Environmental Citizenship 

Promoting environmental citizenship:
addressing the 'values-action gap'

Environmental citizenship is about adopting values and actions that are consistent with sustainability.  Four aspects of promoting environmental citizenship are explored here:

1. Social and institutional learning
2. Access and infrastructure
3. Participation and trust
4. Inspiration and leadership

Access and infrastructure

Citizens and institutions may have environmental values but be unable or unwilling to act on them if it involves a cost or burden.  Citizens can feel a sense of futility in acting alone if there is no institutional infrastructure to enable fellow citizens to act in the same way.

What becomes ‘normal’ behaviour in a country or locality depends partly on the extent to which pro-environmental behaviour is enabled by institutional support and infrastructure.  For example, if recycling involves driving several miles with waste, then few will bother and many may argue it is counter-productive.  Yet if multiple-section litter bins are provided everywhere, as in some countries, then sorting wastes for recycling becomes ‘normal’, and not sorting wastes can be seen as anti-social.

For environmental actions to become shared, and part of citizenship, they need to be accessible and affordable to all.  Citizenship as well as environmental citizenship are undermined if acting on principle is reduced to a ‘lifestyle choice’ for the few:

‘…to be able to consume sustainably, low-income consumers need improved local environments, better facilities, more control over their circumstances and more targeted information.  Alongside environmental protection, all sustainable consumption policies need to integrate social and economic factors that improve disadvantaged consumers’ quality of life.’  (Holdsworth, Maxine (2003). ‘Green Choice: What Choice?’  National Consumer Council repor, (pdf 615Kb) from www.ncc.org.uk.)

Research has shown that people with time scarcity have difficulty taking part in public life.  People need time to participate in civic action, and that requires not only access and convenience, but also working weeks that allow time for out-of-work activity, access to affordable child-care services and more user-friendly public transportation systems.