What Is Environmental Awareness And Why Is It Important? If you're asking yourself this question right now, you've come to the right place! Finally, the topic of environmental awareness is moving more and more into the focus of media attention. Besides regular debates about the Climate Change, the Air quality in the cities or the pollution of the oceans by plastic waste, it was also environmental movements such as Fridays for Futurewhich impressively demonstrated how pronounced environmental awareness is in our society and especially among young people.
But what is environmental awareness actually from a psychological point of view, how do a person's closeness to nature and his or her behavior relate to each other, and how can one improve one's own awareness of nature?
In this article, I would like to answer this very question and make the concept of environmental awareness more tangible. Let's go!
What Is Environmental Awareness And Why Is It Important?
According to dictionaries, environmental awareness is composed of the Environmental Knowledge, the Environmental settings, the Behavioral Intentions regarding the environment and the actual environmental behavior of a human being.1
Simply put: Environmental awareness is a person's realization that their natural environment is of great importance to all life on Earth - and that their everyday actions have an impact on it.
Environmentally conscious people know that by directly or indirectly damaging the environment, they are not only damaging sensitive ecosystems but also also endanger their own livelihood - and decide accordingly in favor of a more environmentally friendly behavior in everyday life.
Man and Environment - An Eternal Relationship
For thousands of years in the history of man's development, nature was Food supplier as well as existential threat at the same time.
Already the construction of the first house had the Sense of protection from the immediate, hostile environment. The technical possibilities of being able to protect and assert oneself against nature grew over the millennia.
At the same time, man's self-confidence in his ability to dominate, control and change nature grew. This development culminated in the industrial revolutionwhich is an unprecedented The age of man-made environmental disasters the likes of which the world had never seen before.
It was a political guiding principle, especially in the 19th century, to want to subjugate natureThis can be seen, for example, in the numerous straightening and draining of rivers, which have left massive permanent damage to this day.
In recent decades, however, environmental awareness has increased more and more and In the meantime, it is at least politically and socially accepted to use the Environmental protection as important to evaluate. This also showed this environmental awareness study of the Federal Environment Agency for the year 2022.
According to the survey count 57 percent of participants consider environmental and climate protection to be the most important social challenges. In addition, a large majority feels that important players such as the federal government and industry are not doing enough to protect the environment and climate.
With the current (as of 2025) global shift to the right and the war in Ukraine Unfortunately, the issue of nature conservation has clearly taken a back seat. At present, we can only speculate as to whether and to what extent this has influenced people's environmental awareness.
Tip: Be sure to check out the Tips for climate protection in everyday life when you yourself can be part of the solution in the fight against the global warming would like to become.
Environmentally harmful behavior despite high environmental awareness?
It there is a big hole between what people say about their environmental awareness and how they actually behave. In many cases, one can even speak of the complete opposite.
Example: Over 70 percent of Germans would like to travel more sustainably - yet only 7 percent actually put this into practice.2
The plane is despite cheaper and environmentally friendly alternatives, meat is still the preferred mode of transport. Meat is despite more environmentally friendly, healthier and higher-quality substitute products (and countless vegan recipes) are still on many people's plates. And that everything despite lasting feelings of shame like the "Flight shame" or the "Meat shame".
But what are the psychological reasons for this discrepancy? Why do so many people obviously have a high level of environmental awareness, but do not implement this in their everyday lives? The motives for this are manifold. In the following I would like to introduce you to four of them.
1. low cost effect
The low-cost effect in psychology states that people are especially willing to change their behavior if they can do so in exchange for have to do without much and the change involves as little additional time, organizational and financial effort for them as possible.
One example of this is the climate friendly mobilityWhile it is often easy for city dwellers to switch from cars to public transportation, bicycles or scooters, rural residents often have no other option than to get from A to B by car.
Another example are Organic foodwhich are often more expensive than conventional foods and thus far from affordable for all people.
2. social desirability
The psychological effect of social desirability is a well-known bias in research and evaluation and regularly causes flawed study results. It states that people tend to behave in a way that they consider to be a socially desirable norm.
The protection of nature is one such norm - To speak out against it would be controversial. It is therefore to be expected that study participants will also present themselves as environmentally conscious in surveys. Even if it does not correspond to their personal opinion. The study participants are usually not even aware of this effect.
3. the power of habit
Many people find life changes difficult - We all know that. When it comes to environmental awareness, too, in many cases it is simply force of habit that Prevents people from adapting their behavior according to their own environmental awareness.
This is for example the caseif you forget to turn off the heating regularly when you put food in the fridge. unnecessary plastic packaging or once again travels a very short distance by car.
4. self-efficacy expectation
Self-efficacy plays a key role in psychological behavioral research. It denotes the Expectation of a person to be able to perform an action successfully by himself/herself by means of his/her own competencies..
