Volume 1

2015

Articles in this volume

Tasos Hovardas, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)

Analysis: A template for addressing the social dimension in the study of socio-

scientific issues, pp. 1-12.

Evangelos Manolas, Promoting Pro-environmental Behavior: Overcoming

Barriers, pp. 13-21.

John Karamichas, Sport Mega-Event Hosting and Environmental Concern:

From Sydney to Rio, pp. 22-39.

Yiannis Moysiadis, Chrisovaladis Malesios & Iosif Botetzagias, The

impact of distance on a ‘NIMBY’ stance towards windfarms’ development, pp.

40-61.

Andreas Y. Troumbis, Disruptions in environmental sciences: tracking changes

in scientific priorities and concepts (1970-2014), pp. 62-71.

Published by: Department of Environment, University of the Aegean, 81100, Mytilene, Greece

ISSN: 2241-9829

Website: http://www.env.aegean.gr/aejes/

Editors-In-Chief

Iosif Botetzagias

University of the Aegean,

Greece

iosif@aegean.gr

Environmental Politics, Policy and

Sociology, Environmental Economics and

Management & Environmental Education

Panayiotis Dimitrakopoulos

University of the Aegean,

Greece

pdimi@env.aegean.gr

Biodiversity and Conservation, Global

Environmental Change

Athanasios Stasinakis

University of the Aegean,

Greece

astas@aegean.gr

Environmental Pollution and

Restoration, Environmental Health and

Toxicology, Global Environmental

Change

Editorial Board

Christos Akratos University of Patras, Greece

Henrik Rasmus Andersen Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

George Biskos The Cyprus Institute, Cyprus

Aleh Cherp Central European University (CEU), Hungary

Athanasios Chimis Centre for Planning and Economic Research, Greece

Konstantinos Evangelinos University of the Aegean, Greece

Angeliki Fotiadi University of Patras, Greece

Johannes Foufopoulos University of Michigan, USA

Nikos Fyllas National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Petros Gaganis University of the Aegean, Greece

Alexandros Georgopoulos Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Evangelos Gerasopoulos National Observatory of Athens, Greece

Nikolaos Hatzianastassiou University of Ioannina, Greece

Nikoletta Jones Open University, UK

Olga-Ioanna Kalantzi University of the Aegean, Greece

Athanasios Kallimanis University of Patras, Greece

Editorial Board (continued)

Giorgos Kallis Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalunya

John Karamichas Queens’ University Belfast, UK

Elena Kazakou Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, France

Georgios Kokkoris University of the Aegean, Greece

Constantinos Korfiatis University of Cyprus, Cyprus

Effie Kostopoulou University of the Aegean, Greece

Haralampos Koutalakis National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Joop de Kraker Open University, the Netherlands

Dimitra Lambropoulou Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Evangelos Manolas Democritus University of Thrace, Greece

Christos Matsoukas University of the Aegean, Greece

Myrto Petreas California Environmental Protection Agency, USA

Eftichis Sartzetakis University of Macedonia, Greece

Palanivel Sathishkumar Universiti Teknologi, Malaysia

Constantina Skanavis University of the Aegean, Greece

Dimitris Stevis Colorado State University, USA

Kostas Theodorou University of the Aegean, Greece

Nikolaos Thomaidis National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Andreas Troumbis University of the Aegean, Greece

Joseph Tzanopoulos University of Kent, UK

Chloe Vlassopoulou Université de Picardie - Jules Verne (UPJV), France

Ioannis Vyrides Technical University of Cyprus, Cyprus

1

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis: A template for addressing the social dimension in the study of socio-scientific issues

Tasos Hovardas, Ph.D.

A U T H O R I N F O A B S T R A C T

Tasos Hovardas is an Adjunct

Lecturer at the Department of

Primary Education, University of

Thessaly, Greece, and at the

Department of Education,

University of Cyprus, Cyprus.

email: hovardas@ucy.ac.cy

Recent research has stressed the particularities and importance

behind the social component in the study of socio-scientific

issues (SSIs). However, teachers face difficulties when they

have to develop pedagogical plans for dealing with the social

dimension of SSIs, which mainly relate to the lack of relevant

materials and the need to provide students with decision-

making heuristics. The objective of the current paper is to

respond to these calls by presenting the template of ‘Strengths

and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats’ (SWOT) analysis

as a tool for addressing the social component in the study of

SSIs. A pilot implementation of the template is presented,

which involved pre-service primary teachers and concentrated

on bear conservation in three NATURA 2000 sites in Central

Greece. Implications for environmental education and

education for sustainability are examined, including the contrast

between the instrumental and emancipatory approaches in

environmental education and a procedural conceptualization of

sustainability.

K E Y W O R D S (in alphabetical order): Social heterogeneity; Socio-scientific issues; Stakeholders;

Sustainability; SWOT analysis

Introduction

Socio-scientific issues (SSIs) usually appear

in the form of social dilemmas, which are

characterized by a predominant linkage to

science (Sadler 2004). Many SSIs reveal a focus

on environment/nature and these are most

frequently dealt with in environmental education

and education for sustainability (Klosterman et

al. 2012; Laws et al. 2004; Robottom 2012;

Tomas and Ritchie 2012; Van Weelie and Wals

2002). Despite the fact that the study of SSIs has

to be built on a solid scientific knowledge base

(Lewis and Leach 2006; Robottom 2012), there

is a series of ethical questions that arise in SSIs

due to multifaceted interactions between science

and society (Hovardas and Korfiatis 2011; Sadler

2004;). Therefore, among the core learning goals

in studying SSIs is the learners’ ability to form

reasoned judgments which integrate multiple

knowledge claims, stakeholder positions and

moral implications (Bell 2004; Boerwinkel et al.

2014; Carleton-Hug and Hug 2010; Lundblad et

al. 2012; Sadler and Zeidler 2004; Zemplén

2007).

Recent research has stressed the particularities

as well as the importance of the social

Tasos Hovardas, SWOT analysis of the social dimension in socio-scientific issues

2

component in the study of SSIs. Taking the

social context into account is seen as a

prerequisite for a comprehensive exploration of

SSIs (Robottom 2012). The social framing of

SSIs unravels their constructedness within

particular communities of interest and the

appropriation of scientific knowledge to serve

interests of social groups engaged in SSIs

(Simonneaux and Simonneaux 2009a). In this

direction, Robottom (2012) argued that the

scientific dimension in addressing SSIs within

environmental education or education for

sustainability discourses will always remain

insufficient as long as the social embededness of

SSIs is not properly approached. SSIs can

provide a vehicle for unraveling the

heterogeneity of the multiple, diverging or

converging, perspectives present in a society

(Bell 2004; Dobson 2003; Klosterman et al.

2012; Wals et al. 2008) and for promoting

tolerance for all possible outcomes of a radically

indeterminate democratic deliberation process,

which may result in either reaching consensus or

a respectful disagreement (Bell 2004; Jickling

and Wals 2008). Such an approach to the study

of SSIs is expected to foster public involvement

in environmental governance (Ferkany and

Whyte 2012; Simonneaux and Simonneaux

2009b).

Previous research has shown that teachers

face difficulties when they have to develop

pedagogical plans for teaching SSIs, which

mainly refer to the social dimension of SSIs

(Ekborg et al. 2013; Lee and Witz 2009).

Educators highlighted the unavailability of

relevant materials as one of the prime obstacles

hindering a comprehensive appreciation of the

social implications of SSIs (Kara 2012). There is

also a need to provide students with decision-

making heuristics, which could structure and

scaffold inquiry in the social dimension of SSIs

(Lee 2007; Levinson 2006), especially the

heterogeneity of the social field in dealing with

SSIs (Acar et al. 2010). The objective of the

current paper is to respond to these calls by

presenting the template of ‘Strengths and

Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats’

(SWOT) analysis as a tool to address the social

component in the study of SSIs.

The social dimension in the study of socio-

scientific issues

The prefix ‘socio-’ in SSIs might refer to a

variety of topics, for instance, nature of science

(Lederman et al. 2014), the contingent character

of scientific knowledge and uncertainty in

science (Schinkel 2009; Wals et al. 2008).

Another aspect of the social dimension in SSIs

addresses the development of argumentation and

decision-making skills in value-based reasoning

(Acar et al. 2010; Lee 2007; Wu and Tsai 2007).

In this direction, learners have the opportunity to

follow the pathways through which the scientific

knowledge is selectively used and re-

contextualized in order to serve non-scientific

ends (Robottom 2012). An additional facet of the

social dimension in the study of SSIs refers to

inter-group relations in cases of conflict or

deliberation concerning natural resources

management (Levinson 2006; Simonneaux and

Simonneaux 2009a, b). This latter topic focuses

on the way different stakeholder groups take

position in environmental controversies or

change their position in accordance to the social

dynamics displayedat play (Hovardas 2013).

A pedagogical strategy which would focus on

social heterogeneity and social actor dynamics in

SSIs seems able to account for the context-

AEJES (2015) 1, 1-12

3

specificity of sustainability. In this regard,

sustainability is to be conceived of as a

democratic deliberation process rather than a

given end-state of society to be attained (Van

Weelie and Wals 2002; Wals and Jickling, 2002;

Wals 2010). This conceptualization aims at

fostering skills of ‘how to think’ instead of ‘what

to think’ in a top-down fashion (Day and Monroe

2000; Dobson 2003; Schinkel 2009). At this

point, two contrasting perspectives are

distinguished in environmental education and

education for sustainability. On the one side, the

instrumental perspective (teaching ‘what to

think’), which embodies transformative

objectives and directs learners’ reasoning and

behavior towards pre-determined ways of

preferred thought and action (Hailwood 2005;

Keene and Blumstein 2010; Mitchell and

Mueller 2011; Orr 1994); on the other side, the

emancipatory perspective (teaching ‘how to

think’), which wishes to respect learners’

autonomy and it abstains from fostering certain

values or attitudes and propagating certain types

of behavior (Wals et al. 2008; Zemplén 2007).

The study of the social dimension of SSIs

within the frame of the emancipatory perspective

in environmental education and education for

sustainability, rests on not imposing certain

values, attitudes or behaviors on learners.

However, formulating learning goals as well as

orchestrating and scaffolding learning activities

has to develop on an affirmative background.

The question here is how could educators

formulate learning goals and structure learning

activities without privileging certain values,

attitudes or behaviors (see for instance Hovardas

and Korfiatis 2012a). Another important

question relates to a potential relativism which

could be latent in the emancipatory approach: if

we were not to select desired values, attitudes

and behaviors as intended outcomes in

environmental education and education for

sustainability, then we might end up in a

situation where ‘anything goes’ or where we

would not know what could come after

identifying different stakeholder positions. In the

next section of the paper we will present and

discuss an adjusted version of SWOT analysis

which may help us accounting for the

aforementioned implications and structuring the

social component in the study of SSIs.

SWOT analysis as a template for addressing

the social dimension in SSIs

SWOT analysis is frequently used in

environmental management as a diagnostic

method to identify key factors influencing the

success or failure of an organization’s project

(Masozera et al. 2006; Geneletti et al. 2007;

Lozano and Vallés 2007). The standard

application of SWOT analysis is based on a

template, which provides the necessary heuristics

to examine the future prospects of an

organization. This investigation is structured in

terms of potential that may promote, or barriers

that may hinder, the achievement of the

organization’s goals.

A distinction is made between the

characteristics of the organization itself and the

elements which are attributed to the

organization’s environment (Table 1). In this

regard, the organization’s potential to

accomplish its objectives is judged against both

inner (i.e., that pertain to the organization itself)

as well as outer (i.e., environmental) aspects that

may be mobilized in order to accomplish the

goals of the organization. Inner aspects are

termed ‘strengths’, while outer aspects are called

Tasos Hovardas, SWOT analysis of the social dimension in socio-scientific issues

4

‘opportunities’. In an analogous manner, barriers

can be found within the organization (termed,

‘weaknesses’) or in the environment surrounding

the organization (,‘threats’). The result of the

SWOT analysis offers insights concerning the

trajectory of the organization categorized in

‘strengths’ that should be supported (i.e., inner

potential), ‘opportunities’ that have to be sought

(i.e., environmental prospects), ‘weaknesses’ that

must be overcome (i.e., inner barriers), and

‘threats’ that ought to be alleviated (i.e.,

environmental hindrances).

Table 1: Template of Strengths, Weaknesses,

Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis.

Aspects that

pertain to the

organization

itself; inner

characteristics

Aspects that

refer to the

environment

of the organi-

zation

Potential that

might promote

the organiza-

tion’s goals

Strengths

Opportunities

Barriers that

might hinder

the achieve-

ment of the

organization’s

goals

Weaknesses

Threats

SWOT analysis can be easily adapted to serve

as a template in addressing the social dimension

in the study of SSIs (Table 2). SSIs in

environmental education and education for

sustainability most often engage a series of

social groups that have a stake in the issue at

hand. For each stakeholder group, one can

identify in-group factors that are decisive for the

SSI under study as well as factors that determine

inter-group relations among stakeholders. In a

fashion similar to the standard use of SWOT

analysis, in-group factors include beliefs,

knowledge/skills, intentions, and behaviors

which may either enable stakeholders converge

and reach consensus in the SSI under study (i.e.,

‘strengths’) or lead to divergence or conflict (i.e.,

‘weaknesses’). Further, aspects of inter-group

relations decisive for consensus involve possible

fields of convergence or cooperation between

stakeholder groups (i.e., ‘opportunities’), while

aspects of inter-group relations that might lead to

conflict include possible fields of divergence or

competition between stakeholder groups (i.e.,

‘threats’).

Table 2. Template of Strengths, Weaknesses,

Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis

adapted for addressing the social dimension in

the study of socio-scientific issues.

Aspects that

pertain to each

stakeholder

group; in-group

factors

Aspects of

inter-group

relations

between

stakeholder

groups

Potential of

increasing

convergence

between

stakeholder

groups and

reaching

solutions

Strengths

(Beliefs, knowle-

dge/skills, inten-

tions, and beha-

viors that can

allow stakeholder

groups to achieve

consensus)

Opportunities

(Possible

fields of

agreement or

cooperation

between

stakeholder

groups)

Barriers that

might

increase

divergence

between

stakeholder

groups and

lead to

conflict

Weaknesses

(Beliefs,

knowledge/skills,

intentions, and

behaviors that

might prevent

stakeholder

groups from

achieving

consensus)

Threats

(Possible

fields of dis-

agreement or

competetion

between

stakeholder

groups)

AEJES (2015) 1, 1-12

5

A stakeholder-based SWOT analysis can be

used by environmental educators for providing

guidance and scaffolding while addressing the

social dimension in the study of SSIs. Learners

will first need to identify social actors engaged in

the SSI under study. Then, ‘strengths’,

‘weaknesses’, ‘opportunities’ and ‘threats’ for

each social group will have to be determined.

This might be operationalized by means of

webquests, interviews and focus group

discussions with stakeholder group members or

surveys targeting stakeholders. Students will

gather information and process this information

to complete the SWOT template. In a simulation

of inter-group relations and deliberation

processes, students can build on ‘strengths’, try

to eliminate ‘weaknesses’, exploit

‘opportunities’, and mitigate the effect of

‘threats’ in order to reach potential sustainable

solutions. This might take the form of role play

or round table discussions. The overall objective

will be to unravel and elaborate on the social

heterogeneity in social actors’ perspectives on

SSIs.

Pilot implementation of SWOT analysis for

studying the social dimension in the issue of

bear conservation in Central Greece,

Prefecture of Thessaly

A pilot implementation of SWOT analysis for

studying the social dimension of SSIs

concentrated on bear conservation in Central

Greece, Prefecture of Thessaly. The bear

population in Greece seems to follow the general

trend observed throughout Europe, where

population sizes of large carnivores have

stabilized, or even increased in some cases, and

large carnivores re-colonize areas where they

have been absent for many decades (Hovardas

and Korfiatis 2012b). Three NATURA 2000

sites in Central Greece include about 30-40

brown bears (Ursus arctos), which amount to

slightly over 15% of the total bear population in

Greece. Brown bears are permanently present in

Aspropotamos (GR1440001) and Kerketio Oros-

Koziakas (GR1440002), which both include

priority bear habitat. Brown bears seem to use

Antichasia Ori - Meteora (GR1440003) as a

dispersal corridor to move to the east and re-

colonize a former bear range. Stabilizing

population sizes and the comeback of the brown

bear in areas where people have forgotten how to

live with the species presents a challenge for

rural communities. At the same time, bear

conservation projects for dissemination of best

practice in terms of damage prevention methods

have engaged environmental non-governmental

organizations (eNGOs) in the area (see LIFE

EX-TRA (2013) for a comprehensive

presentation of NATURA 2000 sites and

environmental conservation initiatives).

