Exploring urban sustainability understanding and behaviour: a systematic review towards a conceptual framework

Hasan Fehmi Topal; Dexter V. L. Hunt; Christopher D. F. Rogers

doi:10.3390/su13031139

Exploring urban sustainability understanding and behaviour: a systematic review towards a conceptual framework

Hasan Fehmi Topal, Dexter V. L. Hunt, Christopher D. F. Rogers

Civil Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

259 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Social, environmental, and economic problems related to urban living have surpassed the agenda of policy and decision-makers as well as general public opinion in recent decades. To address urban and environmental issues, it is pivotal to examine how people think, feel, judge, and act with respect to sustainability. While some prominent theories exist and various attempts have been made to propose synthesized models, there are still gaps and discrepancies within the literature of environmental psychological theories. As such, the aim of this paper is to critically review the literature by focusing on a few of the most influential environmental, prosocial, and psychological behaviour theories, which include Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), Norm Activation Theory (NAT), Value-Belief-Norm Theory (VBN), and the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP). The Scopus database has been searched systematically for the relevant studies. This paper concludes that an integrative approach to urban sustainability understanding and behaviour is needed. A framework is presented that consists of three layers of clustered components: (1) internal socio-psychological determinants, (2) personality traits, and (3) influencing external factors such as social, cultural, economic, and institutional factors. The model proposed in the study provides opportunities to further develop theoretical approaches and establish new measures of an Urban Sustainability Understanding and Behaviour assessment.

Original language	English
Article number	1139
Pages (from-to)	1-33
Number of pages	33
Journal	Sustainability
Volume	13
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031139
Publication status	Published - 22 Jan 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: The first author would also like to thank his sponsor, The Ministry of National Education, Republic of Turkey, for funding his doctoral studies at the University of Birmingham under scholarship of Higher Education. C.D.F.R. and D.V.L.H. received the financial support of the UK EPSRC under grant EP/J017698/1 (Transforming the Engineering of Cities to Deliver Societal and Planetary Wellbeing, known as Liveable Cities) and EP/P002021 (From Citizen to Co-innovator, from City Council to Facilitator: Integrating Urban Systems to Provide Better Outcomes for People, known as Urban Living Birmingham).

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

Attitude
Awareness
Environmental concern
New ecological paradigm
Perception
Pro-environmental behaviour
Sustainable behaviour
Theory of planned behaviour
Urban sustainability understanding
Value-beliefnorm theory

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Geography, Planning and Development
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Access to Document

10.3390/su13031139Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

TopalH2021ExploringFinal published version, 2.34 MBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

From Citizen to Co-innovator, from City Council to Facilitator: Integrating Urban Systems to Provide Better Outcomes for People (BOP)
Bryson, J. (Principal Investigator), Braithwaite, P. (Co-Investigator), Christian, J. (Co-Investigator), Freer, M. (Co-Investigator), Hunt, D. (Co-Investigator), Lee, P. (Co-Investigator), Mohan, J. (Co-Investigator), Rogers, C. (Co-Investigator), Sadler, J. (Co-Investigator) & Tight, M. (Co-Investigator)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council
1/06/16 → 30/11/17
Project: Research Councils
Transforming the Engineering of Cities to deliver Societal and Planetary Wellbeing
Rogers, C. (Principal Investigator) & Sadler, J. (Co-Investigator)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council
1/05/12 → 31/12/17
Project: Research Councils

Cite this

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title = "Exploring urban sustainability understanding and behaviour: a systematic review towards a conceptual framework",

abstract = "Social, environmental, and economic problems related to urban living have surpassed the agenda of policy and decision-makers as well as general public opinion in recent decades. To address urban and environmental issues, it is pivotal to examine how people think, feel, judge, and act with respect to sustainability. While some prominent theories exist and various attempts have been made to propose synthesized models, there are still gaps and discrepancies within the literature of environmental psychological theories. As such, the aim of this paper is to critically review the literature by focusing on a few of the most influential environmental, prosocial, and psychological behaviour theories, which include Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), Norm Activation Theory (NAT), Value-Belief-Norm Theory (VBN), and the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP). The Scopus database has been searched systematically for the relevant studies. This paper concludes that an integrative approach to urban sustainability understanding and behaviour is needed. A framework is presented that consists of three layers of clustered components: (1) internal socio-psychological determinants, (2) personality traits, and (3) influencing external factors such as social, cultural, economic, and institutional factors. The model proposed in the study provides opportunities to further develop theoretical approaches and establish new measures of an Urban Sustainability Understanding and Behaviour assessment.",

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Exploring urban sustainability understanding and behaviour: a systematic review towards a conceptual framework

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Projects

From Citizen to Co-innovator, from City Council to Facilitator: Integrating Urban Systems to Provide Better Outcomes for People (BOP)

Transforming the Engineering of Cities to deliver Societal and Planetary Wellbeing

Cite this