Values environmental attitudes and what that means for environmentally sustainable behavior in vietnam

VALUES, ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE BEHAVIOR IN VIETNAM Duong Trong Hue* - Lukas Parker - Linda Brennan I n tro d u c tio n Concern for e

VALUES, ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE

BEHAVIOR IN VIETNAM

Duong Trong Hue* - Lukas Parker - Linda Brennan

I n tro d u c tio n

Concern for environmental issues has been increasingly salient in the public agenda regarding sustainable development(Lima & Castro, 2005) Although no common philosophy was agreed in the debates about sustainable developm ent because o f the different underlying world views in prioritizing policies and actions,

it was often conceptualized as a balanced integration between economy, environment and society(Giddings, Hopwood & O'Brien, 2002) The recent anomalous climate extremes and disasters were claimed to impede advancements in sustainable development; hence making the connection between environment and sustainable development even more salient (Hay & Mimura, 2010)

Similar toother developing countries, Vietnam is at a cross-road in terms o f both development and sustainability Vietnam has been growing at rapid rate and with that comes various environmentally related 'grow ing pains', including infrastructure not meeting demand, traffic congestion, inefficient or lack o f waste management mechanism, degradation o f water quality and air pollution due to speedy industrialization The recent national report on V ietnam ’s environment released by the Ministry o f Natural Resources and Environment (M N R E) in 2011 acknowledged these problems and suggested important implications for existing and newly-launched strategies, laws and regulations in order to avert the degradation path o f environment(Ministry o f Natural Resources & Environment, 2011) The media at times reported environmental negligence incidences, mostly from private

or joint-ventured companies, including some high-profile cases such as the case o f

* Centre o f Com m unication and Design, RM1T University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City.

* Ph.D., Centre o f Com m unication and Design, RM IT University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City.

*** Prof., Centre o f Commerce and Management, RMIT University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City.

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Vedan (Thanh Nhat, 2009 ) In addition, reports o f cases overseas might also help to hiehlieht and inject the environment issues into the public consciousness As news and reports increasingly exposed the link between environment and broader public health concerns, quality o f life as well as concern for the planet in general, it is possible that the change in environmental awareness and behaviours is taking place toward a more positive end o f the continuum

The purpose o f this studv is to provide a baseline indication o f general public’s environmental attitudes with the aim o f providing the initial findings to NGOs, public-health practitioners, social marketers, related governmental aeencies and interested scholars delvina into the field o f environment and social marketing The significance o f this study, in addition, lies in the fact that it concentrated on a practical and day-to-day matter o f the public-individuals and households’ practices that are integrated in the triangle o f culture, market and sustainable development The outcomes o f this study are also expected to inform stakeholders o f the relationship between cultural belief and environmental behaviours

Environmental Change in Vietnam

As pointed out by the governmental report (MNRE, 2011), the lack o f community participation in environmental initiatives can be detrimental to government and civil society agencies’ efforts in promoting pro-environmental ideas Measures to engage and increase public participation in environmental programs have been documented into two complementary ways, by focussing on supply-side and/or demand-side responses That is, social marketing and anti­ consumption efforts to decrease consumer demand allied with ‘upstream’ activities designed to improve the environmental responsibility o f organisations (Brennan, Binney, McCrohan, & Lancaster, 201 l).The supply side is often discussed in terms

o f the provision or availability o f environmental-sound solutions for day-to-day activities In Rothschild’s (1999) motivation-opportunity-ability framework, this is the opportunity dimension For instance, a functional and convenient public transport alternatives to compete with private transport, providing ‘green’ product alternatives in shops and supermarkets or shop assistants reducing numbers o f free shopping bags given to customers Meanwhile, the demand-side focuses mostly on informing and educating people to change their attitudes and make educated choices about their day-to-day activities and purchases In Rothschild's framework this is commensurate with educating in order to increase motivation to behave Both strategies work hand-in-hand to change consumers’ behaviour (Darnton, 2008; Marshall & Biddle, 2001; Sniehotta, 2009)

VIỆT NAM HỌC - KỶ YÉU HỘI THẢO QUỐC TÉ LẦN TH Ứ TƯ

Table 1: the M-O-A Framework (adapted from Rothschild, 1999 pp 31)

law

unable to unable to resistant to resistant to

education education education education marketing marketing marketing marketing

In order to understand the change o f public awareness and practices related to environmental issues, and in the condition o f scarce empirical literature, it is necessary to set up a baseline measuring level to record the longitudinal change overtime.The literature to understand Vietnamese’s environmental attitude so far has been based on the combination o f information from three main sources: responsible governmental offices, news agencies’ reports and private companies doing research on related environmental behaviours mostly in order to understand their target markets

