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Donations for environmental sustainability and subjective well-being: Evidence from 37 nations

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Highlights

  • Account individuals’ pro-environment behavior in 37 nations.

  • Relate donation for environment conservation and emotional well-being.

  • Identify the determinant characters of donation and volunteer for environment conservation purpose.

Abstract

This study investigates donations for environment sustainability and emotional well-being using a large-scale survey of 100,956 observations from 37 nations on 6 continents based on the internet and face-to-face methods according to goal framing theory. The relationship between individuals’ pro-environmental conservation behavior (donations and volunteerism) and positive and negative emotions was determined using an ordered logit model. We found that people engaged in donations (cash and goods) or volunteering had an increased likelihood of experiencing positive emotions and a reduced probability of experiencing negative emotions. Similarly, the results confirmed that 27 of 37 nations, including China, India, the United States and Japan. Donating for nature less than 9% of income was associated with a higher probability of positive emotional well-being and a lower likelihood of negative emotion. Worldwide institutions, such as the United Nations, have constructed new environmental conservation programs that may be an option for contributing to sustainability.

Introduction

The natural environment is rapidly changing for the worse, and threats from global warming, loss of biodiversity, air pollution, etc., are more severe than ever before (DuNann Winter and Koger, 2004; Gardner and Stern, 2002; Polasky et al., 2019; Thøgersen, 2009; Vlek and Steg, 2007). Human behavior is widely believed to be the main contributor to natural issues, such as climate change or loss of biodiversity (Swim et al., 2011; Wynes and Nicholas, 2017). Changes in human behavior to meet tragedies of sustainability are strongly encouraged when the natural environment changes rapidly (Barr et al., 2011; Hynes and Wilson, 2016; Polasky et al., 2019). Accordingly, seventeen clear goals for sustainability were proposed by the United Nations in 2015 (United Nations, 2015).

On the one hand, pro-environmental behavior is a set of altruistic human behavior related to environmental conservation (e.g., recycling) that consequently contributes to natural environmental sustainability (Lange and Dewitte, 2019; Li et al., 2019; Steg et al., 2014; Stern, 2000). Pro-environmental behavior includes various types of behaviors, including the recycling and reuse of goods, energy-saving behaviors, transportation selection, purchasing energy-saving electronic goods, and reducing waste (Aizawa et al., 2008; Berardi, 2017; Byrne and O'Regan, 2014; Eriksson et al., 2008; Hansmann et al., 2006; Kahn, 2007; Klöckner and Oppedal, 2011; Nordlund and Garvill, 2002; Põldnurk, 2015; Young et al., 2010). People's pro-environmental behavior contributes to natural environmental sustainability and has attracted increasing attention.

Studies focusing on people's donation behavior for environment sustainability are scarce, while pro-environmental behavior, e.g., energy saving behavior, is well discussed in previous studies. The favorable outcomes of people's donation (cash and goods) for environment sustainability are in the perspective of household consumption and non-market environment conservation. From the household consumption perspective, an individual's donation behavior reduces goods/services consumption, which reduces the production process and the environmental burden. Furthermore, donated cash/goods can be used for non-market environment protection.

On the other hand, theoretically, according to goal framing theory (Lindenberg and Steg, 2007), the motivations for individuals to engage in pro-environmental behavior are summarized into the following three different types: hedonic goals, gain goals and normative goals (Steg et al., 2014). Hedonic reasons involve pleasure or enjoyable experiences, whereas gain reasons involve the achievement of the purpose of saving money, and normative reasons involve the right reasons (e.g., protecting the environment is the right thing to do). The conflict between hedonic reasons and gain reasons versus normative reasons occurs because individuals have strengthened hedonic and gain goals and a background of normative goals (Steg et al., 2014). Therefore, pro-environmental behaviors can be strengthened among people if there is an overflow of profit or hedonics (de Groot and Steg, 2009). However, the conflicting relationship between pro-environmental behavior and individuals’ subjective well-being has been theoretically and empirically argued, although not consistently.

Hedonic experiences are among the indicators of individuals’ well-being. Individuals’ well-being involves the following two aspects: emotional well-being (e.g., pleasure) and overall life evaluation (e.g., happiness) (Kahneman and Deaton, 2010). As the natural environment worsens, in-depth investigations of pro-environmental behavior are worthwhile. Supporting individuals’ hedonic experiences and pro-environmental behavior is crucial for sustainability in human society. A growing body of theoretical and empirical studies has focused on pro-environmental behavior and how to prompt human behavior toward sustainability (Lange and Dewitte, 2019; Li et al., 2019; Steg et al., 2014). However, in many cases (although not all), there is a conflict between pro-environmental behavior and individuals’ hedonic experiences (Steg et al., 2014). Therefore, the relationship between the donation for environment conservation and individual's subjective well-being still needs to be discussed.

