GOING GREEN : HOW THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCES THE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR OF HOUSEHOLDS TO CONSERVE ENERGY

Abstract

Costly investments to create an eco-city or a green city do help create more sustainable environments to live in. Yet, without the continuous efforts of each individual to conscientiously conserve energy usage, such one-off investments are ironically unsustainable in the long run. With finite amount of funds, policy makers have to find the balance between investing in cleaner technology and paying to build beautiful sustainable cities. This dissertation attempts to investigate whether the physical environment of a housing estate influences the motivation to conserve energy among its households. If pro-environmentalist attitude, and in turn conserving energy behavior, is encouraged by the beautiful and unpolluted environment the households live in, it seems right for government to invest large sums of money to build such eco-cities. Using Singapore as a case study, I surveyed residents in two regions- one is surrounded by heavy industrial estates and the other is located away from the estates. I found respondents staying near heavy industrial estates to be less pro-environment. Further tests showed that the residents’ positive attitudes are backed by their actions to conserve energy.