Some desirable environmentally friendly behaviours undertaken by Vietnamese, such as careful use o f energy and water, and reuse o f packaging such as bottles, jars and plastic bass have been encouraged by responsible authorities and environmental groups across the country(see for example: http://www.danangcity.gov.vn/) Mass media also reports cases o f grass-root level's awareness and practices that indicated their participation into pro-environmental behaviours

Some o f few studies regarding this topic in Vietnam were carried out byTaylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), a market research company that has offices in Vietnam TNSsurvey about Vietnam environment in 2012 found that Vietnamese in general believed that environmental pollution was a leading concern An interesting comparison was found in that they believe that the pollution was more likely to

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deteriorate than the value o f the Vietnamese Dong, or the levels o f employment and the cost o f living This survey also showed that all age eroups were responsible for this belief with young adults the least optimistic about the future o f the Vietnamese environment (TNS, 2012) Another similar study from TNS in 2011 found that Vietnamese felt that the five most important actions to protect the environment were, in order o f importance: not littering, using less electricity or eas, separating and recycling waste items, using fewer plastic ba2,s and using less water This result helped inform o f what environmental actions reflected the reported actions undertaken by the respondents (2 0 1 1 )

At the macro level, the government plays a major role in environmental protection and rehabilitation although the past few years have witnessed the increase o f civil society organizations participating in this area, particularly NGOs The data from the Vietnam NGO Resource Center showed that a significant number

o f NGOs focused their resources on environmental activities ranging from advocacy

to community-based programs Apart from the NGOs, hierarchical mass organizations such as the W om en’s Union, Youth Union and others have been increasing their focus on promoting environmental awareness activities, such as Green Summer (Mùa hè xanh), Scouts (Hướng đạo sinh) Recently, interesting initiatives has been prompted by youths around the country such as the innovations related to Earth Hour Many commercial organizations have had organised communities events to promote good environmental behaviour as part o f their corporate social responsibilities (CSR)

However, despite the above findings and development, the literature is very scant in terms o f understanding the knowledge, attitude and practices o f people regarding environment Thus, it remains to be seen by and large whether the activities mentioned as examples above are undertaken with a genuine regard for the environment or simply due toother non-related reasons such as economic necessity (saving cans to sell), or adherence to cultural values(frugality), etc Farmers, for instance, are known to reuse and recycling behaviour for efficient use

o f resources rather than for pro-environmental reasons In other words, it is very possible that these positive pro-environment behaviours embedded in the way people live remains different from what scholars in environment would define as a genuine concern for the environment Behavioural economists and in some cases social marketers would point to this as an opportunity: artificially increasing the economic cost o f the ‘b a d ’ products, reduces the consumption o f the product and hopefully makes ‘green ’ alternatives more economically attractive However, in order to gain consumer-driven change communication and education is required to

VIỆT NAM HỌC - KỶ YÉU HỘI THẢO QUỐC TÉ LẦN T H Ứ T ư

increase motivation Apart from this, all supply and demand-side responses should

be supported with the requisite legislation, enforcement and advertising in order to

be successful (Brennan & Snitow, 2005; Snitow & Brennan, 2011)

L e g is la tio n ■* - ► E d u c a tio n

Figure I: T h e t r ip a r tite model of b e h av io u ral co m pliance for effective

social m a r k e tin g cam p aig n s (Source: Snitow a n d B re n n a n , 2011 pp 387)

Overall, Vietnam has been already responding, to some extent, to these environment-related issues However, the attitude and behaviour relating to environment remain hidden from empirical literature, which is crucial for both theoretical understanding; and practical campaigns and policies promoting sustainable development concentrating on environmental aspect The understanding into the public attitudes towards the environment has been achieved internationally based on the scales created ecological scholars, which will be discussed in the following part The New Ecological P a ra d ig m

There have been a number o f scales that purport to measure attitudes towards the environment, including: the Ecology scale (Maloney, Ward, & Braucht, Ỉ975), the Environmental Concern Scale (Weigel & Weigel, 1978)and the New Environment Paradigm(Riley E Dunlap, 2008; Riley E Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Riley E Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000; Van Liere & Dunlap, 1981) The New Environmental Paradigm scale is probably the most used environmental attitudes measures(I”Iawcroft & Milfont, 2010) Whilst other scales have become dated because o f their focus on specific environmental issues which have become dated, the New Environment Paradigm has remained relevant because

it focuses on measuring general beliefs about the relationship between humans and the environment (Hawcroft&Milfront, 2010)

The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) the basis for this project, was created

by adding three more items to the original 12-point New Environment Paradigm scale to give more balance to the scale, to incorporate a broader ecological

worldview to the scale and to update terminology (Riley E Dunlap, et al., 2000) This revision is also more ‘balanced' than the original and the language and terminology use is less dated (Hawcroft&Milfont, 2010) Although the New Ecological Paradigm is an update o f the original New Environmental Paradigm, the abbreviation o f both tends to be used interchangeably - NEP = NEP