Students at the Department of Primary

Education at the University of Thessaly, Greece,

undertook the pilot implementation of SWOT

analysis as part of an environmental education

course. Overall, 12 pre-service primary teachers

(at the 5th

semester of their studies) participated

in this pilot implementation, which took the form

of a project (winter semester 2011-2012).

Students first developed webquests to identify

key stakeholders in bear conservation and

delineate stakeholder positions. Stakeholders

included stock-breeders, hunters, foresters, and

eNGOs (Table 3). Students then used webquest

reports to prepare interview schedules for semi-

structured interviews with members of

stakeholder groups. A number of interviewees

were first indicated by local authorities in the

Tasos Hovardas, SWOT analysis of the social dimension in socio-scientific issues

6

three NATURA 2000 sites while the rest of

interviewees were selected by means of a

snowball technique. All interviews took place in

the towns of Kalampaka and Trikala, the main

urban centers in the area. After a training

session, pre-service primary teachers conducted

and transcribed interviews to determine

‘strengths’, ‘weaknesses’, ‘opportunities’ and

‘threats’ for all stakeholder groups engaged in

bear conservation. Only common aspects across

all NATURA 2000 sites, i.e. aspects mentioned

by all respondents, were incorporated in the

template of SWOT analysis. Interviews stopped

when all information needed to complete the

template was gathered, while students undertook

about three to four interviews with members of

each stakeholder group, each interview lasting

about 30 minutes. When a first draft of the

template of the SWOT analysis had been

prepared, a focus group discussion was

organized to validate the outcome of interviews.

Two people from each stakeholder group were

invited and discussed the template under the

coordination of the author who acted as

facilitator. The template is shown, in its final

form, in Table 3. The content of the template

was used to develop a scenario for a role play

and a round table discussion, which were

presented to all other students who followed the

environmental education course.

As we can read from the first column in Table

3, stock-breeders in the three NATURA 2000

sites acknowledged that electric fences have

been effective as a damage prevention method

for apiarists elsewhere. This knowledge might

prove significant in achieving consensus among

stakeholders in bear conservation because

electric fences can be endorsed as a damage

prevention method by stock-breeders too (refer

to ‘Strengths’ row in Table 3). However, electric

fences cannot be used for free-ranging animals.

In this case, there is the option of guarding dogs

as an alternative damage prevention method. The

fact that there is yet no valid way of certifying

guarding dogs was highlighted by stock-breeders

as an important deficiency, which discouraged

them from joining stock-breeder networks that

aim at breeding and distributing guarding dogs

(row depicting ‘Weaknesses’). A quite

interesting finding was that stock-breeders could

accept a minimum of damage to their livestock

caused by the bear, which outlines a possible line

of agreement between stock-breeders and

eNGOs (row depicting ‘Opportunities’).

However, there exist a substantial number of

stock-breeders who do not record damages they

suffer because they believe that they would not

get any compensation (row depicting ‘threats’).

This aspect has been noted as a point of tension

between stock-breeders, foresters, and eNGOs.

In an analogous manner, one can follow

‘strengths’, ‘weaknesses’, ‘opportunities’ and

‘threats’ for all other stakeholder groups along

the rest of the columns in Table 3. Scenarios that

were developed by pre-service primary teachers

for role play and round table discussions built on

‘strengths’ and ‘opportunities’ and tried to

address ‘weaknesses’ and ‘threats’ in order to

promote bear conservation.

Discussion and implications for

environmental education and education for

sustainability

The template of SWOT analysis can prove a

valuable tool in addressing calls for decision-

making heuristics, which could structure and

scaffold inquiry in the social dimension of SSIs

(Acar et al. 2010; Kara 2012; Lee 2007;

AEJES (2015) 1, 1-12

7

Levinson 2006). After being appropriately integrated in educational interventions, the tem-

Table 3. Strenghts and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis for brown bear

conservation in three NATURA 2000 sites in Central Greece (Aspropotamos – GR1440001; Kerketio

Oros-Koziakas – GR1440002; Antichasia Ori - Meteora – GR1440003).

* eNGOs = environmental non-governmental organizations.

Stock-breeders Hunters Foresters eNGOs*

Strengths

(Beliefs,

knowledge/skills,

intentions, and

behaviors that can

allow stakeholder

groups to achieve

consensus)

Stock-breeders

acknowledge that

electric fences

have been

effective as a

damage prevention

method for

apiarists elsewhere

Hunters wish to

be involved in

nature

conservation

initiatives

Foresters have

valuable experience

in nature

conservation gained

through working in

the local area and

with the local

societies

A democratic

mandate for

public

involvement

prevails among

members of

eNGOs

Weaknesses

(Beliefs,

knowledge/skills,

intentions, and

behaviors that might

prevent stakeholder

groups from

achieving

consensus)

Stock-breeders

know that there is

yet no valid way

of certifying

guarding dogs

The cost of

hunting dogs is

extremely high

and, therefore,

any damage to

hunting dogs will

comprise a signi-

ficant financial

loss for hunters

Financial and

organizational

barriers create a

strong feeling of

inability among

foresters concer-

ning the fulfillment

of their mission

There are a series

of objectives

formulated by

eNGOs that are

not adequately

adapted to the

local context

Opportunities

(Possible fields of

agreement or

cooperation between

stakeholder groups)

Stock-breeders can

accept a minimum

of damage to their

livestock caused

by the bear

Hunters are

willing to support

financially net-

works of breeding

and distributing

guarding dogs

between stock-

breeders

Foresters are

institutionally

responsible for the

implementation of a

series of nature

conservation

measures

eNGOs strongly

support compen-

sation systems

because they

might decrease

conflicts between

stock-breeders

and bears

Threats

(Possible fields of

disagreement or

competition between

stakeholder groups)

Many stock-

breeders do not

record damages

they suffer becau-

se they believe

they would not get

any compensation

Conflict between

stock-breeders

and hunters

usually escalates

by using poisoned

baits

Foresters have

withdrawn from

many nature con-

servation networks

Negative attitudes

towards eNGOs

are still present

among other

social groups

Tasos Hovardas, SWOT analysis of the social dimension in socio-scientific issues

8

plate of SWOT analysis might be used in upper

primary education, lower and upper secondary

education, and tertiary education. The template

can be combined with webquests to introduce

students in the social landscape and define social

groups that have a stake at SSIs under study.

Social research methods, such as interviews,

focus group discussions and surveys can be

employed to gather data, validate findings, and

complete the template. Finally, pedagogical

methods such as role play and round table

discussions can make use of the template’s

content to simulate social actor dynamics and

explore the potential of reaching consensus

among stakeholder groups.

Apart from bear conservation that served as a

pilot study in the present paper, the template of

SWOT analysis can assist in examining

stakeholder group positions and actor dynamics

engaged in a wide array of SSIs. Since the

template is not case-sensitive, it can be easily

modified to account for new case studies by

identifying the appropriate stakeholder groups.

By tracking and simulating inter-group

interactions between social groups involved in

SSIs, the overall objective of using the SWOT

template is to unravel and elaborate upon the

heterogeneity that characterizes the social fabric

in dealing with SSIs (Simonneaux and

Simonneaux 2009a, b). In this regard, the

template of SWOT analysis allows

environmental educators to formulate learning

goals and orchestrate learning activities on an

affirmative basis within the emancipatory

perspective, where values, attitudes or behaviors

are not to be imposed upon learners (Hovardas

2013).

A final point to be discussed refers to the

latent relativism that could be inherent in the

emancipatory approach, which could end up in a

situation where learners would just celebrate

social heterogeneity and appreciate the validity

of any social actor’s beliefs, knowledge/skills,

intentions, and behaviors. In this regard, we

should highlight the fact that the template of

SWOT analysis enables the investigation of

points where stakeholder groups could diverge or

converge and, thereby, enables the potential of

seeking consensus and reaching solutions

concerning the social component of SSIs. This

potential provides a valuable and insightful

reference base, which precludes relativism in the

sense that ‘anything goes’ (see for instance

Hovardas 2012). Further, such a perspective

suggests a procedural conceptualization of

sustainability (Van Weelie and Wals 2002; Wals

and Jickling 2002; Wals 2010), where the latter

has to be experienced as a democratic

deliberation process rather than as a pre-given

end-state to be sought.

Acknowledgments: I am grateful to all students

and interviewees who took part in the pilot

implementation of SWOT analysis at the

University of Thessaly, Greece.

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13

Promoting Pro-environmental Behavior: Overcoming Barriers

Evangelos Manolas, Ph.D.

A U T H O R I N F O A B S T R A C T

Evangelos Manolas is an

Associate Professor of Sociology

and Environmental-Forest Educa-

tion at the Department of Forestry

and Management of the Environ-

ment and Natural Resources,

School of Agricultural and Forestry

Sciences, Democritus University

of Thrace, Greece.

email: emanolas@fmenr.duth.gr

Since many of today’s environmental problems are rooted in

human actions then the solutions to these challenges lie in

changes in human behavior. The barriers which impede

peoples’ environmental choices can be divided into two

categories, external or structural, e.g. institutional, economic,

social and cultural, and internal or individual, e.g. motivation,

pro-environmental knowledge, awareness, values, attitudes,

emotion, locus of control, responsibilities and priorities. This

paper: 1) considers seven individual barriers to pro-

environmental behavior, i.e. ignorance or lack of knowledge,

confidence in the power of technology to solve problems,

reluctance to change lifestyles, fatalism, helplessness, inertia

and fear, 2) discusses ways these individual barriers may be

overcome and 3) raises questions which would need to be

answered if mankind is to move to the creation of more

sustainable societies.

K E Y W O R D S (in alphabetical order): Barriers; Communication; Environmental problems; General

public; Individual responsibility

Introduction

Nowadays the environment faces many and

serious environmental problems among which

water pollution, air pollution, deforestation,

water shortages, nuclear wastes and radiation

issues, loss of biodiversity, global warming.

Since many of these problems are rooted in

human actions then the solutions to these

challenges lie in changes in human behavior

(Gifford 2011).

Pro-environmental behavior is defined as

“behavior that consciously seeks to minimize the

negative impact of one’s actions on the natural

and built world” (Kolmuss and Agyeman 2002)

or as “behavior that harms the environment as

little as possible, or even benefits the

environment” (Steg and Vlek 2009).

The barriers which impede environmental

choices can be divided into two categories,

external or structural, e.g. institutional,

economic, social and cultural, and internal or

individual, e.g. motivation, pro-environmental

knowledge, awareness, values, attitudes,

emotion, locus of control, responsibilities and

priorities (Kollmus and Agyeman 2002). Some

examples of external or structural barriers may

be low income, living in a rural area or in a

region with cold winters: “Low income severely

limits one’s ability to purchase solar panels,

living in a rural area usually means public

transport does not exist as an alternative to

driving, and living in a region with cold winters

restricts one’s ability to reduce home-heating-

based energy use” (Gifford 2011).

Evangelos Manolas, Promoting pro-environmental behavior

14

However, if people are not restricted by

structural barriers - thus engagement in

environmentally responsible behaviors is

possible - but this behavior is not occurring,

what could be the reason? The reason is internal

or individual barriers. Individuals are important.

For example, with regard to combating climate

change individual behavior contributes 30 to 40

percent to greenhouse gas emissions (Lawrence

2008).

General population surveys consistently

inform us that the public ranks the environment

(and global warming in particular) as a very low

priority in comparison with other issues. The

Pew Research Center survey regarding public

priorities for 2010 found that in the U.S. global

warming was included in the 20 top issues. Only

28 percent considered global warming a top

issue, following the issues of immigration and

lobbyists. With regard to Europe only 4 percent

of Europeans in the 27 nations of the European

Union selected the environment as one of the

two most important issues of the continent. As in

the US, the economy is the top issue. Even

immigration is more important than the

environment in the Eurobarometer 72 poll

(Hayward 2010).

This paper: 1) considers seven individual

barriers to pro-environmental behavior, i.e.

ignorance or lack of knowledge, confidence in

the power of technology to solve problems,

reluctance to change lifestyles, fatalism, inertia,

helplessness and fear, 2) discusses ways these

individual barriers may be overcome and 3) and

raises questions which would need to be

answered if mankind is to move to the creation

of more sustainable societies. Particular attention

is paid to the problem of climate change, the

most serious of the environmental problems

facing humanity today. For reasons mentioned

earlier the paper is organized with the needs of

the general public in mind.

Barriers

The following seven barriers to

environmentally responsible behavior are among

the most important:

Ignorance or lack of knowledge may be

defined as not being aware of the existence of a

problem and not knowing how to act once one

knows of the existence of a problem.

Confidence in the power of technology refers

to the hope many people have that serious

problems can or will be solved by technology.

Reluctance to change lifestyles refers to

people being hostile to lowering their standard of

living, inconvenience, and cost (monetary or

time).

Fatalism refers to feeling that “It’s too late to

do anything”, “We can’t do anything”, or “It’s a

waste of time”.

The feeling of helplessness is fostered by the

scale of the problem, i.e. the large regional or

global nature of many environmental problems.

Inertia is rooted on habit, acting just as in the

past.

Fear means feeling fearful in facing

environmental problems. One consequence of

fear is that it may cause people to deny the threat

(Oskamp 2000; 2002; Lorenzoni, Nicholson-

Cole and Whitmarsh 2007; Steg and Vlek 2009;

Gifford 2011)

Overcoming barriers

Save energy. Saving energy is important but such

requests need to be presented in a form more

likely to lead to effective action. For example,

when referring to the average American citizen,

AEJES (2015) 1, 13-21

15

Layzer and Moomaw suggest, in their Afterword

in Emanuel’s book (2007), that if a person who

is driving 1000 a year is to achieve a 3%

reduction of emissions per year, he or she could

drive 30 miles less, or ride with someone else or

use mass transportation or drive less

aggressively. Even better, if a person buys a

hybrid car he will immediately reduce his

emissions by 50% - the equivalent of a 3%

annual saving for 23 years. In addition, regarding

buildings, they argue that it would be relatively

easy for Americans to reduce their emissions

simply by adding insulation and energy saving

lighting. Furthermore, for better results, old

domestic appliances could be replaced with new

ones and old heating systems be replaced with

modern ones.

The above information could have been

presented in a more convincing form. For

example, Gardner and Stern (2009) constructed a

table in which they divide 27 different actions

individuals and / or households can take in order

to save energy into two general categories.

Actions in the first category involve curtailing

the use of existing energy equipment, or in other

words, using equipment less frequently or

intensively, while actions in the other category

involve adopting more energy-efficient

equipment or installing or maintaining efficiency

boosting modifications to existing energy

equipment. Each action is accompanied by the

percentage amount of energy saved.

Gardner and Stern (2009) then constructed

another table, based on the previous one, which

provides a short, prioritized, accurate, accessible,

and actionable list of the most effective actions

individuals and / or households can take to limit

climate change. This table lists 17 actions. The

first nine can be taken with little or no initial

monetary cost; six involve curtailment; and three

efficiency increases. All of the next eight involve

efficiency increases. Again, each action is

accompanied by the amount of energy saved

(percent). Commenting on the value of their

table Gardner and Stern (2009) point out that,

Readers can consider the first item in

each category to be the most possible

energy-saving action and give it top

priority if it has not already been taken

and is possible to take. By going item-

by-item down the table, householders

are guided to where the greatest

potential savings lie for them

specifically.

Individuals or households who can adopt all

17 of the listed actions can potentially cut their

consumption and emissions by half which will

be an important achievement if one takes into

account the importance of individuals or

households regarding carbon emissions in the

U.S.: “U.S. households account for about 38

percent of national carbon emissions through

their direct actions, a level of emissions greater

than that of any entire country except China and

larger than the entire U.S. industrial sector”.

Further, if similar percentages regarding carbon

emissions apply to other countries, e.g. U.K.

(Lawrence 2008; UKERC 2009), then lists such

the one discussed above may be useful to them,

too.

Such an effort helps to overcome the barriers

of inertia, helplessness and reluctance to change

lifestyles.

