Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Role of Public Perception in Infrastructure and the Social Factors for Sustainable Development

The importance of public participation in the successful implementation of climate change-related policies has been highlighted in previous research. However, existing environmental behavioral studies have not sufficiently addressed the relationship among perceptions of climate change, living conditions, social demographic factors and environmentally friendly behavior. Therefore, this paper investigates whether environmental perception and other social determinants such as living conditions and the subjective evaluation of social inequality affect environmentally friendly behavior. We use survey data (N = 1500) collected in Mumbai, India, and analyze our hypotheses using a structural equation model (SEM). The empirical results confirm the direct and indirect influences of environmentally related perceptions, the subjective evaluation of living environments, social factors and other demographic characteristics on pro-environmental behavior. In particular, we find a robust positive effect of education level on pro-environmental behavior, where we observe both a direct impact and an indirect impact through positive effects on environmental knowledge. Thus, we confirm the importance of living environment, social equality and education in sustainable urban planning and efforts to mitigate climate change.