What are the primary covariates of environmental attitudes and behaviours in Canada? A national-scale analysis of socioeconomic, political, and demographic factors

Highlights

• We examine critical socioeconomic covariates of environmental attitudes in Canada.

• Education, household income, family size covary with pro-environmental behaviours.

• Ontario and British Columbia display a greater aptitude for sustainable living.

• No major conservative-vs-liberal divide exists in Canada about the environment.

• We offer a framework that could augment the role of ecopolitics in the social agenda.

Abstract

There is considerable ambiguity around the importance of demographic and socio-economic characteristics that catalyze pro-environmental behaviours. These factors are typically deemed responsible for environmental skepticism, such as the degree of trust in social institutions, fundamental views of the individuals (e.g., religiosity and political ideology), and competing priorities. In this context, the present study analyzed a comprehensive dataset of survey responses to discern the most reliable predictors of environmental attitudes of Canadians related to activism, lifestyle, household practices on air quality, waste disposal, energy and water conservation. To achieve this objective, we capitalize upon the wealth of publicly available data from surveys conducted by Statistics Canada's Households and the Environment Survey. Our analysis suggests that individuals with university-level education and higher income or families with children generally display pro-environmental behaviours. Political conservatism, as expressed by the percentage vote for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in a given area, appears to covary with some facets of the documented reluctance to embrace environmentally aligned behaviours (i.e., climate change issues), although we did not find a major “conservative-versus-liberal” divide about the broader spectrum of environmental issues. Our assessment of environmental attitudes in different Canadian provinces suggests an aptitude for more sustainable living in Ontario and British Columbia. Our analysis also provides evidence that the intent to support efforts that reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels or promote clean energy and technology – which has been overwhelmingly communicated in recent national polls – is not necessarily actualized. This established trend of Canadians failing to “walk the talk” and materialize their stated commitment with tangible participation into environmentally supportive behaviours could stem from barriers imposed at the household and societal levels. Notwithstanding the uncertainty regarding the importance of different socio-demographic factors in shaping our predisposition and behaviour towards environmental issues, the findings of our study offer a working model that could allow addressing the roots of environmental skepticism, promote societal trust, and revisit the role of ecopolitics in the social agenda.

Introduction

The degree of environmental awareness in Canadian society and Canada's overall environmental performance remain a controversial issue. Several reports have concluded that Canada has a poor environmental record, ranking near the bottom of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (Conference Board of Canada, 2016; David Suzuki Foundation, 2010; Wendling et al., 2020). Notwithstanding its classification as an ecological creditor, owing to the abundance of ecological reserves within its territory to cover the population demands, Canada's ecological footprint is the sixth-highest (8.17 global hectares per person¹) in the world and five times higher than the global average biocapacity (York University Ecological Footprint Initiative and Global Footprint Network, 2021). Nonetheless, it has been argued that some of the fundamental assumptions underlying the adverse assessment reports of Canada's record fail to consider regional/local features and practices that tend to understate the environmental quality realized within the Canadian domain (McKitrick et al., 2018). For instance, the consideration of absolute pollutant emissions or waste generation per capita, without factoring in key spatiotemporal factors (e.g., distance of polluters from the areas of public exposure) or the state of environmental remediation technologies (e.g., recycling, composting, wastewater treatment plants) used to mitigate waste disposal can misrepresent the degree of protection of both human health and ecosystem integrity from frequent violations of maximum allowable ambient pollution concentrations; also refer to as environmental quality standards. Likewise, focusing on per-capita energy or fertilizer consumption misrepresents Canada's environmental performance and efficiency, given the long transport distances, cold climate, and large agricultural sector (Holden and Sklenar, 2018; McKitrick et al., 2018; Mills and Schleich, 2012). Normalized metrics such as emissions per unit of economic activity, areal use of fertilizers/ pesticides, or curtailment rates over time could -in principle- assess Canada's ranking among its peer countries more objectively (McKitrick et al., 2018).

A more granular approach is not only required with the normalization of the different constituents of complex concepts – like the environmental conscientiousness – and the subsequent comparison of performance among different jurisdictions, but also with the correction of the shortcomings of the surveys used when characterizing the relative importance of different socio-economic and demographic covariates in shaping pro-environmental behaviours (Anderson and Krettenauer, 2021; Diamantopoulos et al., 2003). Attempts in the literature to account for various caveats of the sample selection procedures have shown considerable variability in the strength of the covariance between critical socio-demographic variables (gender, age, family size, education, income, and social status) and the degree of knowledge about environmental issues, level of environmentally sensitive behaviour, and attitude towards green products or environmental quality (Diamantopoulos et al., 2003; Elliott, 2013; Kormos and Gifford, 2014). Empirical evidence from the international literature generally suggests that married individuals (Neuman, 1986), with larger families (Grunert, 1993), better education (Diamantopoulos et al., 2003), and higher-income or social class (Lyons and Breakwell, 1994) display better environmental knowledge, deeper concerns about environmental issues, and greater aptitude to engage with green activities. Likewise, residents of urban areas are more likely to be actively involved with pro-environmental behaviours relative to rural populations (Anderson and Krettenauer, 2021). The same trend holds for women in terms of their degree of connectedness with the environment and the likelihood to embrace a pro-environmental lifestyle or even engage with public environmentalist activism (Davidson and Freudenburg, 1996; Diamantopoulos et al., 2003). However, the robustness of such linkages between the different facets of environmental consciousness and the socio-demographic features of the Canadian population remains an open question, as little empirical work has been done at a national level. Without this essential piece of knowledge, it will be challenging to shed light on how we can effectively reduce environmental skepticism, promote ecopolitics, or draw greater attention to environmental issues in Canadian society (Kennedy et al., 2009; Nebel et al., 2017; Zhou, 2016).

Taking all these issues together, the overarching goal of the present study is to examine the socio-demographic covariates of pro-environmental behaviours of Canadians related to activism, lifestyle, household practices on air quality, waste disposal, energy, and water conservation. We formulated a national-scale, hierarchical model accounting for the role of a multitude of socio-economic and demographic characteristics (geographic location, population density, year when the survey was conducted, age, political conservatism, education, income, household size and structure). In the absence of relevant studies from the Canadian domain, we assumed no prior knowledge regarding the effects of the different socio-demographic predictors on the observed variability in environmental behaviours. We then critically discuss the broader implications of our findings for policymakers and green marketers in terms of the factors that shape environmental attitudes, public trust in social institutions, and degree of confidence in green politics. Given the recent increase in the frequency and severity of environmental issues in Canada, presumably associated with a changing climate (rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, melting of ice caps and permafrost, increased hazardous weather, devastating wildfires), we subsequently propose a framework that will draw a much-needed public attention to the emerging imperative of revisiting the fundamentals of the human-environment relationship.