Encourage people to recycle and buy recycled

products. A recycled product is a product made

wholly or partly from material recovered from

the waste stream, e.g. a remanufactured laser

Evangelos Manolas, Promoting pro-environmental behavior

16

toner cartridge, recycled paper, and recycled

plastic lumber. The benefits of recycling include

saving natural resources, saving energy, saving

clean air and water, saving landfill and saving

money and creating jobs (Buying Recycled

2014).

One way of encouraging people to recycle is

to reward them for doing it. In the UK Eric

Pickles, the communities’ secretary, piloted a

reward scheme in Windsor and Maidenhead, in

which 70% of the families which were offered

the chance to take part, did so. It is noted that

“…the good people of Windsor and Maidenhead

voluntarily and possibly happily increased their

recycling by 35% in six months” (Garvey 2010).

Another way to encourage recycling is to set

an example. If neighbors see that you are

recycling and buying recyclable products, they

are likely to do the same. Or organize a recycling

event on the importance of recycling. Such an

initiative may encourage more people to begin

separating their recyclables from regular trash.

The event may include recycling games, food

and informational packets on the positive effects

of recycling (How to Encourage Recycling 2014)

Such an effort also helps to overcome the

barriers of inertia, helplessness and reluctance to

change lifestyles.

Use short but credible sources of information.

Oskamp (2002), in an important article on

teaching and promoting pro-environmental

behavior, has highlighted the importance of short

articles on guiding people what to do with regard

to saving the environment. He referred to a Time

article (published in 2001) titled “What You Can

Do”, listing 20 simple steps households can take

to combat climate change as well as similar lists

published by other bodies such as the Union of

Concerned Scientists.

Since then, due to the growth of the internet,

many updated and useful lists have been

published. Many organizations governmental or

non-governmental, national or international do

provide such lists or information in concise form

in their websites. For example, with regard to

combating climate change the reader should visit

the websites of organizations such the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC).

For those who want to read more there are

also excellent short pocket-size books such as

Preparing for Climate Change by Michael

Mastrandrea and Stephen Schneider (2010) or

What We Know about Climate Change by Kerry

Emanuel (2012). Both of these books are written

in language easy for everyone to understand.

The above practical suggestions contribute to

removing the motivational obstacle of

helplessness and combat the tendency to deny

dangers that is connected with fear appeals. They

also combat the barriers of ignorance and distrust

in information sources.

Scale from personal to planet. Starting with

global catastrophe will lead to fatalism, since

many people cannot vision how they, as

individuals, could deal with such a big issue. It is

important to start with what people can see

around them and care about the most. Start form

a local problem and move to other parts of the

country or the planet (Communicating on

Climate: 13 Steps and Guiding Principles 2013).

Use metaphors. Another way to increase the

effectiveness of climate change communication

AEJES (2015) 1, 13-21

17

is to use metaphors. For example, when people

ask how it is possible to predict climate 50 years

from now when we cannot even predict the

weather 15 days from today, they are actually

confusing weather and climate:

You might compare this with what

happens when you turn on the burner

under a pot of water; while you cannot

predict the time or place of any

particular bubble, you can say with

certainty that the water will be boiling in

about 10 minutes. Similarly, while we

cannot predict the age of death of any

particular person, we can say with

confidence that the average age of death

for people in the United States is 77[..]

How can scientists respond when people

say that climate has always changed, so

the current warming is probably also

natural? A good metaphor that reveals

the fallacy of this thinking is that just

because lightning strikes have long

caused forest fires does not mean fires

cannot also be caused by a careless

camper (Improving How Scientists

Communicate about Climate Change

2008)

Clearly metaphors can bring dry science to

life and can combat the barrier of ignorance.

Technology may not solve our problems. New

technologies have appeared for environmental

protection, technologies which were

unimaginable just a few years ago. Entire

ecosystems, e.g. the Amazon rainforest, can now

be monitored in nearly real time; satellite

communications can follow creatures such as the

jaguar and the puma; smartphones can be used to

report illegal logging. Such technological

achievements serve two purposes: reveal the

state of the world in details not seen before and

provide more information to more people in

different parts of the world.

The vast tropical forests of the Amazon and

the Congo function as the planet’s lungs,

inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen and

thus slowing climate change. The destruction of

tropical forests accounts for around ten percent

of the carbon emissions causing global warming.

The forest-surveillance technology called

“light detection and ranging” (LIDAR) “beams

powerful lasers through tree canopies to the

forest floor, which bounce back carrying highly

detailed data about the structure of the forest”

(Hoekstra 2014). There is also technology which

can recognize a range of seemingly

invisible characteristics, including a

tree’s photosynthetic pigments, its basic

structural compounds, and even the

water content of its leaves. Researchers

can use this data not only to estimate

carbon storage capacities but also to

analyze forest diversity and assess tree

health. With a single airplane, these

paired technologies can scan over

120,000 acres, or as many as 50 million

trees, in a single day. And the equipment

is so sophisticated that it can distinguish

among 200 different tree species

(Hoekstra 2014).

However, what should be noted regarding

tropical rainforests are the complex political and

economic realities of the often impoverished

tropical nations in which these forests lie: “There

are immense difficulties involved in terms of

nationalism and heritage, strategic military

implications, ownership and control over data,

deploying low-flying aircraft over conflict zones,

Evangelos Manolas, Promoting pro-environmental behavior

18

the fact that powerful interests will not want a

fair an honest accounting of carbon stocks, and

so on. A grande idea, but practically impossible

to implement and therefore doomed” (Six

Thoughts on “Worldwide LiDAR of Rainforest

Biomass for REDD+” 2014).

In the mid-1990s, P. Dee Boersma, a world

authority on penguin conservation, discovered

that Argentina’s oil pollution was responsible for

the death of as many as 40,000 penguins a year.

She used GPS tracking devices, at a time when

the technology was new and expensive, to

document where the birds were foraging. She

then cooperated with Argentinian authorities to

move the shipping lanes further away from the

coast, significantly reducing a mortality rate that

could have caused the penguins’ extinction

(Hoekstra 2014).

The increases in agricultural productivity

have improved the lives of billions of people but

have left this natural capital dangerously

depleted. The dramatic increases regarding

consumption of natural resources do not point to

a sustainable future. In the last 40 years people

have been consuming more resources than the

world’s natural capital can replenish and causing

more pollution than it can absorb. It is most

important to note that “in 2010, the nonprofit

organization the Global Footprint Network

calculated that humanity now requires roughly

1.5 earths to sustain its current level of

consumption each year. Put another way,

humanity now uses up a year’s supply of the

earth’s natural resources by mid-August. After

that, it is drawing down against the future

capacity of natural capital” (Hoekstra 2014).

However, technology is not always there

when we need it. Although the members of the

first human societies damaged their environment

very little, nevertheless, humans always used

some form of technology. The civilization of

Maya may have collapsed because of the failure

of its agricultural system to support a constantly

increasing population. Some civilizations in

Ancient Mesopotamia may have collapsed from

excessively saline soils as a result of the

irrigation systems they used (Kottis 1994)

In Northern Europe, not so long ago, the habit

of the inhabitants of various areas to leave

human and other organic waste anywhere-

anytime was the cause of epidemics of cholera

and typhus. In other occasions the huge number

of horses and other animals created conditions of

pollution which could be worse than those of

modern times (Seneca and Taussig 1979).

Others have noted that technology often does

not deliver even its own prospectus. For

example,

the Green Revolution, which doubled

global food production in the late 20th

century, has now stalled. And it may not

just be the Green Revolution. Canadian

futurologist Vaclav Smil, speaking at the

Sausalito event, argued that “all the

essential technologies” of modern life

are at least a century old. He noted, for

example, that the basic process of

manufacturing nitrogen fertiliser from

the air “hasn't changed since 1894”

(Pearce 2013)

It is wise to think of technological progress

with caution. Technology for various reasons

may not be available when we need it. And even

if it is, it is not certain that the data collected will

actually be used effectively.

This approach combats the obstacles of inertia

and unrealistic beliefs on the power of techno-

logy.

AEJES (2015) 1, 13-21

19

Use cooperative activities. Cooperative activity

toward common aims promotes group cohesion

and contributes to overcoming the obstacles of

inertia, helplessness, fatalism and fear. Gershon

and Moser (2012) offer these guidelines:

Hope is a precondition to effective action.

Actions without conviction and hope transmit to

others pessimism and undermine success.

Be clear on what we can hope for.

Create safe spaces for people to talk with peers

about their feelings, e.g. fear, anger, guilt, despair.

Help people to see their role in the change

process.

Build a sense of the collective as it lifts people

out of their more insular worlds.

Forming neighbor-to-neighbor engagement

efforts which produce results on a block level.

Use early adopters as models. Early adopters can

be the leverage point because they are already

receptive and well-equipped to influence their

peers.

Some questions for social scientists

The points discussed above lead to some

questions that social scientists should deal with if

mankind is to move to the creation of more

sustainable societies. These questions can serve

as springboard for further discussion:

1. Although there is a proliferation of published

scholarly work on climate change

communication and its effects on the general

public since the late 1990s then why is it that

carbon emissions continue to increase at

global and national levels and societies

continue to be vulnerable to climate

variability? How can we strengthen the field

of environmental communication?

2. What is sustainable development? Is it

possible for a society to continue to grow and

to be sustainable?

3. What are the best initiatives a social scientist

can take other than writing scholarly papers in

helping people adopt environmentally

responsible behaviors?

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Gap: Why Do People Act Environmentally and

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L. (2007), Barriers Perceived to Engaging with

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373–390. Available:

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b_Dezember/MenschengemachteErdzerstoerung.

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DF/09/0904Energy2050report.pdf

22

Sport Mega-Event Hosting and Environmental Concern: From Sydney to Rio

John Karamichas, Ph.D.

A U T H O R I N F O A B S T R A C T

John Karamichas is a Lecturer in

Sociology at the School of

Sociology, Social Policy and Social

Work, Queen’s University Belfast,

UK.

email: j.karamichas@qub.ac.uk

This paper examines the extent to which the proclamation by

the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Olympic

Games hosting can improve the environmental capacity of the

host nation holds. It singles out the post-event environmental

concern exhibited by the population of the host country as the

most important indicator and proceeds towards examining how

successive host nations have performed in relation to that. The

intervening variable of the global environmental crisis is put

under the microscope and as a result the general conclusion

suggests that environmental concern is much more tied to the

general socio-economic predicament that the host country finds

itself to be in the post-event phase than the successful hosting

of green Games.

K E Y W O R D S (in alphabetical order): Capacity building; Ecological modernization; Environmental

concern; Olympic games; Protest

Introduction

Sport mega-events and the environment

examined by a sociologist? Many may wonder,

what can sociology possibly tell us about sport

events and the environment problematic? The

truth is that both the athletic and the

environmental are two themes that only few

sociologists are incorporating in the sociological

sphere. This is an encapsulated by Bourdieu

(1990:156) in his famous saying, ‘the sociology

of sport: it is disdained by sociologists, and

despised by sportspeople’. One may add to this

disdain is equally acute in relation to the

environmental dimension.

Indeed, the truth is that any attempt to

attribute sociological linkages to the

environmental problematic still seems to puzzle

some sociological sectors. That appears to still

give support to an unjustifiable exclusion of the

environmental from the discipline.

Notwithstanding that exclusionary tendency,

only a few years ago, as climate change appeared

to have become the most valence issue of our

times and as the London Olympics were

approaching, British sociologists undertook a

critical and constructive outlook in relation to

sport and the environment. Characteristically,

that opening was confirmed by Anthony Giddens

(2009) in his The Politics of Climate Change, as

well as through a new chapter, Sociology, Sport

and the Olympics, in his popular undergraduate

textbook, Sociology (2008).

AEJES (2015) 1, 22-39

23

In this context, the conjunction of the

sociological to certain sections of the natural

sciences may become a self-evident and

necessary development. At the same time,

physical education studies can incorporate the

environmental interest since an increasing

number of sport events adopt Environmental

Management Systems (EMAs) and pursue the

measurement of their ecological footprint.

Olympic Games and the Environment

On a personal basis, my first engagement to

this issue was in relation to mobilizations by

environmental and local citizen groups against

the construction of a High-Voltage Power

Station (KYT) in two municipalities of the

Greater Athens’ area, Greece. In a context of

continuous mobilizations, the government linked

the construction of KYT to the Olympic projects.

The article that I wrote on this issue (Karamichas

2005) was first presented in June 2004 at the

Conference, Nature, Science, and Social

Movements, Mytilene. In that article I also

engaged with the environmental dimension of

other Olympic editions and the International

Olympic Committee’s (IOC) position on

environmental issues in general and the

sustainability legacy imbued to the host country

by staging the Games. Through that engagement

the following were substantiated:

1. The Sydney Olympics have been

heralded as the first green Olympic Games ever,

with positive reviews by environmental

organizations.

2. In 1994 (a year after the award of the

Games to Sydney) the ‘environment’ was

recognised as the third pillar of Olympism.

The following question was, then,

immediately raised in relation to the fact that the

aforementioned paper was very much stimulated

by environmental protest mobilizations against

projects linked to the 2004 Athens Games: To

what extent the organization of successful

‘Green Olympics’ is an one-off event or a

permanent platform for the transmission of green

principles? The importance of that question was

further accentuated with the highly critical

reports produced by core ENGOs (Greenpeace

and WWF) on the environmental record of the

Athens Games (see Karamichas 2012a).

Ecological Modernization – Environmental

Sustainability and Olympic Games

The IOC was late in adjusting to the

emergence and development of environmental

concern during the 1970s in the Western world.

Indeed, it was only in 1996, two decades after

Denver declined to host the Winter Olympics,

that the IOC made the environmental dimension

an essential component in the bid to host the

Games. Characteristically, the following

paragraph was added to the Olympic Charter that

defined the role of the IOC in relation to the

environmental issue:

the IOC sees that the Olympic Games

are held in conditions which

demonstrate a responsible concern for

environmental issues and encourages

John Karamichas, Sport mega-events and environmental concern

24

the Olympic Movement to demonstrate a

responsible concern for environmental

issues, takes measures to reflect such

concern in its activities and educates all

those connected with the Olympic

Movement as to the importance of

sustainable development (IOC 2007: x)

By 2007, the IOC and its then president,

Jacques Rogge, were honoured as champions of

the Earth by the United Nations Environmental

Programme (UNEP). In receiving the award

Rogge made the following statement:

Since the early 90s the IOC and the

Olympic Movement have progressively

taken the environment and sustainability

into account throughout the lifecycle of

an Olympic Games project. The ‘Green

Games’ concept is increasingly a reality.

Today from the beginning of a city’s

desire to stage an Olympic Games

through to the long-term impact of those

Games, environmental protection and

more importantly sustainability are

prime elements of Games planning and

operations. I am very proud of this and

would like to thank the UNEP for

recognising these efforts (Beijing 2008,

2007)

This statement substantiates the long term

impact of Games hosting envisaged by the IOC.

As it becomes more apparent in the following

paragraphs, IOC’s vision corresponds well to the

aspirations of the ecological modernization/

environmental sustainability mindset.

Environmental sustainability is used as distinct

from notions of sustainable development in the

study of the environmental factor in the sport

mega-event context (see Mol, 2010). Although

sustainable development is usually linked to the

environment, the fact is that is also intimately

linked to the social. Some have made a

distinction between weak and strong

interpretations of ecological modernization and

sustainable development (see Christoff 1996;

Hayes & Horne 2011).

Engrenage

The preparation to host the Games demands

the successful coordination of various state

institutional bodies, collaboration with civil

organizations and significant restructuring of the

host cities’ infrastructure. That is bound to have

a significant impact on the polity, the decision-

making process, organization, scientific

consultation and use of new technologies. In an

earlier work, Karamichas (2013a) has seen this

long term impact as analogous to a process

making an impact on a nation’s capacity for

Ecological Modernization (EM) (Weidner 2002).

That capacity for EM can be seen as

something akin to Jean Monnet’s Engrenage1, ‘in

that the process of meeting the IOC’s

environmental standards could both drag with it

the host nation’s institutional framework and set

1 ‘Engrenage’ can be seen as a gear stick whereby the

selection of a particular gear sets in motion certain cogs

that control the movement of the car. Similarly, the entry

of a country in the European process sets in motion a

number of institutional cogs that progressively influence

the whole of the policy framework adopted by the country.

