My company is green, so am I:the relationship between perceived environmental responsibility of organisations and government, environmental self-identity, and pro-environmental behaviours

To reduce environmental problems, citizens, governments, and organisations need to take action to reduce their environmental impact. In the current paper, we tested if and how perceived environmental responsibility of organisations and government is related to pro-environmental behaviour and acceptability of pro-environmental policies among employees, customers, and citizens. We hypothesised that the stronger perceived environmental responsibility of organisations and government, the stronger the environmental self-identity of employees, customers, and citizens because they are a part of that organisation. We hypothesised that a stronger environmental self-identity, in turn, is positively related to a range of pro-environmental actions as well as acceptability of pro-environmental policies. We tested our hypotheses in three studies. We found that a stronger perceived environmental responsibility of organisations is indeed related to a stronger environmental self-identity among employees and customers of the organisation. A stronger environmental self-identity was in turn related to a range of pro-environmental actions. An alternative explanation for our findings is that those with a stronger environmental self-identity are more likely to become a customer at an organisation with a strong perceived environmental responsibility. However, we found support for our hypotheses among those who chose and among those who did not freely choose to be a customer of the organisation, suggesting that the alternative explanation does not fully explain our findings. Furthermore, we found that citizens report a stronger environmental self-identity when perceived environmental responsibility of their government is stronger. A stronger environmental self-identity was in turn related to a higher acceptability of policies aiming to promote energy savings. Our findings are in line with social identity theory, which states that people partly infer how they see themselves based on the groups to which they belong. Furthermore, our findings have important practical implications for organisations and governments aiming to promote pro-environmental behaviour. Specifically, if organisations and government reduce their environmental impact and clearly communicate this, citizens, employees, and customers may also be more likely to do so

Working on the environment

Organizations increasingly recognize that environmental problems will reduce if their employees would act more pro-environmentally, but struggle with the question how to realise this. This PhD project shows that employees act more pro-environmentally at work when they care about the environment, and when the work context makes them focus on environmental consequences. Importantly, it appears that in the right context, people with relative weak environmental values will act as pro-environmentally as those with relative strong environmental values. Pro-environmental behaviour (at home or at work) generally implies a conflict between immediate gratification or financial gains and desirable long-term benefits for the environment. Yet, despite this, people are motivated to act pro-environmentally when they are focused on benefiting the environment. When people are focused on benefiting the environment, they are less focused and influenced by possible inconvenience and financial costs of pro-environmental behaviours. The extent to which employees are focused on the environment depends on how strongly they value nature and the environment, and on the context in which decisions are made. First, the context needs to facilitate pro-environmental actions. Second, the context can strengthen employees’ focus on benefiting the environment, for example by signs of corporate environmental responsibility. Strong environmental values and contextual factors that make people focus on the environment can even encourage pro-environmental actions after prolonged working on a strenuous task. See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjQFDI8hcc

The relationship between Corporate Environmental Responsibility, employees’ biospheric values and pro-environmental behaviour at work

Many organizations strive for Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER). This can make organizational processes and procedures more pro-environmental, but does it also promote employees’ pro-environmental behaviour? We reason that CER can encourage employees to act pro-environmentally at work by increasing the likelihood that they consider the environmental consequences of their behaviour. In two studies, we test to what extent CER affects pro-environmental behaviour at work, and whether this depends on the extent to which employees value nature and the environment (i.e., endorse biospheric values). Both studies show that stronger biospheric values and perceived CER are related to more self-reported pro-environmental behaviour at work. Interestingly, the relationship between perceived CER and self-reported pro-environmental behaviour was stronger among those with moderate to weak biospheric values. These results suggest that relative weak biospheric values are less likely to inhibit pro-environmental behaviour at work when employees believe that their organization aims to realize CER

Environmental considerations in the organizational context:A pathway to pro-environmental behaviour at work

AbstractEncouraging pro-environmental behaviour at work can result in a significant reduction in environmental problems. Research revealed that general environmental considerations such as biospheric values and environmental self-identity are important antecedents of private pro-environmental behaviour. Yet, the question remains whether such general environmental considerations also predict pro-environmental behaviour at work. We propose a parsimonious theoretical model (the VIP-model) in which biospheric values affect personal norms to behave pro-environmentally at work and pro-environmental actions via the environmental self-identity. A study involving a diverse sample of employees from different European organizations supported the VIP-model, showing that biospheric values and environmental self-identity influence personal norms, and that stronger personal norms encouraged various self-reported pro-environmental behaviours at work to some extent. The VIP-model yields promising, cost-efficient strategies to encourage pro-environmental behaviour at work

Indigenous children living nearby plantations with chlorpyrifos-treated bags have elevated 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol (TCPy) urinary concentrations

