored the relationship of knowledge and emotion with environmentally related behaviors. Specifically, the researchers asked: What role do emotions play in bringing about pro-environmental behaviors?

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.

As the concept of education for sustainability has grown in prominence, many schools and teachers are eager to implement sustainability education in the classroom. Teachers, however, may feel unsure of how to teach about sustainability: they may not have much opportunity to build their knowledge base in this area and, as such, may not have a great deal of experience in developing and implementing sustainability education programs.

Often, one of the main elements of environmental education programs is spending time in nature. This derives from the belief of both practitioners and researchers that a relationship exists between time spent in nature and a person's environmental views, behaviors, and overall health. Better understanding the mechanisms behind this relationship could help inform environmental education practice. In this study, the authors considered frequency of children's contact with nature, attitudes toward the environment, and choices of environmentally related behaviors.

To meet ambitious global climate change goals, energy reduction is paramount. This study, therefore, focuses on how communicating energy usage encourages the public to conserve energy. Specifically, the authors of this paper investigated whether it is more effective to emphasize financial benefits or environmental benefits from energy reduction, such as reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Retail business is known for its advertising savvy, much of which is underpinned by research on how people make decisions and what influences those decisions. Recently, other organizations have also been taking advantage of this savvy and applying it to ethical and moral issues. Two examples are the U.S. government's antismoking campaign, and WWF's branding of the panda in efforts to save endangered species. Yet, these techniques have not been widely adopted in the field of environmental education.

Rocky Mountain High School is a school of over 1,700 students located in Fort Collins, Colorado. Between 2001 and 2007, the school reduced its energy use by 50 percent, outperforming other schools in the same district. Interested in what led to this phenomenon, the authors conducted a case study of the school's holistic approach to sustainability education. They focused on the roles of models of sustainable behavior in the form of individual role models, facilities and operations, governance, and school culture.