AEJES (2015) 1, 22-39

25

a precedent that other nations will strive to

emulate’ (Karamichas 2012a:156). In order to

assess how this process evolves in the context of

sport mega-event hosting, the analyst has to

examine each of the phases in the hosting

endeavour, namely the pre-event, event and post-

event phases (see Hiller 2000).

Environmental concern from applying to host

the Games to the post-event era

The pre-event phase includes the application

made by prospective host nations. This

application is very much guided by a Manual for

Candidate Cities (MCC) that the IOC publishes

eight years before an Olympiad in order to

inform prospective candidates and guide their

applications.

Among others, such as Environmental Impact

Assessments (EIAs) and collaboration with Non-

Governmental Organizations (NGOs), candidate

cities must present plans to increase the

environmental awareness of their population.

The underlying assumption employed here is that

the implementation of all these can become a

substantial precedent for the transformation of

the planning of the host country, not only to meet

IOC’s requirements but also to transform the

institutional and policy framework of host

countries along environmental modernization

(EM) lines.

Working Hypotheses

In attempting to examine the post-Olympic

EM capacity of successive Olympic host nations,

I employed the following two contrasting

hypotheses that I adapted from Andersen (2002):

1. in the wake of their respective Games

(which were after all awarded to them, at least in

part, on the basis of a range of green claims),

‘one should be able to identify marked signs of

environmental improvement’ in the host nations

(Karamichas 2012a:152; Karamichas

2013a:151).

2. to achieve environmental transformation,

the effect of hosting the Olympic Games

‘depends more on the supportiveness of domestic

political processes’(ibid) .

As it is shown below, environmental concern

exhibited by the host nation publics is the most

important factor that can direct any prospects

towards facilitating the EM capacity of the host

nation.

Indicators of post-Olympics capacity for EM

Through examination of key works on EM

(see Buttel 2000a, 2000b, 2003; Mol and

Sonnefeld 2000; Jänicke and Weidner 1997;

Weidner 2002) and the green legacy aspirations

of the IOC, six indicators were identified and put

to the test in assessing the post-Olympics

capacity in EM of successive Olympic host

nations: (i) average annual level of CO2

emissions; (ii) level of environmental

consciousness; (iii) ratification of international

agreements; (iv) designation of sites for

protection; (v) implementation of Environmental

Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures; (vi)

Environmental Non-governmental Organizations

John Karamichas, Sport mega-events and environmental concern

26

(ENGOs) participation in public decision-

making processes (see Karamichas 2012a;

2013a). These indicators are interdependent and

can be mapped in a network of multidirectional

nodes where one indicator affects another and

vice versa.

The focus here is on the ‘level of

environmental consciousnesses’ as an indicator

with an immense potential to impact upon the

remaining five. For instance, increased levels of

environmental concern exhibited by the general

public are likely to lead the state government to

adopt relevant policies, ratify relevant

agreements (Kyoto protocol), and designate

nature protection sites. In addition, it may lead to

increased citizen support and participation in

ENGOs that in turn can monitor more

effectively, due to added support by the general

public/voters, the environmental policy actions

by the political administration. The following

sections discuss the findings on this indicator in

relation to successive Olympic Games. We start

with Australia, host nation of the first ‘green

Olympics’, Sydney 2000.

Environmental Concern in Australia

In the 2010 Australian General election,

88.3% of Australians claimed that the

environmental issue was important (46.6%:

‘quite important’, 41.7%: ‘extremely important’)

(ASSDA 2010). In order to appreciate that

really high score, one has to go back to 2007. It

was in that year that Kevin Ruud of the

Australian Labour Party (ALP) campaigned with

a promise to ratify the Kyoto protocol,

something that the previous, conservative

administration was vehemently refusing to do as

it was perceived as detrimental to the Australian

financial interests, such as the coal industry and

use of dirty coal for cheap energy provisions.

Disappointment in the failure by Ruud to

materialise his ambitious plan led to his 2010

replacement by Gillard in the leadership of ALP

and the collapse of the party’s appeal. It’s worth

noting here that the Australian public had not

lost its belief in the seriousness posed by climate

change or that the proposed measures lacked

support. Instead, it’s far more logical to see that

as a manifestation public frustration with the

continuous deferment or postponement of the

proposed measures (see Karamichas 2013a).

Following the ousting of Gillard from the

leadership of ALP, Rudd was reinstated as the

leader of the party in June 2013.

A minority ALP government, supported by

the Greens and three independent MPs stayed in

office until September 2013, when ALP was

defeated by Tony Abbott’s Liberals. Tony

Abbott had run a vehement campaign against the

climate-change measures, such as the carbon

pricing scheme, which were introduced by

Gillard. The electoral result achieved by Abbott

has been seen as ‘a vote against the Greens-

supported Labor government than an enthusiastic

embrace of Abbott’s alternative’ (Rootes 2014:

167). Indeed, the 2013 research conducted by

the Climate Institute revealed that a […]

AEJES (2015) 1, 22-39

27

[…] remarkably consistent two-thirds of

Australians accept that climate change

is real. It also reveals diminishing

confusion and a growing understanding

that climate impacts are occurring now,

[they are] no longer threats for the

future.

Significantly, the research has found

rebounding support for Australian leadership on

climate solutions. That number climbed for the

first time since 2007 (Climate Institute 2013:1).

This demonstrates that the 2012 suggestion

that the ‘electorate was largely fatigued with

politics of climate change and scared about the

risings cost of living’ (op.cit.:2) and that way the

2012 findings can be seen as a temporal blip

from the usually high scores on concern for

climate change exhibited by the Australian

public in relevant opinion polls. In relation to

our research question we can claim that no

causality can be identified between these high

scores and hosting the Sydney Games. Small

alterations on the expressed concern can be

mostly attributed to prevailing socio-economic

circumstances and how the climate change issue

is framed in the polemics of inter-party

competition.

Environmental Concern in Greece

Climate change appeared to be the highest

issue of concern for the Greek public in 2008

and 2009. More specifically 71% saw climate

change as the ‘most serious issue currently

facing the world as a whole’. In an earlier

discussion, I interpreted these results as follows:

There is good reason to believe that the Greek

public’s concern on climate change is much

more sincere and better informed during the first

decade of the 2000s than in the 1990s. It is

likely that this can be attributed to international

factors, such as the promotion of the role that

human activity has on climate change since the

2007 Nobel peace prize was shared by the IPCC

and former US vice-president Al Gore, and to

national factors such as the extremely

devastating forest fires of summer 2007, rather

than the staging of the 2004 Olympics and the

promotion of environmental awareness

associated with them’ (Karamichas 2012a:163).

This finding was based on the last relevant

Eurobarometer coinciding with the onset of the

2008 global economic crisis and before the

‘official’ entry of Greece in that economic

turmoil which resulted in severe austerity

measures.

Figure 1: Expressed concern about climate

change: EU and Greece (Source: European

Commission 2014)

50

50

50

71

61

53

2009

2011

2013

GR EU (28)

John Karamichas, Sport mega-events and environmental concern

28

As we can see on Figure 1, although the

European average remained stagnant at 50%,

there was a 10% decrease of the expressed

concern about climate change by the Greek

public in 2011 (dropping to 61% yet still

remaining significantly above the EU average).

A further decline became apparent in 2013, when

the expressed concern by the Greek public came

very close to the EU average, at 53%.

In order to complement our understanding on

the substantial decrease of expressed

environmental concern in 2011, it’s important to

bring into the discussion the position advocated

by Marquart-Pyatt (2007), that concern on

environmental issues tend to decrease when it’s

counterposed against certain materialist issues,

like prices and employment. Indeed, while we

witness a 10% decrease of the professed

environmental concern of the Greeks in 2011, at

the same time we had an increase (reaching

80%) of those who saw ‘poverty, hunger and

lack of drinking water’ as the ‘most serious issue

currently facing the world as a whole’. That

indicator was further increased in the 2013

Eurobarometer to 91% whilst the environmental

concern indicator went down to the European

average (European Commission 2014). In

relation to the research question that stimulated

this research, namely the post-olympics EM

capacity for the host nation where

‘environmental consciousness’ stands as the

most important indicator, we can reach again the

concluding remarks put forward in Karamichas

(2013a:186):

[Evidently] concern about climate

change decreases at a time when the

Greek public faces an extreme

deterioration of living standards. It is

clear, then, that the professed concern

about environmental issues in 2009 was

very much conditioned by the

aforementioned international and

national factors rather than a rise in

environmental awareness stimulated by

the Olympics.

Environmental Concern in China

China represents a very interesting case in

that, as an authoritarian regime, we lack

comparable data to the other Olympic editions

under examination here. Nevertheless, the

argument put forward in Karamichas (2013a)

was that China scores well in the environmental

concern idicator. That was based on secondary

data that was gathered from a number of relevant

publications. These were pointing out the

following:

i. The environmental issue was ranked as

the fourth highest concern.

ii. A good perecentage of respondents

(61%) believe that the country should reduce

emissions as much as other countries.

iii. According to the UNEP assessment of

the environmental credentials of the Beijing

Games, the intense media attention to the health

and safety of the athletes due the high levels of

environmental increased public awareness of

environmental issues. Issues that is the past

AEJES (2015) 1, 22-39

29

were disregarded have become major concerns

(see Karamichas 2013a:215-216).

That indicator in conjuction with the

environmental asprirations of the 12h Five Year

Plan (FYP) led Karamichas (2012a:226) to claim

that China has a positive score in all six EM

indicators.

This positive outcome could be attributed to

incremental developments that were bound to

take place in China after the 1978 modernising

reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Hosting

‘Green’ Olympics was an affirmation of this

path.

That can also be explained by the fact the

China followed the requirements of an Olympics

Impact Study (OGI) without been required to do

so, as the first OGI was to take place in relation

to the London 2012 Olympics. The extent to

which all these have led to a sustained increase

of environmental concern with an corresponding

performance in all other EM indicators is

debatable. When thinking in terms of an

environmental Kuznets curve, it can be argued

that as a growing number of Chinese citizens

improve their socio-economic status we are

going to see increased demands over qualitative

issues, like environmental protection, in a similar

fashion that the emergence and rise of new

demands evolved in the advanced Western

democracies in the 1960s/70s. Although, this

development is broadly acknowledged, there is

still scepticism concerning the obstacles that this

process is facing. A good, relevant example

comes out of Moore’s (2014) work on

technocratic mega-projects in China. In his

examination of the South-North Water Transfer

Project (NSWTP) Moore puts forward the

following:

Although the project was unfolded

against a dramatic transformation of

Chinese environmental politics and

policymaking, it exemplifies a

technocratic, authoritarian, and top-

down response to environmental

challenges.[…]. The case of NSWTP

illustrates that a richer understansing is

needed of how governments employ

persuasive resourses, such as messaging

and cooptation, to achieve strategic

goals in both environmental and other

policy areas. My account stresses how,

even in a contested, pluralised and

modernised political environment, an

authoritarian government can mount

large-scale, technocratic, and top-down

solutions to environmental policy

problems (ibid: 948).

With that in mind, one may venture towards

risking a prediction of intense social contestation

in China in the near future similar to that

witnessed in Brazil, one year before it was to

host the FIFA world cup and three years before

hosting the Rio Games. The Brazilian case is

discussed further down. Before that we proceed

to an appraisal of the London 2012 case.

John Karamichas, Sport mega-events and environmental concern

30

Environmental Concern in the UK

As we can see in Figure 2, environmental

concern in the UK has remained steady since

2009, below the EU average, at around 45%. It’s

interesting to contrast this score to the rather

significantly higher score that has marked the

Greek case. Indeed, considering that the UK has

‘one of the most widely supported environmental

movements in the world, with very good

organisational and policy impact[…]. [We may

assume that the concern exhibited by the British

public is] accompanied by environmental

knowledge, as distinct from the unqualified

concern that has [been] demonstrated by some

[nations, like Greece]…[In addition,] in the 2010

general elections that the Greens managed to

send their first MP in the House of Commons,

notwithstanding the continuing usage of the first-

past-the-post electoral system, notoriously

favourable to the two main political parties

(Karamichas 2012b:388). It is interesting to note

that leaders of three main competing parties in

general and David Cameron (Conservatives) and

Nick Glegg (Liberals) in particular spent a good

part of the televised pre-election debate

promoting their environmental credentials and

concerns about climate change. In addition, the

Conservative-Liberal coalition that was formed

after the elections seemed to be willing to

continue the good relationship between ENGOs

and government bodies that had marked the

preceding New Labour administration. Also,

David Cameron’s ‘Big society’ appeared at the

initial stages to give added impetus to bringing in

ENGO isights into the policy-making process.

The following lines examine the post-Olympic

state of environmental concern in the UK and

offers commentary in relation to the

aforementioned.

Figure 2: Expressed concern about climate

change: EU and UK (Source: European

Commission, 2014)

Karamichas (2013a:264-265) identified the

following in relation to the 2009 and 2011

special Eurobarometers (72.1 and 327) on

European Attitudes towards Climate Change:

1. In 2009 45% of the British public

considered climate change to be the ‘most

serious issue currently facing the world as a

whole’. That was lower than those who

considered poverty, lack of food, drinking water

and international terrorism as the most serious

problem (49%) and significantly lower than the

majority who feared a ‘a major global economic

downturn’ (55%).

2. There was overall increase of concern

across EU27 in 2011 (51%).

3. UK respondents: 51% listed ‘poverty,

lack of food and drinking water’; 45%

47

51

50

45

44

44

2009

2011

2013

UK EU (28)

AEJES (2015) 1, 22-39

31

‘international terrorism’ and 39% the ‘economic

situation’ as the most serious issue (multiple

answers allowed).

The fieldwork for the 2013 special

Eurobarometer on Climate change (European

Commission, 2014) was conducted from

November to December 2013, a few months

after the end of the London Games. As we will

show later that was good time to observe the link

between hosting the Games and the

environmental factor in general and

environmental concern in particular. Before we

examine these in more detail, it is important to

venture towards a brief examination of the

environmental claims that were made, and

actions taken, in the ‘pre-event’ and ‘event’

phases of the London Games.

The pre-event preparatory phase for hosting

the Games in London was marked by a

subscription to the notion of a global

commitment to sustainability in both the social

and environmental components inscribed in that

concept. That was encapsulated in the five key

themes of the London plan: climate change;

waste; biodiversity; inclusion; and healthy living.

These themes were systematically appraised

since 2008. Yet, a year later some refinements

were made on the overall strategy. Indeed, the

new version replaced the mantra of ‘reduce,

replace and offset’ with the ‘four steps of

“avoid/eliminate, reduce, substitute/replace,

compensate”. This change was more a

recognition that a “carbon neutral” Games was

an impossibility than it was a diversion from a

full commitment “to deliver a truly sustainable

Games’ (Karamichas, 2013a:244-245). Hayes

and Horne (2011:754-755) further comment that

by suggesting that

London 2012 has not set a “carbon

neutral” goal, has abandoned the highly

contentious practice of offsetting, and

has developed a carbon footprint

methodology calculating emissions

“when they happen”, producing a

reference footprint from the point of the

bid win to the closing Games ceremony,

assuming development as set out in the

bid dossier […].

Moreover, one of the last pre-game OGI

reports that was published in October 2010 noted

a ‘below average performance in the

environmental outcome indicators’ but also

suggested that these indicators ‘may be expected

to improve as the various environmentally

oriented activities begin to yield results’ (SRI

2010:25). Moreover, another crucial parameter

of the OGI study on the London Games is the

research component on the social dimensions of

sustainability. The importance of the social

dimension in relation to sports’ mega-event

hosting in general, and the London Games in

particular, can be seen in relation to two points:

1. The London 2012 bid to host the Games

gave emphasis on the rejuvenation of one of the

most deprived parts of London, marked by

specific demographics (persistent worklessness;

educational under-achievement; low health status

etc.). The underlying rationale was that the

John Karamichas, Sport mega-events and environmental concern

32

Games will work towards regenerating that

extremely disadvantaged community by

providing better employment opportunities and

housing for all.

2. The 2011 riots that took place in the

above mentioned five Olympic boroughs. The

rioters were seen by many as moral outliers but

the most detailed analysis on their underlying

causes points to the extreme levels of income

inequality that exist in the UK. In these cases a

spark, a police killing in that case, is enough to

ignite the brewing discontent.

