Formation mechanism of environmental protection behaviours of community residents: A system dynamics perspective

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of environmental protection behaviours of community residents from the perspective of system dynamics.

Design/methodology/approach

Documentation method is used to collect the factors and environmental improvement intervention strategies that influence the environmental protection behaviours of community residents from the top journals. To analyse the characteristics of the environmental protection behaviours of community residents which are nonlinear and dynamic, system dynamics (SD) are drawn. The initial value for simulation is obtained from the investigation report of some communities in China by questionnaires method.

Findings

The simulation shows that a process of continuous and interactional feedback is formed among environmental improvement intervention strategies, living context, environmental behavioural intention and environmental protection behaviours. These influences affect how environmental protection behaviour is affected by frequency of community environmental publicity, frequency of community participation regulation and local government investment, all of which are significant and decrease successively. Living context and environmental behavioural intention, which are intervened by the three strategies, can promote community residents’ environmental protection behaviours and reduce the degree of environmental pollution in communities.

Practical implications

The goal of reducing the community environmental pollution may be achieved, because the community environmental management departments can use this system dynamics approach to intervene the environmental protection behaviours of community residents.

Originality/value

The nonlinear and dynamic interactions among influencing factors are illustrated for an in-depth understanding of the environmental protection behaviours of community residents in this study. In addition, the initial parameter value and correlation coefficients are obtained for simulation through the questionnaire survey given to Chinese community residents to avoid the subjectivity of system dynamics.

Citation

Xu, R., Luo, F., Chen, X., Li, M. and Barua, Z. (2021), "Formation mechanism of environmental protection behaviours of community residents: A system dynamics perspective", Kybernetes, Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 386-412. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-12-2018-0653