Put simply, this means: People who believe they can make a difference themselveshave a high expectation of self-efficacy.
This also plays a major role in terms of environmentally conscious behavior. After all, many people are of the Conviction of not being able to do anything themselves for general environmental awareness. Instead, responsibility tends to be passed on to politics and business.
How can you promote your own environmental awareness?
At the same time, the question of improving environmental awareness raises the question of who is responsible for environmental awareness and who is in a position to actually do something for the environment.
We have already seen that people often find it difficult to lead an environmentally conscious everyday life for many psychological reasons. This has also been recognized in politics. In recent years, there has been an increasing shift away from an "individual policy" approach to convincing people of the urgency of protecting the environment and toward the use of economic measures instead.
With the corresponding instruments, environmentally friendly behavior is rewarded with economic added value. This makes it more attractive for many people to actually comply. Incentives for more environmentally friendly behavior supply for example Subsidies for photovoltaic systems or Emission allowances.
Especially for companies Positive economic incentives increase the acceptance of nature conservation measures. No wonder, because as soon as money can be earned with nature conservation, the preservation and promotion of the environment is integrated into the economic calculation and from a possible obstacle to an additional economic opportunity.
The world's largest financial manager also announced Blackrock in the year 2020 The company announced its intention to evaluate companies according to climate risks in future and to partially eliminate companies that mine coal from its portfolios. A sign that points to a positive development could be concluded. In 2025, however, they now rose from the climate alliance "Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative" (NZAMI). Allegedly for legal reasons, but probably more because climate protection is currently not getting much media attention.
However, politics and business also create a fundamental framework that integrates environmental protection into everyday life and the reality of people's lives. Ultimately, however, it is up to each individual, to bring one's own everyday life into harmony with environmental protection.
Tip: If you want to know how to Promoting environmental awareness in a targeted manner can - for example, in childhood - then be sure to check out the linked article.
How can everyone live an environmentally conscious life?
In order to Consistency between our own environmental awareness and our actions it can be helpful to consider the interrelationships that keep our planet "running".
How are CO2 emissions from cars linked to global warming? Where does the plastic bag in the supermarket come from and where does it end up after being thrown away? To question things and be curiousIt creates understanding and greater awareness. It can also help to plant something yourself in order to regain an appreciation for the biological cycles.
Besides my book "Nachhaltig leben für Einsteiger" (is available here*) can also be the following, further articles promote your environmental awareness:
- Environmental problems of our time
- Docs about factory farming
- Reasons for plant-based diet
- Garden sustainable design - Tips & Tricks
- Living plastic-free - Here's how
- Environmental protection with children
- Sustainable driving
- Zero Waste for beginners
- Sustainable consumption - how it works
Tip: Feel free to look around even more in the Environmental protection blog um! There you will find a cornucopia of inspiration for a more environmentally conscious everyday life.
Through your own actions - even if they are only small changes - you can serve as a positive example to others. However, you should pay attention to this, not wanting to lecture other people with a raised index finger. Rather, the focus should be on having fun with an environmentally conscious lifestyle. It should put a smile on your face to show that environmentally conscious action and the more minimalist life also means more connectedness and joie de vivre.
In addition, you can also be involved in associations or Create petitions and thus also strive for change at the political level.
Environmental awareness is important - especially for our future
For a long time, we as humans were at the mercy of nature. For several hundred years, we have had technical possibilities, To be able to dominate and control nature. At least to a certain extent.
In the process, we often forget that we ourselves are part of the nature and we are faced with its destruction. also our deprive one's livelihood.
"We are living in dangerous times. Men control nature before they are even able to control themselves."
Albert Schweitzer (more at Sustainability Quotes)
An intact environment with clear water, clean air, healthy soil and a Diversity of animal and plant species is of crucial importance for our well-being and quality of life. Only nature itself probably doesn't care at all if we humans exist. It would continue to exist even without us.
So it is up to all of us to do something and get involved. Accordingly, I would like to conclude with these further books on the topics of environmental awareness and sustainable action:
- Environmental awareness and environmental behavior by Udo Kuckartz (is available here*)
- Sustainable living for beginners from myself (is available here*)
Do you have questions, suggestions, or your own definition of environmental awareness that you'd like to share? Then I look forward to your contribution.
Stay environmentally friendly,
PS: Be sure to check out my best Zero Waste Tips on. Targeted waste avoidance is a key to more environmentally conscious behavior.
References:
- E. Günther; Springer Gabler: Umweltbewusstsein, available at https://wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de/definition/umweltbewusstsein-49273. [26.02.2025]. ↩︎
- Norddeutscher Rundfunk; Tagesschau: #kurzerklärt: Sustainable travel - how does it work? YouTube, 28.06.2019, Web, 26.02.2025 at 07:53, in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ey0VzJqI8Y. ↩︎