Both versions o f the scale have been used in hundreds o f countries (Dunlap, 2008; Hawcroft&Milfront, 2010), and have increasingly been employed in different contexts within Asia, including some Vietnam’s neighbours, China (Chung & Poon,

1998, 2001)and Indonesia(Watson & Halse, 2005) To this day there has been no widely circulated study using this scale in the Vietnamese context

In addition to attitudes, values and social norms need to be understood (Shalom H Schwartz, 1992; S.H Schwartz, 1994; Shalom H Schwartz et al., 2001; Thogersen & Olander, 2003) Thogersen(2004, 2006)and Thogersen and Olander (2003) found limited evidence that environmentally friendly consumption patterns spread through social groups; however, others have found that group norms are powerful motivators for specific behaviors (Kallgren, Reno, & Cialdini, 2000; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005; Nordlund & Garvill, 2002; Widegren, 1998) However, while norms may be the impetus for action, according to Stern, Dietz and Kalhof (1993), the value orientation o f the individual is potentially more important with regards to propensity to pay more or perception o f the severity o f the threat to their environment

In light o f the discussion above, this study utilized the NEP scale to discover the environmental attitude and value orientations o f Vietnamese based on the following question:

RQ1: W hat is the relationship between Vietnamese cultural values and their attitude towards environment?

Social M arketing and Environmental Change

The research using the new ecological paradigm provided meaningful implications to not just scholars interested in learning about people’s environmental attitude but also practitioners working in social marketing campaigns to promote environmental change In fact, environmental social marketing campaigns in several countries throughout the world(Frame & Newton, 2007; McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; Meneses & Palacio, 2007; Polonsky, Binney, & Hall, 2004) have used extensively the empirical results from such studies to inform their campaigns This section will provide a brief discussion on social marketing and environmental change

VIỆT NAM HỌC - KỶ YÉU HỘI THẢO QUÓC TÉ LÀN T H Ứ T ư

Both Kotler (1971) and Andreasen (2006) have defined social marketing as similar to commercial marketing in most aspects except for the objectives o f the marketers and their organizations in that they sought to change social behavior to increase the quality o f life o f the tareet groups and the society at large Social marketing activities have often been carried out based on the principles applied to commercial marketing This application has resulted in successful campaigns changing people attitude and behaviors, especially in environmental areas (Altman

& Petkus, 1994; Frame & Newton, 2007; McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; Meneses & Palacio, 2007; Polonsky, et al., 2004)

This success brought promises to the application o f social marketing in providing Vietnamese people with environmental education, information and communication campaigns that can change their attitude and behavior in a sustainable way One o f the areas that was reported by the recent national report on Vietnam’s environment released by the Ministry o f Natural Resources and Environment in 2011 was the lack o f community participation The report also pointed out that in order to mobilize the public participation effectively, attention to information dissemination initiatives must be particularly paid It is in this very point that social marketing comes into the discussion in order to help respond to the need o f increasing public participation

Method

An online self-administered survey o f university students was undertaken in

Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City The survey was conducted English, because the student surveyed had high proficiency in the language, also it was to maintain the reliability o f the scale The NEP was used within the survey as were measurements

o f various environmentally friendly behaviours

Furthermore, some o f Schwartz’s (1992) values were correlated with the NEP scale Schwartz’s (values were chosen to be correlated because they represent the three universal requirements o f human existence: biological needs, social interaction and demands o f group functioning (Shaỉom H Schwartz, 1992; S.H Schwartz, 1994; Shalom H Schwartz, et a l , 2001; s J Schwartz et a l 2010)

Values can also help explain the attitudes and behaviour o f individuals, and the characteristics and operation o f organisations, institutions and societies (de Mooij & Hofstede, 2002; Hofstede, 1998)

The majority o f respondents, almost 87 percent, were from Ho Chi Minh City, all others were residing in Ha Noi Sixty point four percent o f the respondents were female and 97.7 percent were 18 and 25 years o f age It should be noted that the

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survey undertaken only on students attending one private international university, so

it is likely a greater proportion o f the responses came from young adults who are more likely to financially stable, have greater exposure to foreign teaching staff and students and are probably more likely to speak English at a high level and therefore more likely to be exposed to and convergent with environmental ideas covered in English in the international media These need to be taken into account when reviewing the results