In a study on London 2012 by Karamichas

(2013b), the assessment of the UK’s post-event

capacity for environmental sustainability had

also to take into account the impact of the

austerity cuts due to the economic crisis and the

policies of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ into

consideration as an intervening variable.

Through that, the following argument was put

forward:

Although the UK had a much better ES

[environmental sustainability] capacity

than other Olympic hosts nations when it

submitted its bid to the IOC, it appears

that the initiation of austerity cuts and

‘Big Society’ policies have significantly

downgraded this status. In particular,

although the UK never received a

positive score in all six indicators, with

the advent of ‘Big Society’ four of the

indicators were downgraded to

ambiguous or negative status (op.cit.:4).

In relation to the immediate post-events

phase, such as ‘a cabinet reshuffle [appointed] a

climate change sceptic as Secretary of State for

the Environment…and announcement for plans

to relax environmental restrictions in order to

stimulate growth by mega-projects’ were also

put forward (ibid). Moreover, the fact that the

OGI study can conclude in 2015 and that the

2011 riots started in the socially disadvantaged

Olympic Boroughs means that both the

environmental and social sustainability legacy of

the London Games has to be examined into the

foreseeable future.

The next section deals with the Brazilian case,

host of the 2024 FIFA World Cup and the 2016

Olympic Games. In that case we also had

rioting, one year before the start of a sport mega-

event. This time, though, protest events were not

stimulated by the most disaffected echelons of

society.

Prospects for Rio 2016

When Brazil was awarded the hosting of two

sport mega-events (2014 FIFA World Cup and

2016 Olympics), ‘the economy was booming,

poverty falling, the destruction of the Amazon

was falling and [the then president] Lula [da

Silva] was one of the most popular presidents in

the world’ (Watts 2014:15). However, since

2011 ‘the economy has slowed dramatically.

Environmental concerns have been put on the

back burner. Dam and mining megaprojects are

eating into land owned by indigenous tribes.

Conservationist appear increasingly sidelined

AEJES (2015) 1, 22-39

33

and Amazon clearance has suffered its sharpest

uptick in a decade’ (ibid). How have these

developments impacted on the general level of

environmental concern of the Brazilian public?

Surveys conducted from 2003 to 2013 were

indicating that Brazilians were leading in

concern about environmental issues ‘with over

90% perceiving air pollution, climate change,

biodiversity loss or water availability as very

serious problems – at least 30 percentage points

more than the international average’ (Echegaray

2013). Moreover, a majority

puts a premium upon environmental

protection over economic growth and

enthusiasm to engage in domestic

recycling if given the chance [… and] a

record level of interest in corporate

sustainability, well over 70% since

[…in] 2002, […] one in two adults

willing to pay more for an ethical

product (ibid).

Similarly high results were exhibited by the

Greeks in the late 1990s but serious concerns

were also expressed on their seriousness and

validity (see Karamichas 2007).

Before we offer a critical look on the these

data through our own exploration, it is of great

importance to highlight the fact that Brazil in

general and Rio de Janeiro in particular are

intimately associated with Sustainable

Development (SD). Lest we forget that the core

challenges that environmental protection

combined with the developmental process at the

global level was facing came out in a heavily

loaded sentence by the Brazilian delegate at the

1972 UN Conference on the Human

Environment in Stockholm: the said delegate

claimed that ‘pollution is a sign of progress and

that environmentalism was a luxury only

developed countries could afford’ (Hogan

2000:2) and continued by saying that he ‘prayed

for the day when they would share in the

developed world’s industrial pollution and would

welcome multinational investors, willing to help

them pollute’ (Leonard 1988:69). That statement

played a pivotal role in generating the SD

perspective during the early 1990s at the 1992

Rio Conference and was preceded by the

publication of Our Common Future by the

World Committee for Environment and

Development (WCED 1987) under the direction

of Gro Harlem Brundtland. In response to

concerns expressed by developing nations, the

book was marked by a systematic attempt to

bring under a single discourse the economy, the

development and the environment. That is

encapsulated in the well-known definition of SD,

‘sustainable development is development that

meets the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to

meet their own needs’.

Moreover, although the IOC’s concern with

the environmental issue can be traced back to

Samaranch’s 1986 declaration that the

environment was the third pillar of Olympism, it

was the Rio Summit and the support for SD that

made that ambition possible. The Local Agenda

21 (LA21), drafted by UNEP for the Summit,

John Karamichas, Sport mega-events and environmental concern

34

was adopted by 182 governments and offered a

manual for developing an LA21 that was specific

to individual country or community

requirements. In 1994 the IOC, in collaboration

with UNEP, began to make its third pillar

ambition more of a reality, and by 1995 the IOC

had its own Sport and Environment Commission.

As it has already been argued, a crucial

development in relation to the SD promise of the

Games was the agreement for a compulsory

application of an OGI study in 2001 with

London been mandated to be the first summer

Games to carry out the study. Following these

requirements, the Organizing Committee for the

Olympic and Paralympic Games Rio 2016

signed a contract with COPPE/UFRJ (Post-grad

Institute, Federal University) for an OGI study.

The examination of Rio’s bid to host the

Games demonstrates, like London, an SD

perspective that manages to take into

consideration both social and environmental

parameters. This is clear in the following

sustainability claims made in Rio’s candidature

file:

Rio 2016 will deliver flawless Games,

powered by Rio’s energy and underpinned

by technical excellence, so that every

moment is enjoyed, and Rio and its people

benefit from long-term and sustainable

improvements to the city.

These include improvements in housing,

improvements in security and enhanced

transport with the completion of a new

high performance transport ring. The

historic Port will be transformed for the

Games and become a new focus for

business, entertainment and tourism (Rio

2016:2009).

Nevertheless, in preparing to host these two

sport mega-events a good number of

environmental and human rights violations have

become apparent. On the environmental front,

the National Coalition of Local Committees for a

People’s World Cup and Olympics (2012:26)

notes that,

The 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic

Games are being used to evade legal

procedures designed to protect the

natural environment and guarantee the

environmental rights of the population.

In a similar fashion to other sport mega-

events, the limitations that can be identified by

EIAs in the relevant projects have been cast

aside. The same is also the case as far as social

parameters are concerned. Gaffney (2013:3931)

suggests the following in relation to Rio 2016:

The improvised revision of the city’s

master plan has been accompanied by

an extensive list of executive decrees

that have “flexibilized” urban space in

order for Olympic related projects to

occur. These measures have undermined

Rio’s fledging democratic institutions

and reduced public participation in

urban planning processes.

Sport mega-event hosting is always a point of

contestation by different social actors that varies

in intensity across the different phases of games

AEJES (2015) 1, 22-39

35

hosting (see Hiller 2000:192). Similarly to

London, Brazil also experienced intense protest

and rioting a year before hosting the FIFA World

Cup, in June 2013. In contrast to the London

case, and although there was a clear focus on the

costs of the mega-events and the impact that this

has on health and education budgets, this civil

contestation can be mostly seen as the result of

the above disappointment felt by the rising

echelons in Brazilian society rather than by the

persistently impoverished sections of society.

We may even claim that participants in these

protest events are not a representative sample of

Brazilian society but committed activists of the

anti-globalization and the more recent

Indignants/occupy protest milieu (see also Singer

2014; Spyer N/A).

It is interesting to note how that social

contestation was acknowledged in the

subsequent electoral contests that followed. In

the elections of October 2014, the incumbent

Dilma Rousseff was re-elected and that way

continued the PT’s (Labour Party) 12 year run in

the country’s highest office. An important fact

in relation to that outcome is that the current

administration has been criticized for

disregarding the environmental aspect of

economic development or in other words

sustainable development (see Moreira Salles

2014).

That result can be mostly attributed to the

exigencies of political competition in Brazil and

in no way can be perceived as an acceptance of

the environmentally dismal approach followed

by the administration. In order to assess the

environmental concern in Brazil and the extent

to which this can be linked to sport mega-event

hosting, we would need to examine of the

available data and follow the reviews of the OGI

studies on Rio de Janeiro 2016.

Concluding remarks

Although the identification of increase in the

environmental awareness of the Australian and

Greek publics in the immediate post Olympics

period was the issue that allowed for comparison

between two radically different cases, a green

Olympics success (Sydney 2000) and a green

Olympics failure (Athens 2004), no causality has

been substantiated between hosting the Games

and expressed concern about environmental

issues, like climate change. Instead whatever

rise or decline in that concern was identified had

more to do with changes in the socio-economic

conditions than hosting the Games.

The rest of the identified EM indicators have

been also largely conditioned by that factor.

There is a great diversion from this norm in the

Chinese case where the Games constitute part of

an initiation in the modernization process. The

increase number of people entering the middle-

class strata in China is very much likely to

increase the level of expressed environmental

concern in this country.

In the London case, we have the remarkable

phenomenon where a country with strong EM

credentials has been moving to the opposite

direction since hosting the Games.

John Karamichas, Sport mega-events and environmental concern

36

The Chinese experience is likely to be the

case in the other BRICS with Brazil clearly

standing out as a country where changes in

public attitudes as a result of changes in the

economic status of many have been already

manifested.

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40

The impact of distance on a ‘NIMBY’ stance towards windfarms’

development

Yiannis Moysiadis, Chrisovaladis Malesios & Iosif Botetzagias

A U T H O R S I N F O A B S T R A C T

Yiannis Moysiadis holds a M.Sc.

in Environmental Policy &

Management from the Department

of Environment, University of the

Aegean, Greece. The current paper

originates from his M.Sc. thesis.

Chrisovaladis Malesios is a

researcher at the Department of

Agricultural Development,

Democritus University of Thrace,

Greece.

Iosif Botetzagias* is an Assistant

Professor at the Department of

Environment, University of the

Aegean, Greece

*email: iosif@aegean.gr

Research on local reactions to the establishment of a windfarm

(WF) has suggested a ‘proximity hypothesis’ which argues that

those living closer to a proposed WF would reject it more

strongly, arguably due to their NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard)

stance. In this paper we put this hypothesis to the test, by

comparing the local inhabitants’ NIMBY attitudes towards a

privately-owned WF in two areas of the Greek island of Lesvos

(in the area where the WF will be built and in an area which is

not going to be affected by the project, aggregate N= 278). We

find that one’s area of residence is not a statistically significant

predictor of NIMBY, similarly to his/hers demographic

characteristics. On the contrary, one’s perceived costs,

unfairness of the siting, lack of benefits and risks associated

with the project all impact on a NIMBY attitude.

K E Y W O R D S (in alphabetical order): Greece; NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard); proximity hypothesis;

windfarms

Introduction

Local reactions to windfarms’ development

which is initiated from outside the affected

community are, still, routinely dismissed as a

‘NIMBY’ (Not-in-My-Back-Yard) reaction.

NIMBY is supposed to encapsulate ‘the

protectionist attitudes of and oppositional tactics

adopted by community groups facing an

unwelcome development in their neighborhood

[..] Residents usually concede that these

«noxious» facilities are necessary, but not near

their homes, hence the term «not in my back

yard»’ (Dear 1992: 288). Promoters of ‘these

“noxious” facilities’, windfarms included, all to

easily describe any opposition as ‘NIMBY’ (e.g.

Barry et al. 2008) and those reacting are thus

labelled as ‘ignorant’, ‘misinformed’, ‘irrational’

and/or reacting due to a selfish, economic

rationale (Aitken 2010, Barry et al. 2008,

Freudenburg and Pastor 1992, Wolsink and

Devilee 2009), arguably in a strategic attempt to

AEJES (2015) 1, 40-61

41

downgrade and disqualify the opposing camp’s

arguments (Cass and Walker 2009:68).

Nevertheless, past research has demonstrated

that local opposition can stem from a variety of

reasons. Wolsink (2000; 2007b) shows that

visual impacts, perceived annoyances, the

potential benefits of clean energy as well as the

feeling that one can influence the decision

making process, all have a larger impact than

NIMBY on an individual’s willingness to resist a

wind farm. Thus NIMBY is not the same with

rejecting a WF: the former is one of the possible

predictors of the latter. Furthermore, NIMBY is

not the same with the ‘I-don’t-want-the-WF-

here’ statement: ‘not-here’ may be just a sub-

category of ‘not-anywhere’ (a case of NIABY,

Not-In-Anybodys-Back-Yard’), a stance

stemming from a complete rejection of the

particular type of development – and quite

common in opposition to nuclear plants for

example- (see Luloff et al. 1998:83): rather, ‘A

positive attitude towards wind power, combined

with opposition to the construction of a wind

farm anywhere in one's own neighbourhood …

reflects the only true NIMBY standpoint’

(Wolsink 2000:57).

Accordingly, a NIMBY standpoint seems to

intraxicably linked to space: the further away, or

even better as-far-away-as-possible, the

proposed development the less likely it is that the

local inhabitants would entertain NIMBY

considerations. In this paper we put this claim to

the test, by comparing the presence of NIMBY

considerations among the inhabitants of the

Greek island of Lesvos, where a mega wind-farm

is to be installed. We juxtapose the views of two

sub-samples of the local population: on one

hand, those living on the western part of the

island where the development is to take place

and who will thus be directly affected; on the

other hand, those living on the eastern part of the

island who will have no visual or other contact

with/effect by the proposed windfarm. If the

‘physical proximity’ hypothesis is correct, then

the (strongest) differentiating factor between the

two sub-groups’ NIMBY attitudes should be

their area of residence.

Thus the paper develops as follows. In the

next section we present the Literature review

discussing both the framework for conducting a

meaningful analysis of the NIMBY attitude

concerning a proposed project as well as the

findings of previous research on the ‘physical

proximity’ hypothesis vis-à-vis other predictors

of an oppositional attitude. Next we present our

case-study’s and sample’s characteristics and

introduce the (latent) variables we will use for

our analysis. In the, subsequent, Results’ section

we present the findings of the regression models

utilized. We find that ‘proximity to the proposed

WF’ is not a statistically-significant predictor of

one’s NIMBY stance. Our results show that an

individual wants a WF out of one area and into

some other, not because of the particular area

s/he lives but because s/he perceives the siting of

the WF in that ‘particular’ area as costly, risky,

not beneficial and, most importantly, unfair. Yet,

since these negative attributions are more

Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

42

pronounced in the area closer to the proposed

WF development, we conclude the paper by

discussing why this may be the case and by

proposing avenues for future research.

Literature Review

The importance of the research’s timing of the

research

Available research has demonstrated that

local attitudes towards wind energy/windfarms

are not static but rather exhibit a U-shape

trajectory over time, as a wind farm proposal

moves across the ‘no plan’, ‘planned proposal’

and ‘built/completed project’ (cf. Wolsink 1994;

Devine-Wright 2005; Wolsink 2007b). The fact

that the lowest level of support/most negative

attitudes are recorded at the planning phase of a

WF project, shows that ‘The announcement of a

project suddenly creates a vested interest [in the

local population] and, therefore, it starts a

process of thinking’ with ‘general attitudes

becoming more critical’ (Wolsink 2007b:1199).

It is particularly at this stage, when confronted

with a real possibility, that locals are more likely

to exhibit the free-riding approach to the social

dilemma which is implicit in the ‘NIMBY

syndrome’ formulation: to refuse to bear the

personal costs associated with the development

although they recognize the social benefits this

development will bring along (Wolsink

2007a:2699). Thus, we concur with van der

Horst (2007) who claims that when it comes to

measuring the responses by the public

The facts that the strongest opposition occurs

during the planning phase and that it is the

frequent difficulties of gaining local planning

permission which have brought the NIMBY

debate to the fore, clearly speak in favour of

abandoning academic reference to the so-called

NIMBY phenomenon in the ‘after’ stage (or in

the ‘before’ stage when it is just hypothetical)

(p.2710).

Accordingly, in this paper we measured the

locals’ attitudes and perceptions concerning a

real-life WF which, at the time of research, was

at the stage of gaining permission. Thus, we are

able to study the occurrence of NIMBY at the

most appropriate stage of the local opposition.