Results suggest that the general living environment of children from the banana village is contaminated with chlorpyrifos, detected in air, soil, surface water, mattress and house dust samples, and in all the hand and foot wash samples. Chlorpyrifos is a chlorinated organophosphate (OP) insecticide, a neurotoxinant which inhibits plasma and red blood cell (RBC) acetylcholinesterase. Three US children’s cohort studies have reported neurodevelopmental deficits in relation to prenatal exposures to organophosphates in general. The substitution of the chlorpyrifos-treated bags with agro-ecological pest control methods, are likely to improve children’s health and environment in banana and plantain growing regions

Pesticide use in banana plantations in Costa Rica-A review of environmental and human exposure, effects and potential risks

Biodiversity is declining on a global scale. Especially tropical ecosystems, containing most of the planetary biodiversity, are at risk. Agricultural monocrop systems contribute to this decline as they replace original hab-itats and depend on extensive use of synthetic pesticides that impact ecosystems. In this review we use large-scale banana production for export purposes in Costa Rica as an example for pesticide impacts, as it is in production for over a century and uses pesticides extensively for more than fifty years. We summarise the research on pesticide exposure, effects and risks for aquatic and terrestrial environment, as well as for human health. We show that exposure to pesticides is high and relatively well-studied for aquatic systems and humans, but hardly any data are available for the terrestrial compartment including adjacent non target ecosystems such as rainforest fragments. Ecological effects are demonstrated on an organismic level for various aquatic species and processes but are not available at the population and community level. For human health studies exposure evaluation is crucial and recognised effects include various types of cancer and neurobiological dysfunctions particularly in children. With the many synthetic pesticides involved in banana production, the focus on insecticides, revealing highest aquatic risks, and partly herbicides should be extended to fungicides, which are applied aerially over larger areas. The risk assessment and regulation of pesticides so far relies on temperate models and test species and is therefore likely underestimating the risk of pesticide use in tropical ecosystems, with crops such as banana. We highlight further research approaches to improve risk assessment and, in parallel, urge to follow other strategies to reduce pesticides use and especially hazardous substances

Demonstration of antibiotic-induced tolerance development in tropical agroecosystems through physiological profiling of sediment microbial communities

Agricultural use of antibiotics differs quantitatively and qualitatively in tropical and temperate countries. To gain insight into the nature and magnitude of physiological adaptations prompted by these drugs in microbial communities from tropical agroecosystems, we compared community-level physiological profiles of sediment bacteria from a protected wetland (PV), a pig farm (RD), treated (TIL1) and untreated effluents (TIL2) from a tilapia farm, an estuary close to shrimp farms (CA), and an irrigation channel adjacent to a rice plantation (AZ) exposed to a range of oxytetracycline (OTC) concentrations in Ecoplates (Biolog®). In addition, we used LC/MS/MS and plate counts to determine the concentration of OTC and the number of OTC-resistant bacteria in the samples, respectively. Water samples collected at RD contained maximum amounts of OTC (640 ng L-1), followed by TIL2 (249 ng L-1), TIL1 (72 ng L-1), and CA (85 ng L-1). In average, the microbial community of RD was more tolerant to OTC (EC50: 14.30 ± 3.12 mg L-1) than bacteria from CA (8.83 ± 1.85 mg Ll-1), TIL2 (EC50: 4.97 ± 1.43 mg L-1), TIL1 (4.25 ± 0.60 mg L-1), AZ (3.66 ± 0.97 mg L-1) and PV (3.77 ± 0.62 mg L-1). Congruently, PV, AZ, TIL1, CA, TIL2, and RD appeared in that order in a cumulative distribution of individual EC50 values and higher plate counts of bacteria resistant to 10 µg mL-1 (5.0x105- 1.5x107) and 100 µg mL-1 of OTC (1.5x104-8.4x105) were obtained for RD than for the other sites (10 µg ml-1: 4.8x104-3.3x105 and 100 µg mL-1: 1.0x102-4.4x103). These results are compatible with a scenario in which the basal level of tolerance to OTC that characterizes pristine environments (PV) is amplified in proportion to the intensity of antibiotic exposure (agriculture<aquaculture<swine farming).UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias de la Salud::Centro de Investigación en Enfermedades Tropicales (CIET

Empirical agent-based modelling of everyday pro-environmental behaviours at work

We report on agent-based modelling work in the LOCAW project (Low Carbon at Work: Modelling Agents and Organisations to Achieve Transition to a Low Carbon Europe). The project explored the effectiveness of various backcasting scenarios conducted with case study organisations in bringing about pro-environmental change in the workforce in the domains of transport, energy use and waste. The model used qualitative representations of workspaces in formalising each scenario, and decision trees learned from questionnaire responses to represent decision-making. We describe the process by which the decision trees were constructed, noting that the use of decision trees in agent-based models requires particular considerations owing to the potential use of explanatory variables in model dynamics. The results of the modelling in various scenarios emphasise the importance of structural environmental changes in facilitating everyday pro-environmental behaviour, but also show there is a role for psychological variables such as norms, values and efficacy. As such, the topology of social interactions is a potentially important driver, raising the interesting prospect that both workplace geography and organisational hierarchy have a role to play in influencing workplace pro-environmental behaviours