Accordingly, this study focuses on the relationship between donations (cash and goods) for environment sustainability and people's well-being using an original survey of 37 nations. The results of this study build upon the current literature in the following aspects. First, households’ cash donations for the environment may suggest a novel way to approach environmental sustainability as traditional studies of pro-environmental behavior are more likely to focus on recycling, transportation use, and energy consumption. Second, increasing household earnings can become a crucial target for governments introducing policies. As cash donations might reduce households’ principal income, the relationship between cash donations and well-being provides insightful evidence to policy makers and scholars that improving household income is a key policy direction for many governments. Third, the original large-scale, cross-sectional survey was collected from 37 nations on 6 continents. The results reflect universal responses as well as variations in the relationship between pro-environmental behavior and individuals’ well-being.

The aim of this study is to investigate the association between household donations for environment conservation (cash or goods) and individuals’ emotional well-being and overall happiness while considering the hedonic goal versus normative goal in the framework of goal-framing theory. Moreover, the degree of donations for environment sustainability and individuals’ well-being is explored while considering the gain goal versus normative goal. Finally, the determinant characteristics of donations for environmental sustainability are illustrated. A logit model and ordered logit regression model are applied in the empirical analysis. Original internet-based and face-to-face surveys were collected from participants in 37 nations with population and regional representation. Pro-environmental behavior includes individuals’ donations of cash or goods and volunteering for environmental conservation purposes. Individuals’ well-being includes emotional well-being and overall happiness, whereas emotional well-being includes pleasure, enjoyment, happiness, anger, and sadness.

The remainder of this study is as follows. Section 2 shows literature review. Section 3 provides information on the data collection, variables and methodology. Section 4 summarizes the results, Section 5 discuss the results, and the conclusions are presented in Section 6.

Section snippets

Literature review

The natural environment is rapidly worsening and threatening humanity through global warming, loss of biodiversity, air pollution, and other issues (DuNann Winter and Koger, 2004; Gardner and Stern, 2002; Polasky et al., 2019; Thøgersen, 2009; Vlek and Steg, 2007). Human activities are thought to be a main factor in these rapidly worsening environmental issues (Polasky et al., 2019). Pro-environmental behavior, which contributes to environmental sustainability, is attracting increasing

Data

This study explores the relationships between pro-environmental behavior and emotional well-being as well as overall happiness. The detailed data collection procedures are described as follows. The original survey involved cross-sectional data collected from 37 nations conducted by a professional survey company between 2015 and 2017 through internet-based or face-to-face surveys. Based on the random sampling strategy, the target respondents were selected to match the population age and gender

Results

Fig. 2presents the percentage of individuals providing cash donations, goods donations, and volunteering for environmental conservation purposes. On average, 15% of the participants provided cash donations, 14% contributed as donors of goods, and 23% volunteered for environmental conservation activities. This shows that among the studied nations, the population has relatively low rates of donation or volunteer involvement. International variations exhibit differences among nations. For example,

Discussion

People's natural environment faces unprecedented threats from global warming, loss of biodiversity, air pollution, etc. (DuNann Winter and Koger, 2004; Gardner and Stern, 2002; Polasky et al., 2019; Thøgersen, 2009; Vlek and Steg, 2007). Human activities are believed to be a crucial factor in natural environmental changes (Swim et al., 2011; Wynes and Nicholas, 2017). Understanding people's pro-environmental behavior is associated with the sustainability of societies. In previous studies,

Conclusion

Human behavior is widely believed to be a main contributor to natural issues, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity. A change in human consumption behavior to address sustainability is expected. Growing attention has already been given to individuals’ pro-environmental behavior with rapid climate change. This study used original internet and face-to-face surveys collected from 37 nations to confirm the relationship between pro-environmental behavior and individuals’ well-being.

Author contributions

XP conducted the analysis, prepared the primary manuscript, and participated in the revision of the manuscript. SM designed the survey and supervised the manuscript.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and material

The data are available upon reasonable request.

Ethical approval and consent to participate

For the original cross-sectional internet survey conducted by a third-party company (Nikkei Research Company) between 2015 and 2017, the study design was approved by the appropriate legal and ethics review board of Kyushu University. The data were collected with informed consent from the participants according to legal and ethical guidelines. All methods proceeded in accordance with the ethical guidelines and were approved by the ethical committee of Kyushu University.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

Not applicable. This research was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF20201001) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP20H00648. This Research was supported by Takahashi Industrial and Economic Research Foundation, Grant number J220000023.

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