A reliable scale for measuring NIMBY

Another important condition for any

meaningful analysis, is to develop and use a

reliable scale for measuring the ‘not-in-my-back-

yard’ stance. Available studies on NIMBY are

notorious for not properly identifying what

exactly is measured by the term (cf. Wolsink

2006). Usually NIMBY is simply equated with

resistance/rejection of a development while it

should represent ‘a positive attitude to wind

power with resistance against a particular

project’ (Wolsink 2000:53).Thus, for properly

measuring NIMBY, one should use items which

actually ‘measure the individual’s inclination to

motivate resistance with backyard arguments’,

and those

Items for the backyard-scale must be

variants of the recognition that only the

AEJES (2015) 1, 40-61

43

population living near a certain site will be

confronted with the cost of the facility,

whereas others (the initiators, the investors

or the society as a whole) enjoy the

benefits. The items should reflect the

component of the assumed tendency to

frame the issue in terms of (economic)

rationality and utility maximisation, which

can be summarised as «citizens demand

the completion of such projects, but refuse

to have them located in their vicinity»

(Frey and Oberholzer-Gee 1997, p. 747)

(Wolsink & Deville 2009:224-225).

Accordingly, in this paper we use a NIMBY

scale which has been developed and tested in

previous research concerning local reactions to

the siting of waste infrastructure facilities in the

Netherlands (Wolsink and Devilee 2009) and

subsequently used in the study of wind farms in

Greece (Botetzagias et al. 2015) (see Data and

Methods section for details on the scale).

The role of distance on NIMBY views

There exists a substantial literature on the

issue of wind farms’ acceptance and the so-

called ‘proximity hypothesis’. Nevertheless, all

of the available studies we are aware of focus on

existing wind farms, on wind energy

acceptability in general and/or examine the

influence of distance on one accepting/rejecting

a WF -with mixed results.

Concerning the relation between proximity

and wind energy acceptance, Ek (2005) found

that distance from an operational WF has no

influence on ‘general attitude towards wind

power’ while Showfford and Slattery

(2010:2514-2515) report an inverse relation

between proximity to an existing WF and

positive attitudes towards wind energy -similar

to Jacquet (2012:682-683).

Concerning the relation between proximity

and views on an operational/existing WF,

Warren et al (2005) and Braunholtz (2003:20)

found a ‘reversed NIMBY effect’ whereas

people living closer to existing WFs hold more

positive views of them: this unanticipated

finding was attributed either to nearby residents

being the beneficiaries of projects

benefits/royalties etc (Jacquet 2012:678) or to

the fact that the anticipated negative impacts,

prior to the operation of the WF, failed to

materialize (Braunholtz 2003:9-10; Warren et al

2005:863).

Concerning the relation between proximity

and acceptance of new WFs, the results of

available studies are inconclusive. Johansson and

Laike (2007:448) found that living at different

distances from an existing WF had no statistical

effect on one’s willingness to oppose additional

turbines. Braunholtz (2003) found that those

living closer to WFs are more willing to accept

their expansion while, on the contrary,

Showfford and Slattery (2010:2515) report that

they are less willing to accept the installment of

new WFs in one’s property/sight/community. On

the other hand, when studying the attitudes

towards a proposed WF, Warren et al (2005:863)

found that those living closer to an approved-to-

Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

44

be-built WF were more negative to it, similar to

Jones and Eiser’s (2010) analysis of four

proposed sites in the UK in which positive

attitudes towards the WFs were found to increase

(albeit not in a linear fashion) with increasing

distance from the identified sites (p. 3114). The

previous discussion is summarized in Table 1.

Table 1: The influence of distance on views

concerning wind energy/windfarms

Views on wind energy

acceptance

Distance from

operational WF plays

no role (Ek 2005)

Acceptance increases

with distance from

operational WF

(Showfford and

Slattery 2010; Jacquet

2012)

Views on operational/

existing WFs

People living closer to

WF have more

positive views (labeled

as a ‘reversed NIMBY

effect’) (Warren et al.

2005; Braunholtz

2003)

Views on expanding an

existing WF

Distance has now

effect (Johansson and

Laike 2007)

Those living closer to

the WF are more

willing to accept

expansion (Braunholtz

2003)

Those living closer to

the WF are less willing

to accept expansion

(Showfford and

Slattery 2010)

Views on establishing a

new WF

Those living closer to

the WF are less

positive/willing to

accept establishment

(Warren et al. 2005;

Jones and Eiser 2010)

Since our study focus on the assessment of a

proposed WF by the local community, it is

comparable to Warren et al (2005) and Jones and

Eiser (2010). Similar to them, we expect that

negative attitudes will be stronger closer to the

proposed WF site yet whether this is also going

to by the case for NIMBY attitudes remains to be

tested. Nevertheless, since a ‘not-in-my-back-

yard’ stance is in any case a rejection of the

proposal, we anticipate that NIMBY attitudes

will be stronger closer to the proposed WF site.

2.4 The role of other predictors on NIMBY views

Since the ‘not-in-my-back-yard’ stance is

supposed to encapsulate an individual’s

willingness to maximize his own utility, then it is

only logical to expect that NIMBY will be

positively correlated with risks and costs

perceptions concerning the WF development. On

the contrary, the more an individual perceives

AEJES (2015) 1, 40-61

45

(personal) benefits out of the project, the less

likely s/he is to demand its relocation.

Nevertheless, a growing literature is

suggesting that ‘fairness’ is also playing a crucial

role in the local acceptance of WFs (e.g. Devine-

Wright 2005; Gross 2007; Ellis et al. 2007;

Breukers and Wolsink 2007; Wolsink 2007a;

Toke et al. 2008; Jones and Eiser 2010;

Botetzagias et al. 2015). Researchers have

usually distinguished between four types of

‘fairness’ (or ‘justice’) regarding the siting

process (cf. Besley 2012, Huijts et al. 2012).

‘Procedural fairness’ refers to the extent that an

individual considers that the decision making

process had been properly conducted and that

s/he had had a meaningful voice in it. A related,

yet rarely analyzed, type is ‘informational

fairness’, the belief that decision-makers have

provided appropriate and meaningful

information over the decision-making process.

‘Distributive’ or ‘outcome’ fairness refers to

whether distribution of perceived benefits, costs

and (especially) risks associated with a particular

decision is considered fair. And, finally,

‘interpersonal fairness’ relates to whether

individuals think that decision makers are

respectful of their views and trustworthy -and

this is why this type of fairness is usually

subsumed under the concept of ‘trust’.

In this paper, similar to Wolsink and Devilee

(2009) and Botetzagias et al. (2015), we do not

examine the impact of all four fairness’ types,

but only the ‘distributive/outcome fairness’ one.

This is because of our dependent variable, the

existance of NIMBY. The basic idea behind the

‘NIMBY syndrome’ has been that it is a

manifestation of free-riding in a social dilemma:

locals recognize the social benefits of the

proposed development yet they refuse to bear the

personal costs associated with it (Wolsink

2007a:2699). Nevertheless, there exists another

possible explanation: people may wish to “pass-

the-burden” not because they are free-riders but

rather because they feel that they get an

unfair/excessive (share of the) burden. This latter

explanation relates to what Kerr (1995:39)

describes as ‘the equity norm’ in social

dilemmas which ‘applies to the allocation of

resources among group members. It prescribes

that payoffs are distributed in proportion to

contributions, inputs, or costs’. It is because of

the equity norm’s importance in social dilemmas

and of its obvious correspondance with the

distributive fairness concept that we focus on

‘distributive/outcome’ fairness in this paper. If

one’s willingness to move the WF out of his

‘back-yard’ (NIMBY) is also correlated with

distributive unfairness then its justification as

mere “free-riding” will be severely weakened.

As a matter of fact, this has been demonstrated to

be the case by other research (Botetzagias et al

2015), with the authors commenting that when it

comes to the acceptance of WFs ‘slightly

paraphrasing Wolsink and Devilee (2009:231-

232), «the crucial factor is clearly not that

residents have strong intentions to shift the

burden to others, but that they consider it unfair

that others, the decision makers [and the outsider

Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

46

promoters, who the locals do not trust,] are

placing the burden on them»’ (Botetzagias et al

2015:17).

Accordingly in this paper we test the

influence of perceived risks, costs, benefits and

distributive fairness on NIMBY, alongside the

standard socio-demographic predictors, in

conjunction with the ‘proximity hypothesis’.

Data & Methods

Case-study areas & samples

Under Greek law, permission to build a WF

rests with the Greek Regulatory Authority for

Energy (RAE) and the Ministry for the

Environment. Local communities & government

have the right to opine on an application yet they

have no means for rejecting the development as

long as it meets the legal requirements (i.e.

successful completion of environmental impact

studies etc.). Similar to other countries, wind

energy electricity production enjoys feed-in

tariffs, while areas nearby the WFs are entitled to

“reciprocate benefits”, standing at a 3% of the

electricity’s price (before taxes), payable to the

local government.

Our case study area is the Greek island of

Lesvos, in the northern Aegean Sea. The WFs’

siting on Lesvos is part of a larger, privately-

owned, project called “Aegean Link” (Greek:

Αιγαία Ζεύξη). In its most basic form, “Aegean

Link” aims to install a total of 373 turbines

(706MW of installed power) on the Greek

islands of Lesvos, Chios and Lemnos, which will

then be interlinked and connected to mainland

Greece via underwater cables. Lesvos stands to

host 10 WFs with 153 wind-turbines (306MW

installed power) at the western part of the island

(see Map 1), an area which currently hosts two

small (one state-owned and one privately-

owned) WFs (2.02MW and 9.6MW installed

power respectively). At the time of our research

the application was still under consideration by

the local government authorities (which

nevertheless held a favorable view and in fact

opined in favor of the project a few weeks after

we concluded our research in the area).

Map 1: The siting of the ‘Aegean Link’ wind-farms on

western Lesvos. The red dots represent individual wind

turbines. The names in black stand for local villages. The

names in red stand for the wind farms sites.

AEJES (2015) 1, 40-61

47

In Autumn 2012 we visited a number of

villages on western Lesvos (which are situated

within the development’s range thus will be

affected by it) and on eastern Lesvos (which will

have no direct effect (i.e. visual, noise, etc.) by

the ‘Aegean Link’ project) (see Map 2), and

conducted face-to-face interviews with local

inhabitants. The sampling technique selected was

simple random sampling while, based on the

population of the areas’ surrounding villages and

for a predetermined margin of error (e=5%), the

required sample size was 267 (see Table 2 for

the samples’ details). We tried to survey villages

of similar sizes between the two areas, and the

number of questionnaires distributed and

collected per village/area is shown in Table 1).

In the following analyses and discussions we

refer to and use the aggregate data.

Map 2: Villages surveyed for this paper. In orange

background are the ‘would-be-affected’ villages of western

Lesvos; in yyeellllooww background are the ‘not-to-be-affected’

villages of eastern Lesvos.

Table 2: Places surveyed and number of

interviews

Variables used

Dependent (latent) variable: The dependent

variable in our analysis is the respondent’s

NIMBY stance towards the proposed WF. As we

have mentioned earlier, a truly ‘backyard

motives’ attitude should clearly manifest “free-

riding” in a social dilemma. Thus, for

constructing a NIMBY scale, we take our cue

from Wolsink & Devilee’s (2009) and

Botetzagias et al. (2015). We asked our

respondents the following question: ‘Here follow

Questionnaires

Area/

Village

name

Population

(2001

census) Distributed Collected

Western

Lesvos 4,242 139 134

Agra 990 32 32

Eresos 1097 37 37

Antissa 900 29 24

Sigri 402 13 13

Mesotopos 853 28 28

Eastern

Lesvos 4,936 161 144

Ippios 900 29 29

Skopelos 1768 58 41

Mantamados 1156 38 38

Keramia 400 13 13

Kato Tritos 712 23 23

TOTAL 9,178 300 278

Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

48

some statements concerning the wind farm to be

constructed at western Lesvos. To which extent

do you agree or disagree with each one of those

statements?’. It is important to note that,

irrespectively of whether the respondent resided

in eastern or western Lesvos, the formulation of

the statements in the questionnaire, for both

areas of our study, referred explicitly to attitudes,

perceptions, risks, costs, benefits and so on as far

as western Lesvos is concerned, the area where

the WFs would actually be constructed.

Since definitions of NIMBY still remain very

vague and it is usually, and wrongly, simply

equated with opposition (cf. Wolsink 2006), it is

important to present respondents with statements

which actually tap on a back-yard

mentality/inclination (see also Section 2.2 of this

paper). To this extent, Wolsink and Deville

(2009) designed, proposed and tested –in the

context of opposition to waste treatment

facilities- an inclusive list of 17 statements

which are considered as relevant for measuring a

local person’s ‘assumed tendency to frame the

issue in terms of (economic) rationality and

utility maximization, which can be summarised

as “citizens demand the completion of such

projects, but refuse to have them located in their

vicinity”’ (p.225). The same list of statements

was also used in a study measuring NIMBY

attitudes towards WF’s development

(Botetzagias et al. 2015). For a full list of the

statements the reader is referred to Table X1 in

the Appendix.

We presented our respondents with the whole

list of the 17 ‘NIMBY’ statements, measured on

a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘1’ (Strongly

Agree) to ‘5’ (Strongly Disagree), and recorded

their answers. The initial factor analysis of these

17 statements (using a rotated varimax

transformation) indicated the existence of five

factors as the best solution for explaining the

variability in the data (Eigenvalue > 1).

Similar to Wolsink & Devilee (2009:224-227)

and Botetzagias et al. (2015), following the

examination of these factors and the statements’

loadings, we chose seven of the initial 17

statements for establishing the ‘NIMBY’ scale

(see also Table X1 in the Appendix). All these

statements load strongly on the first factor

returned by the factor analysis (24% of the total

variance explained) and they relate to an

individualistic and free-rider attitude, typical of a

presumed ‘NIMBY mentality’: the respondent

opposes the specific wind farm because s/he does

not want to bear a share of the collective

problem while s/he wishes the WF to move to

another location - in which case his/her

opposition would cease. These statements, which

form a very reliable scale (Cronbach’s α= 0.834),

are the following:

(1) ‘It’s quite stupid to accept the WF in

western Lesvos [one’s ‘back-yard’ for the

context of this study] ’;

(2) ‘Because I don’t think it’s very necessary

to bear a part of the collective burden, I don’t

accept the WF in western Lesvos’;

AEJES (2015) 1, 40-61

49

(3) ‘It’s completely logical for me that the

WF should be sited in someone else’s area’;

(4) ‘I don’t accept the WF in western Lesvos,

because I think that somebody else would not

accept it in his or her own area’;

(5) ‘Accepting the WF in western Lesvos

means that you don’t represent your own

interests strongly enough’;

(6) ‘I don’t feel like shouldering the burden of

a problem that is also caused by others, by

accepting the WF in western Lesvos’;

(7) ‘As far as I’m concerned, the WF should

be sited in somebody else’s area’.

The remaining statements load to other

factors which, albeit relevant, do not represent

the “pure” NIMBY-mentality of passing the full

burden to someone else while enjoying the

(personal) benefits. Thus, three statements load

on the second factor (9.69% of variance

explained): ‘With respect to the location of the

WF in western Lesvos, I certainly want to

contribute in one way or another to solving a

problem that is also caused by other’, ‘Whoever

wants to make the profits also has to bear the

associated burden: the WF in western Lesvos

may cost me something’ and ‘As a matter of fact,

I don’t think it’s fair to saddle another

municipality with the WF’. Actually, then, this

second factor denotes a tendency to reach

common ground and sharing costs and benefits-

which is not what NIMBY is supposed to be all

about. Similarly, the third factor (8.9% of the

variability in the data: ‘It’s only common sense

not to object in advance to the WF being built in

western Lesvos’ and ‘As long as a waste facility

is not built in western Lesvos, I don’t object to

it’) and the fourth factor (8.9% of the variance

explained: ‘If good arguments can be found to

site the WF in western Lesvos instead of

somewhere else, I will accept it’ and ‘Life is

competitive: if the WF is sited in someone else’s

area it is not sited western Lesvos’)

acknowledge the existence of a (personal) cost

yet they couple this with a willingness to be

persuaded by sound arguments- again, not what

NIMBYies are expected to do. The last, fifth

factor (8% of variance explained) consists of a

single statement, indicating the respondent’s

willingness to pay-his-way-out of the social

dilemma: ‘I’m willing in some way to pay extra

in order to contribute to the costs of building the

WF in another municipality’. Finally, two

statements (‘The costs resulting from WFs

should be borne by all of us’ and ‘Because a WF

has to be built somewhere, I don’t object in

advance to it being sited in western Lesvos’) do

not load to any factor.

