Personal and Contextual Barriers to Promotion of Sustainable Development in Everyday Life

• In Event: Roundtable Session 106
  In Roundtable Session: Conceptualizing New Beginnings: Philosophical, Cosmic, and Personal Implications of the Ecological

Abstract

Finnish university students (n = 210) assessed aspects of their own possibilities to promote sustainable development (SD). The informants rated statements of environmental, social and economic sustainability according to importance, possibilities to implement and actual implementation of the items in their own daily life. They also commented their assessments. The data were collected 2008–2009 using adapted semantic differential technique and analysed with quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that there is an attitude-behaviour gap between every single assessed item of SD. Most of the barriers refer importance of social change. This paper gives a road map for education to serve the public good by supporting social change towards sustainability in high consumption societies.

Authors

• Arto O. Salonen, Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

• Mauri K. Ahlberg, University of Helsinki