trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

Table 1. Value shifting (Mikkola 2003, 47)Maslow (1954)Physiological needs andsafety needsSocial inclusion and needs of love,needs of esteem and achievementsAllardt (1976) Having Loving and beingInglehart (1977) Materialism Post-materialismSchwartz (1992)Security, conservation,self-enhancementUniversalism, openness to change,self-transcendenceAccording to Haberl et al. (2011) fundamental thinking, value, attitude and behavior changes arenecessary for human survival. We are interested in to find out how this change is possible to reach. Wewant to know what kinds of attitudes are linked to post-materialistic sustainability promoting behaviour.2. Material and MethodsThe data were collected on period 2008-2009 using a theory-grounded semantic differential technique(Åhlberg, 1988) that is an improvement of the semantic differential rating scale (Osgood, 1976). Finnishuniversity students (n = 198) from 18 to 40 years old rated statements of sustainability according to theirown thinking in their everyday life.Informants were asked to rate items using the following 9 step scales: (a) value, importance of theitem to her/him (no value, not important – extremely important) and (b) behavior - real implementationof the item in her/his life (not at all – always, perfectly).An outcome post-materialism variable created summing three variables of sustainability. Anoperationalizing of post-materialism was as follows: (a) Importance of owning is decreased (ecologicalsustainability) (b) Services are used instead of owning goods (economic sustainability), and (c) Renewalof goods is motivated by real needs (social sustainability). (Table 2). Informants were separated twogroups according to arithmetic rating means. Less post-materialistic behaviors created group ‘zero’ (n =118) and most post-materialistic behaviors group ‘one’ (n = 80).A binary logistic regression performed to see which set of total 33 predictor variables bestdiscriminates two groups of characteristics differentiating informants (outcomes). The 33 variables arebased on SD strategies like Agenda 21 Environment and Development Programme (UN, 1992), theEuropean Union Strategy for Sustainable Development (Council of the European Union, 2006), Agenda21 for the Baltic Sea Region (Baltic 21, 1998), Sustainable Development – New bearings for the NordicCountries (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2009), and Towards Sustainable Choices – A Nationally andGlobally Sustainable Finland (Prime Minister’s Office, 2006). Also the following indicators were takeninto consideration: Sustainable Society Index (van de Kerk & Manuel 2006), Genuine Progress Indicator(Cobb, Slattery & Talberth, 2007; Lawn, 2003), Ecological Footprint (Wackernagel, 1994), Wellbeing ofNations (Prescott-Allen, 2001), and The Happy Planet Index (Marks et al. 2006).187