Predictor variables

Perceived attributes of the facility and of the

siting decision: Most of the statements used in

the construction of the following latent variables

originate from Wolsink (2007b), Wolsink and

Devilee (2009) and Jones and Eiser (2010) and,

following these authors’ original formulation, are

measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from

Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

50

‘1’ (Strongly Agree) to ‘5’ (Strongly Disagree).

These are:

“Perceived risks”: 3-item scale (Cronbach’s α=

0.635); (blade movement would distract drivers

and cause car accidents…; WF will cause health

problems to the locals…; there are no risks

related to the WF (reversed)…, at western

Lesvos).

“Perceived costs”: 10-item scale (Cronbach’s

α= 0.909); (WF operation will cause disturbing

noise…; will spoil the landscape…; will cause

problems with TV reception…; will be ugly…;

will harm local husbandry/agriculture…; will

harm wild animals…; will devaluate

land/property…; will take up too much space…;

wild birds will be killed on it..; will spoil the

view from the villages…, at western Lesvos).

“Perceived benefits”: 8-item scale (Cronbach’s

α= 0.892); (WF will give extra revenue to

Lesvos municipality; will improve local

environment…; will help the area to develop…;

will offer jobs to the locals…; will impact

positively on tourism…; will bring about

positive changes in our community…; will

benefit the local economy…; will make local

electricity bills cheaper…, at western Lesvos).

“Perceived unfairness”: 2-item scale

(Cronbach’s α= 0.687); (Siting the WF in

western Lesvos is in conflict with my ideas about

equity; I don’t consider it fair).

Area of residence: Dummy dichotomous

variable, distinguishing between respondents

from (the affected area of) western Lesvos (‘1’)

and eastern Lesvos (‘2’)

Demographic characteristics: We also examine

the influence of Age, Gender and Educational

Attainment

Results

Our data were analysed through SPSS 21.0

software (IBM Corp. Released 2012). Two

regression models were utilized for the

estimation of NIMBY based on the previously

described predictor variables. Specifically, we fit

two regression equations, the first including as

predictors the four latent structures (Perceived

risks, costs, benefits and unfairness) along with

the dichotomous variable of area of residence

and the demographic items (i.e. age, level of

education and gender) (MODEL A), and the

second additionally including the interaction

effects of area of residence with each one of the

four latent structures (MODEL B).

As a preliminary analysis step we compare

the perceived risks, benefits, cost and unfairness

of the siting of the specific WF between the two

areas (Table 3). As it follows from the t-test

results, the two areas have statistically

significant differences on all the latent variables.

The negative signs in the average scores mean

that those living in the area of the development

(on western Lesvos) agree more than those living

away from it (on eastern Lesvos) that the WF’s

siting is risky, costly, unfair and it will have little

benefits (note the positive sign for the ‘perceived

benefits’ variable with regards to the ‘close’ to

the WF area). This is also the case for the

51

NIMBY stance, which was found to be more pronounced amongst respondents living closer to the WF

development (average score = -0.170, compared to 0.158 for those living away).

Table 3: Results of the t-test for the average scores of the latent variables by area of residence.

Latent

variable

Area in relation

to WF

N Average Std.

Deviation

t p-value

PERCEIVED

RISKS

Close 134 -0.242 1.092

-3.999 <0.001**

Away 144 0.225 0.849

PERCEIVED

COSTS

Close 134 -0.296 1.104

-4.953 <0.001**

Away 144 0.275 0.803

PERCEIVED

BENEFITS

Close 133 0.261 1.103

4.306 <0.001**

Away 144 -0.241 0.828

PERCEIVED

UNFAIRNESS

Close 134 -0.187 1.076

-3.049 0.003**

Away 144 0.174 0.893

NIMBY

Close 134 -0.170 1.061

-2.769 0.006**

Away 144 0.158 0.915

(**) Differences in the average scores are statistically significant at a 1% significance level

Next, we conducted a regression analysis in

order to explore the potential factors influencing

NIMBY (Table 4). It follows that one’s NIMBY

stance is influenced by perceptions of risks,

benefits, costs and fairness while the area of

residence as well as the demographic factors

(save ‘Educational attainment’) are not

statistically significant predictors.

Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

52

Table 4: Parameter estimates for the two models (dependent variable: NIMBY)

Model A Model B

Parameter b t p-value b t p-value

Constant 0.290 1.969 0.050*

0.189 1.222 n.s.

EDUCATION (Ref. category: Higher education)

Lower -0.269 -2.401 0.017*

-0.231 -2.019 0.045*

Middle -0.132 -1.238 n.s. -0.129 -1.213 n.s.

GENDER (Ref. category: Female)

Male 0.023 0.263 n.s. 0.038 0.422 n.s.

AGE 0-.004 -1.280 n.s. -0.003 -1.008 n.s.

RISKS 0.184 2.881 0.004**

0.134 1.369 n.s.

COSTS 0.245 3.321 0.001**

0.309 2.788 0.006**

BENEFITS -0.159 -2.628 0.009**

-0.262 -2.955 0.003**

UNFAIRNESS 0.254 4.556 <0.001**

0.282 3.661 <0.001**

AREA OF RESIDENCE (Ref. category: Away from WFs)

WFs area 0.024 0.275 n.s. 0.050 0.568 n.s.

AREA *

RISKS

0.092 0.712 n.s.

AREA *

COSTS

-0.081 -0.537 n.s.

AREA *

BENEFITS

0.166 1.317 n.s.

AREA *

UNFAIRNESS

-0.059 -0.528 n.s.

R2 = 0.544

(Adjusted R2 = 0.529)

R2 =0.553

(Adjusted R2 = 0.531)

**: parameter is significant at a 1% significance level; *: parameter is significant at a 5% significance

level

53

Discussion & Conclusion

This paper set out to examine whether

individuals living closer to a proposed wind farm

are more likely to exhibit a ‘not-in-my-back-

yard’ stance compared to people living further

away. The validation of this ‘proximity

hypothesis’ is anticipated by the very nature of

the NIMBY rationalization: if locals do not want

the WF on their turf because they are ‘free-

riders’, then this ‘free-riding’ behavior will be

more pronounced among the inhabitants of the

area most affected, that is the area closer to the

wind-farm-to-be.

Our analysis of two sub-samples of

inhabitants on the Greek island of Lesvos, where

a mega WF is set to be built, shows a more

complicated reality. As it is evident from Table 3

the views between those living close to the

proposed development and those living far away

from it differ an all accounts, and these

differences are statistically significant (as it

follows from the t-tests’ results). Similar to

previous research (Warren et al 2005; Jones and

Eiser 2010), which found that negative views are

most prominent in the area closer to a proposed

WF development, the sub-sample of western

Lesvos, where the project is to be developed,

scored higher on costs, risk and unfairness

perceptions and lower on perceived benefits.

This is also the case for NIMBY: people living

in the affected area espouse more strongly a ‘not-

in-my-back-yard’ stance towards the WF than

those living further away.

These findings seem to support the

mainstream rationalization of NIMBY, as the

protective, ‘free-riding’ reaction of the locally-

affected community. In other words, and

following the NIMBY logic, wanting the WF to

be moved to somewhere else location is a

spatially-bounded stance: people want the WF

out of an area more strongly if it involves “their”

area (the case of western Lesvos’ respondents)

while their ‘free-riding’ reaction is more

lukewarm if the development concerns an area

they are not in direct contact with (the case of

eastern Lesvos’ respondents).

Yet, when examining the predictors of

NIMBY, a more complex picture emerges. To

start with, and similar to other research (e.g.

Wolsink and Devilee 2009, Botetzagias et al

2015), we find that the perceived risks and costs

regarding the WF development, as well as

considering the siting of the WF as ‘unfair’, are

positively correlated with NIMBY while the

perceived benefits by the WF impact negatively

on NIMBY (Table 4). Furthermore, perceiving

the siting of the WF as ‘unfair’ is one of the

strongest predictors of NIMBY, a finding which

is accordance with previous research (op.cit) and

suggests that respondents want the WF out of the

particular area not only because they wish to

pass the burden to someone else (as it is the case

for the costs and risks predictors’ correlations

with the NIMBY variable), but also because they

consider the decision as unfair. On the other

hand, the demographic variables have no

statistically significant impact, save the

Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

54

‘Educational attainment’ predictor: individuals

with a lower educational attainment exhibit a

weaker NIMBY stance when compared to

individuals with middle/higher educational

levels, a rather surprising finding which seems to

contradict the common wisdom that NIMBYies

are ‘ignorant’ or ‘misinformed’.

Whereas the stand-alone effect of the area of

residence on NIMBY as shown by the t-test is

significant, when we examine the overall effect

on NIMBY caused by perceptions of risks,

benefits, costs, fairness, area of residence and

demographic variables we observe that the

overall effects of area of residence (i.e. both

main effects and interactions) tend to be

cancelled out. This is due to the fact that the

effects of area of residence are dominated by the

more strong effects of the other predictors and

specifically the four latent constructs. This is

evident in Table 4, where one’s ‘Area’ of

residence is not a statistically significant

predictor: whether one lives close (and in direct

impact) or away (and not affected) from the

development, has no effect on his/her NIMBY

views. Furthermore, as it shows from beta

coefficients’ estimates for the interaction effects

between the predictors, the area of residence has

no effect on the other predictors’ impact on

NIMBY: for example, people who consider the

siting of the WF as costly will have a stronger

NIMBY inclination irrespectively of the area

they live in.

In conclusion, our results show that an

individual wants a WF out of one area and into

some other, not because of the particular area

s/he lives but because s/he perceives the siting of

the WF in that ‘particular’ area as costly, risky,

not beneficial and, most importantly, unfair.

Nevertheless, we also found that these

perceptions, which ultimately guide one’s

NIMBY attitude, are more pronounced in the

area where the WF is to be built (see Table 3).

Why is this the case? In other words, why do the

people who live closer the affected area consider

the WF more risky, more costly, more unfair and

less beneficial? Although answering this

question does not fall within the scope of this

paper, we conclude by offering some thoughts on

this issue, although we lack the data necessary

for testing these ideas.

On one hand, one might question whether we

should accept at face value the respondents’

answers concerning the WF’s possible impacts.

It may well be the case that people living closer

to the proposed WF are answering strategically

and they are consciously exaggerating its

potential risks, costs and siting problems, while

downplaying its benefits, in an attempt to justify

their opposition to the project1 (cf. Bell et al.

2005:464; van der Horst 2007:2710). Yet, if this

was indeed the case, why aren’t the respondents

also answering strategically in the NIMBY-

related questions, similarly downplaying their

“true” egoistical/free-riding point of view? As it

1 As a matter of fact, opposition to the project is much

higher to the area closer to the development (47.7% of

respondents ‘(Strongly) Against’ the WF) than the area

further away (15.3% ‘(Strongly) Against’), and the

differences are statistically significant (t = -4.535, sig <

0.001)

AEJES (2015) 1, 40-61

55

is obvious from Table 3, the respondents on

western Lesvos make no such attempt: contrary

to previous research, which has identified that

locals are aware of the risk of being branded as

NIMBYies and thus they try to justify their

opposition in broader terms (Burningham

2000:61-63), they seem quite eager to agree with

politically incorrect statements such as ‘Because

I don’t think it’s very necessary to bear a part of

the collective burden, I don’t accept the WF in

western Lesvos’ and ‘As far as I’m concerned,

the WF should be sited in somebody else’s area’.

Thus, if the western Lesvos inhabitants’

responses reflect their true appraisal about the

project, then a number of reasons may account

for the fact. As we mentioned in the ‘Case-study

areas & samples’ section of the paper, western

Lesvos already hosts two (much smaller and out

of sight of most of the western Lesvos’ villages

we researched) WFs, Although in this study we

did not record the communities’ views on the

existing WFs, it is plausible that their existence

influences the western Lesvos inhabitants’ views

concerning the new WFs. Thus it may be the

case that people on western Lesvos, hold much

more negative opinions on the existing WFs2

which inform their negative assessment of the

new, proposed development; or, they may think

that siting more (and/or much larger) WFs in

their greater area (no matter how nice and

necessary it may be) is simply unfair and/or not

2 Yet one should note that if this is indeed the case then it

would contradict the existence of a ‘reversed NIMBY

effect’ identified by Warren et al (2005) and Braunholtz

(2003)

worthy3. On the other hand, their negative

assessment may reflect some actual

shortcomings of the particular development: it

could be the case that the inhabitants of western

Lesvos, due to their vested interests, have

(strived to achieve) a better knowledge of the

‘Aegean Link’ project and its impacts and this,

more in-depth, comprehension of what the

particular project entails may have created more

negative appraisals compared to their more

disinterested (and thus less informed) inhabitants

of the eastern part of the island. In any case,

these are tentative arguments and more detailed

research is needed for settling the issue.

Based on the above, it is recommended that

future research examining the possible role of

distance on NIMBY perceptions should take into

account the possible influence of more factors:

knowledge about the project, the appraisal of any

existing windfarms as well as the ‘vested

interest’ one feels s/he has concerning the

development (irrespectively of his/hers area of

residence) may play a role in shaping individual

preferences and views when it comes to

windfarms’ siting.

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Yiannis Moysiadis et al., The impact of distance on NIMBY views

60

APPENDIX

Table X1: NIMBY-related statements’ loadings on factors (rotated varimax

transformation, with Kaiser normalization)

Statements

Factors

1 2 3 4 5

1. It’s quite stupid to accept the WF in western

Lesvos

0.790

2. Because I don’t think it’s very necessary to

bear a part of the collective burden, I don’t

accept the WF in western Lesvos

0.773

3. It’s completely logical for me that the WF

should be sited in someone else’s area’

0.599

4. If good arguments can be found to site the

WF in western Lesvos instead of somewhere

else, I will accept it

0.521

5. I don't accept it because someone else

wouldn't accept it either

0.705

6. I am not in principle against it

7. Accepting the WF in western Lesvos means

that you don’t represent your own interests

strongly enough

0.540

8. I don’t feel like shouldering the burden of a

problem that is also caused by others, by

accepting the WF in western Lesvos

0.741

9. As far as I’m concerned, the WF should be

sited in somebody else’s area

0.713

10. Life is competitive: if the WF is sited in

someone else’s area it is not sited western

Lesvos

0.811

11. WFs related burdens should be shared by

everyone

AEJES (2015) 1, 40-61

61

12. It’s only common sense not to object in

advance to the WF being built in western

Lesvos

0.718

13. With respect to the location of the WF in

western Lesvos, I certainly want to

contribute in one way or another to solving a

problem that is also caused by other’

0.645

14. Whoever wants to make the profits also has

to bear the associated burden: the WF in

western Lesvos may cost me something

0.646

15. As long as a waste facility is not built in

western Lesvos, I don’t object to it’

0.519

16. I’m willing in some way to pay extra in

order to contribute to the costs of building

the WF in another municipality

0.838

17. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it’s fair to

saddle another municipality with the WF’

0.525

62

(COMMUNIQUÉ) Disruptions in environmental sciences: tracking changes in scientific priorities and concepts (1970-2014)

Andreas Y. Troumbis

A U T H O R ’ S I N F O A B S T R A C T

Andreas Y. Troumbis* is a

Professor of Ecology with the

Department of Environment,

University of the Aegean, Greece.

*email: atro@aegean.gr

The paper presents data and criteria on the potential application

of the concept of "disruption" within the trajectory of Ecology

and its applications in the broader environmental science (-s)

realm. Disruption is considered as a phenomenon that

transforms drastically academic practice in the sense of the re-

organization of research priorities followed by the creation of

new academic aggregates and/or value networks. Two

exemplary cases, distinctive but indicative, are examined in this

perspective: "biodiversity" and "Information & Communication

Technology" (ICT) applications in SMART transportation in

urban setups". Data are extracted from the Web of Knowledge

data bank on research publications. Criteria are differentiated

regarding publication series of academic activity, i.e. ISI

publications, on the respective fields. Both indicate that a sharp

conceptual transformation has occurred after 2000 in

environmental science sensu lato. The question of forecasting is

set regarding the research production of scientific research in

environmental fields.

K E Y W O R D S (in alphabetical order): Biodiversity; Big data; Disruption; Information &

Communication Technology (ICT); Transportation

Introduction

What makes "progress in science"

constitutes a longstanding problem in

epistemology and philosophy of science

(Polanyi 1969; Kuhn 1970; Lakatos 1978;

Popper 2002). Ultimately, the questions of the

very essence of a "scientific theory", the

process of its construction and/or the process of

its verification remain more or less unresolved.