Results

If things continue on their present course, we will

soon experience a m ajor ecological catastrophe

H um ans will eventually learn enough about how

nature works to be able to control it

The balance o f nature is very delicate and easily

upset

H um ans were m eant to rule over the rest o f nature

T he earth is like a spaceship with very lim ited

room and resources

T he so-called “ecological crisis” facing

hum ankind has been greatly exaggerated

Despite our special abilities, hum ans are still

subject to the laws o f nature The balance o f nature is strong enough to cope

with the im pacts o f m odem industrial nations

Plants and anim als have as m uch right as hum ans

to exist The earth has plenty o f natural resources if we just

learn how to develop them

H um ans are severely abusing the environm ent

Human ingenuity w ill ensure that we do NOT

m ake the earth unlivable

W hen hum ans interfere with nature it often

produces disastrous consequences

Hum ans have the right to modify the natural

environm ent to suit their needs

We are approaching the lim it of the num ber o f

people the earth can support

0% 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

■ Strongly Agree ■ 2 ■ 3 ■ 4 ■ % tf/6 ^ S tr^ íg ly ^ is a lÉ e e % % % %

Figure 2: NE P Frequencies: The relationship between humans and

the environment

VIỆT NAM HỌC - KỶ YÉU HỘI THẢO QUỐC TÉ LẦN T H Ử T ư

After the NEP scale items (see Figure 2) were summ ated to generate an index score (O'Connor & Eskey, 2005)a Pearson product-moment correlation was undertaken against six o f Schwartz’s (1992)values: achievement, benevolence, conformity, hedonism, order and variety These are presented in Table 2

Table 2: Correlation Table for selected Schwartz’s (1992) values and the NEP

Item

Item

1 V A L B enevolence 1.00

2 V A L C onform ity 54** 1.00

3 V A L A c h ie v e m e n t 44** .35** LOO

4 V A L H e d o n ism 44* * .36** 35** 1.00

5 V A L Order 40** .50** 38** 18** 1.00

6 V A L Variety 32** .21** 31 * * 35** 15* 1.00

7 N E P S u m m a te d Scale 90** .14* 24** .14* .21** .25** 1.00

*p< 05, **p< 01

Discussion a n d conclusion

The items in the NEP (Figure 2) provide some understanding o f the level o f perceived urgency regarding the state o f the environment A relatively large proportion agree with the idea that an environmental catastrophe is about to occur; with an equal number disagreeing with the statement that the crisis is exaggerated

A generalised respect for the balance o f nature is indicated in the responses to questions such as 'the balance o f nature is strong enough to c o p e / - with a proportion indicating they did not think that the earth is able to cope with much more strain

An important insight is to be gained from the answer to the question regarding the ability o f humans to control nature with no clear agree or disagree responses This indicates that young people are not necessarily optimistic about the future and the potential for technological interventions to ‘save' them from ecological disaster This response is also echoed in the responses to the question regarding humans' abuse o f the environment and humans still being subject to the laws o f nature To a certain extent this may be a form o f ‘fatalism’, but it may also be that young people are not feeling empowered when it comes to others addressing their environmental concerns

1 6 0

Additionally, the question regarding humans beine ‘meant to rule over nature’

is also equivocal in terms o f an indefinite response set - neither agree nor disagree Combined with the insight from the control question, it is feasible that this is about

a perceived ‘right’ to rule nature That is, they may not feel as if humans have the right to rule nature This ambivalence m isht be a result o f the current flux and negotiation between modernization and some deeply held social values in Vietnamese communities where nature is believed to order things by itself in a proper and harm onious way that surpasses any human intervention in its course (Jamieson, 1993) This would be worthy o f exploration in future research

The final form o f analysis was testing the relationships between values and the NEP As Table 1 illustrates, there are significant correlations between the NEP and all o f the values indicating a ranse o f relationships between environmental attitudes and values The highest correlations are between the NEP and Achievement, Variety and Order Interestingly, the values o f Conformity and Hedonism, while statistically significant, are relatively lower Thus, it is clear that young people in Vietnam are considerate o f the environmental issues that surround them on a daily basis but the may not be willing to trade o ff pleasure (hedonism) or self-expression

by way o f conform ing to social expectations (conformity) This, too, requires some future research attention The apparent inconsistency between an urgent and present environment crisis and the correlations between some o f the values runs counter to extant research in the field (see the literature review)

For social marketers, there are many opportunities that present themselves as a result o f this data Firstly, youns people in Vietnam are clearly concerned with the environment Thus the first platform o f the M -O-A framework is achieved - motivation This, at least, means that these young people are operating in the YES side o f the M O A grid Social advertising and em powerm ent for behavioural change

is therefore a viable social marketing option Upstream marketing is also an option, especially in those locations where there may be no self-perceived ability to act The tri-partite model (Brennan and Snitow, 2005) also has potential to make a contribution in this regard

However, as Figure 2 suggests, opportunity remains problematic in a rapidly developing country where y o un s people feel they may have limited control over environmental issues An ability to act must be accompanied by an opportunity This is where some impactful public policy initiatives might be useful A proviso here is that Rothschilds’ original model recommended law as a platform for change