Environmental behavior patterns across clusters of European Union countries: Uncovering heterogeneity in the attitude-behavior-context relationship

Abstract

This study examines how European Union (EU) citizens systematically differ in their environmental attitude-behavior relationships according to country-level contextual drivers. Using Eurobarometer data and a multilevel latent class regression model, we identified four attitude-behavior relationships that we labelled, according to mean environmental behavior scores, as environmentalist, pre-environmentalist, less-environmentalist, and non-environmentalist. Regarding their distribution across the EU, we identified four country clusters reflecting pattern similarities that we labelled green, yellow-green, brown, and gray clusters. We found that the attitude-behavior relationship was weaker for more environmentalist patterns than for less environmentalist patterns. Furthermore, more environmentalist patterns were associated with more privileged social positions. As expected, the country clusters reflected socioeconomic development levels (more developed countries were environmentally greener). In the interest of reducing inequality in the distribution of environmentally healthy and vital ecosystems, we suggest that EU environmental policies should mainly address the environmental behaviors of countries classified as brown and gray.