In scientific domains such as Ecology and

applied environmental science(-s), these

questions predominate because of their

implications in addressing higher level

ecological complexity, statistical strategies in

experimental design (e.g. Peters 1991; Hilborn

and Mangel 1997) and/or bridging and transfer

of knowledge between "science" and "policy"

(e.g. Pielke 2004).

In Ecology, for instance, the epistemic

question on the "theory making" problem

remains still open regarding environmental-

problem solving issues, following Kitcher's

distinction (1985): is it "bottom-up"

approaches, i.e. accumulation of statistical

evidence over a large number of individual

cases, that lead to theoretical explanation of

ecological/environmental phenomena -and

AEJES (2015) 1, 62-71

63

therefore underwrite talk about practical

environmental problem-solving- or, in the

contrary, is it "top-down", exceptionless general

laws that are required to be used in specific

phenomena (e.g. Shrader-Frechette and McCoy

1993)? Within the realm of environmental

"meta"-science (-s), the above complicates

further given the answers that are provided by

positivists, realists and relativists in a discourse-

dependent narration insofar as Ecology is an

applied endeavor - e.g. conservation biology

and planning - that moves from singularity to

explanation than one that proceeds in the

opposite direction.

In simple or simplified words, this question

is translated into how long time information on

specific cases, empirical or conceptual, could

be translated into useful knowledge. And, how

many or long back steps might be recorded if

we are not careful in the knowledge acquisition

processes of the so-called "information or

computer age" (Silver 2012)? In the era of "big

data", the prediction by Anderson (2008) that

the volume of data would obviate the need for

theory, and even the scientific method,

overcomes the usual epistemic discussion or

controversy on "theory".

The present paper attempts to examine

progress in Ecology and environmental science

(-s) as disruptions in the incremental path of

incumbent scientific production. I use the term

"disruption" in the sense proposed by

Christensen (1997) regarding "innovation" in

"technology": in other words, I propose

disruption as a sharp contrast between concepts

or research priorities that help create new

academic aggregates or value networks

displacing older discourses, entities or

practices. In this sense, disruptions differ from

sustaining scientific progress in that they are

neither usual transformations or revolutionary

ideas in Ecology nor evolutionary extensions of

it as functions of evolving knowledge itself but

rather abrupt changing applications of it.

Instead of using typical historical scrutiny of

the trajectory of sequences of concepts and

theories in Ecology in order to identify and

evaluate their impact in shaping environmental

science (-s), I propose quantitative

methods/criteria in an attempt to identify

disruptions. The concept of "biodiversity" in

Ecology and the strategy of "green"

applications of ICTs (Information and

Communication Technologies) to reduce

carbon emissions within the framework of

sustainable economic growth are used as

exemplary cases hereafter.

Methods and theory

This approach assumes the use of large sets

of data on published research during a

sufficiently long period of time. It is not a

review sensu stricto that compiles published

results and inferences - i.e. the content of

publications - in order to propose a new "story"

on a theme, e.g. as it is the case with the recent

analysis by Low-Décarie et al. (2014) on the

falling explanatory power in Ecology. Rather, it

Andreas Y. Troumbis, Disruptions in environmental sciences

64

uses the context of publications - i.e. the

existence of publications responding to

thematic keywords or identifiers during a

certain period of time. Such data sets became

possible with the development of web resources

and the Internet economy and services, e.g. the

Web of Knowledge/ISI or Google Scholar and

Trends or Sets.

I use the Web of Knowledge data bank in

order to retrieve secondary information on the

number publications/year responding to specific

queries on keywords, domains and scientific

areas covering the period 1970-2014. It is

assumed that the publications reported therein

correspond or encapsulate the ensemble of

criteria regarding scientific quality, peer

reviewing, prestige and/or accessibility to the

international academic community as well as its

evolving values and biases through time.

"Case Study" 1: disruption in Ecology as a

lower attack of established concepts.

The history of "biodiversity" as a scientific

neologism, political construction and boundary

object is repeatedly reported (e.g. Takacs 1996,

Oksanen and Pietarinen 2004, Loreau 2010).

"Biodiversity" was never studied before as a

disruption to our best knowledge. A "lower

attack" is a narrative description of a situation

where the trajectory of a "new" technology or

concept crosses the trajectory in time of

incumbent technology or concept and

establishes itself as the dominant configuration

of them.

Data sets were selected on queries

responding to the following keywords:

"nature", "environment", "diversity",

"ecosystem", "goods AND services",

"biodiversity" and "biodiversity AND goods

AND services". Research domains and areas

were restricted/refined to "Environmental

Sciences" AND "Ecology" in order to avoid

semantic and linguistic biases and redundancy.

The disruption criterion was set as the condition

where a lower attack by "biodiversity" crosses

the trajectory in time of incumbent, i.e. pre-

existing and established, "nature" or

"environment" concepts. This criterion could be

represented either in absolute values of

#publications/year or as relative values, ratios,

of "biodiversity" over comparative "concepts"

on a logarithmic scale. When ratio values

become higher to 1, it is assumed that

disruption occurs.

"Case Study" 2: disruption in environmental

science (-s) as a reversed algebraic sign.

In that case, the selected query focused on

the the keyword combination "green OR

SMART AND vehicl* AND ICT" referring to

SMART 2020 environmental targets on cities

and transportations. The final search procedure

consisted in a sequential elimination of

redundant and/or semantically "noisy"

keywords, domains and areas. The refined

AEJES (2015) 1, 62-71

65

query areas comprised Computer science,

Engineering, Transportation, Operations

research, Telecommunications, Environmental

sciences, Automation control, Mechanics,

Geography, Construction building technology,

and Public environmental health.

In this "case-study", it is assumed that the

trend of cumulative number of publications,

during 1970-2014, should follow some

monotonically increasing function, e.g. linear or

exponential. A "linear" increase should be

interpreted as a persistent but entrenched/steady

effort in this research area - i.e. an enhanced

BAU operation of a well defined community of

scholars - whereas an "exponential" one could

be interpreted as a diversification of both

research issues and identities of interested

scholars. However, given the nature and time

length of data, it is almost impossible to test

directly the hypothesis that "SMART-target"

issues are disruptive or not - i.e. an "attack"

from the bottom of incumbent literature.

Thus, an inference on potential disruption

could be approached through a simple

transformation of raw data, according to a naive

model accepting that the trajectory of the

cumulative # publications is described by:

y

t

y

tP

where P is the number of publications on a

yearly basis at year t, y is the annual

accumulation of # publications, μ is a constant

(hereafter, the average of #publications 1970-

2014) and ε is a yearly variation, because of the

structure of the search WoK query, y

t ~

),( SDN .

Results

As expected, in both "case-studies" the

cumulative #publications/year increased in an

exponential way during the studied period: it is

the growth rate per se that offers a perspective in

the ever-growing interest regarding the concepts.

Figures 1A and 1B present the respective trends.

However, "disruption" following our criteria

could be revealed in Figures 2A, B and 3.

Figures 1A and 1B. Trajectory of cumulative #

publications/year reported in Web of Knowledge,

according to the search query (combination of keywords

and research areas) on (A) Biodiversity and (B) ICT

applications on 'green OR SMART" urban transportation.

Red curve: actual # of published research; black curve:

best fit exponential equation on data (R2 > 0.98 in both

cases).

Figure 2A presents comparatively the

trajectory of publications/year for the keywords

"nature", "environment", "diversity" and

"biodiversity": for all curves, a positive

"inflection" or "jump point" - i.e. a revived

Andreas Y. Troumbis, Disruptions in environmental sciences

66

scientific interest- is observed in year 1970+20

(±2) (refer to Conclusions section). It

corresponds to late 80's/early 90's years after

the eruption of mid-80's conceptual

development in environmental issues with the

construction of "terms" such as "sustainability"

(1987), "biodiversity" (1986) and/or "global

change" (1986). Logically, publications on

"biodiversity" appear 2-3 years after the term

was coined. Publications on "biodiversity"

cross the trajectory of the comparable terms in

year 1970+30 (± 2), i.e. in early 00's. The least

resistant term proves to be "nature", indicating

that "biodiversity" is a modern and more

adapted scientifically term matching better the

discursive needs of science and the academic

community. The same conclusions are drawn

from data in Figure 2B where ratios between

compared terms are presented. Thus, the

criterion of a ratio > 1 between publications on

terms - i.e. concepts - could be used as

indicating "disruption" in Ecology.

This statistical treatment is not applicable for

emerging fields in environmental science (-s)

because of their short time scale. Therefore, the

alternative criterion proposed hereabove on the

inversion/reversal of sign, appears more

adequate or eligible in these cases. Figure 3

presents the trajectory of the cumulative

#publications/year minus the overall average of

publications over the studied period ± 1 SD.

Figures 2A and 2B. A (upper graph): trajectory of

cumulative #publications/year, retrieved from Web of

Knowledge, during the period 1970-2014 for the keywords

"nature" (◊), "environment" (○), "diversity" (▪) and

"biodiversity" (●); B (lower graph): trajectory of rations

between publication on "biodiversity" over "nature" (●),

"environment" (○) and "diversity" ( ). Disruptions are

identified when lower trajectories cross already established

ones; inflections are identified when abrupt changes in a

trajectory are observed without crossing other trajectories.

See text for explanations.

Publication effort regarding "green OR

SMART" transportation in urban setups shows

an inversion of sign in year 1970+30 (±1): this

turning point, identified in 2000-2001/2,

coincides with major political/academic events

such as Rio+10, the UNEP 2002 commitment

of World leaders on abatement of

environmental degradation, etc - i.e. a change in

political priorities, goals and funding. The fact

that as years progress the cumulative

#publications overpasses by two or three times

the limits of variation y

t ~ ),( SDN is

AEJES (2015) 1, 62-71

67

considered as a validation of the hypothesis of

disruption of incumbent research interest and

methods.

Figure 3: A hypothetical presentation of "disruption" in

research interest regarding the "greening" or SMART

targets in transportation in ICT-related scientific literature.

Data are retrieved from Web of Knowledge (1970-2014).

μ: average of #publications/year and SD: Standard

Deviation.

Conclusions and extensions

There are two classes of questions that arise

succinctly hereabove: (1) technicalities on the

criteria proposed; (2) epistemic issues on the

concept of disruption in environmental

sciences. "Disruption" and "inflection or jump

point" in thematic publications trajectory are

neither synonymous nor extensions or shifts in

terminology. For they describe different

conditions and they are generated by

fundamentally different mechanisms of theory-

making.

In strict mathematical terms, there is no

inflection in a continuous concave curve.

Therefore, the term inflection as used herein

has sense "between brackets" or as a short-cut

for the alternative "jump point" which actually

means points where the trend in the rate of

change of the variable is accelerated.

Technically, this corresponds to a situation

where the annual absolute increments (i.e. the

absolute differences between annual values of

the variable # publications) are divided by the

value of the year before forming thus an index:

"jump points" are identified in years in which

the second derivative of the index differs

significantly from zero.

More important is, however, to notice that an

"inflection" refers to the trajectory of a concept

taken alone, e.g. #publications on biodiversity,

whereas "disruption" refers to the replacement

of a concept by another in time; therefore, for a

disruption to be identified there is a need for

comparison of the trajectories of two concepts

that eventually compete narratively,

conceptually and/or practically. That's exactly

what the proposed criterion tries to identify in

"case study" 1, e.g. concerning biodiversity vs

nature.

However, this strict comparison is not

always feasible, especially for emerging fields

of scientific interest which are not sufficiently

long time present in the literature in order to

examine the trajectory of publications curve in

comparison to an incumbent concept, as it the

case for the ICT example presented hereabove.

Strictly speaking, the only search possible in

that case is search for "inflections" or "jump

points"; to define approximatively a disruption

there are mainly two options. Either an

alternative criterion, i.e. the inversion of

Andreas Y. Troumbis, Disruptions in environmental sciences

68

algebraic sign as proposed, or the use of the

first criterion upon forecasted data for

compared concepts. For the second option, the

arsenal of time-series analysis and forecasting

could eventually be used: there are several

examples of such approaches available in

various fields such as GDP growth applied on

annual or quarterly data or Google's big data

Trends on a weekly basis searches.

Further, besides technicalities, the

mechanism generating an "inflection" vs a

"disruption" is different. An "inflection" could

be explained by a conjectural increase in

publication effort by the concerned scholar

community without any structural, operational

or conceptual change within it. A "disruption"

occurs when such changes are actually

observed.

Although disruptions are observed in both

exemplary cases according to our criteria, the

question of "progress in science" is more

challenging as an epistemic problem when

emerging concepts/issues are addressed. It is

the case for "biodiversity": through time

biodiversity becomes an incumbent concept

itself, after ca 35 years of intense research

activity. "Biodiversity" - as well as other

planetary change concepts - starts suffering the

by-effects of its original missionary successes,

as related to its disruptive character. An

overwhelming part of biodiversity-related

literature relates to non-pure Ecology or

genetics issues: in fact, although biodiversity

and ecosystem function research is a consistent

part of the fundamentals of natural science-

making, a very large extent of publications

refers to applications within agronomy and

forestry, economics, management and social

sciences. This is more than obvious when

predictions in scientific domains such as

Environmental or Ecological Economics are

reviewed or when social processes over

decision-making regarding environmental

issues, e.g. participatory processes, are

addressed. Analyses and/or predictions in such

domains are directly confronted to actual results

in the real world of policy-making. For

instance, the disruptive momentum of

biodiversity met with success in the

Institutional and public-discourse spheres as

long as the ultimate goal of the academic

community was -or still is- to drive decisions

towards rational choices or, at least, to an

informed political opportunism, in a perpetual

confrontation between science and policy -or

even politics. On the contrary, the flagrant

failure of the "2010 Biodiversity goal" on

slowing down or halting the biodiversity

extinction rates (e.g. Butchart et al. 2010)

underlines that there are narrow limits in the

linear relationship between "good science" and

"good policy" and in the performance of a

discourse-dependent strategy no matter how

disruptive could be the conceptual pillar of such

endeavour.

However, sticking to Christensen's (1997)

original definition of a disruption as a

mechanism that helps create new academic

AEJES (2015) 1, 62-71

69

aggregates or value networks displacing older

discourses, entities or practices, biodiversity is

indeed a disruptive concept since it has

reshaped the operation of scholar ecology to a

large extent, e.g. research priorities, funding,

constitution of groups, publication platforms,

etc.

For an, or any, emerging environmental field

such as the exemplary research domain on ICT

applications in SMARTer targets regarding e.g.

urban/transport "command & control" issues is

promising for further development as a

disruption. There is not yet a clear/definite

bridging between disparate research fields such

as "transport" and "sustainability", sensu effects

upon emissions and urban air quality (and

several other related fields such as

environmental friendly commuting, urban air

quality and heat islands, optimization of traffic

and public health, the economics of daily

calendar of work force, etc.). In that sense,

"progress" should be examined as to whether

ICT could improve this bridging at the level of

Urban decision-making, as an example.

However, "progress" would not be evaluated in

that case but if ICT applications are proved not

as secondary elements of a "transport" policy in

urban settings, but rather as promoters of

established SMARTer solutions.

In an environmental "meta"-science field,

where the questions of pure scientific method

remain debatable - e.g. pluri-disciplinarity

and/or trans-disciplinarity approaches vs.

falsification experimentation - the core question

is not the a posteriori confirmation/validation

of hypotheses but rather the forecasting ability

on trends of collections of elementary

explanatory drivers. Therefore, it is genuinely

requested that some kind of prediction of "early

warning" signals of research priorities and

methods for scientific policy-making from the

point of view of international research

institutions and funding agencies. This problem

could potentially be viewed as a forecasting

problem based on current trends of usual

academic research production. Obviously, such

forecasting methods cannot definitely predict

disruptions, because by definition they are not

predictable! But, they can provide for a solid

understanding of science making and the

performance of science policies.

Acknowledgements: The paper is dedicated to

the loving memory of Professors Nikos S.

Margaris and Leonidas Louloudis. The author

thanks Ioannis Troumbis for his help and

support in examining and understanding the

peculiarities of ICT applications in

environmental science(-s) and SMART targets.

Financial support from an anonymous source is

greatly appreciated.

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