Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists (...) aspire, it may establish many of them with some clarity. (shrink)

Although conservation attention has generally focused on large forest tracts, there is increasing evidence that smaller forest patches are important for both conservation and rural development. A study of forest patch conservation in a rural Costa Rican community found that, although forest patch conservation was influenced by landholding size, material factors did not account for all the variation in forest patches conservation behavior or conservation orientations of farmers. A qualitative interpretive approach, using semi-structured interviews, found that environmental values (...) were influenced by at least three factors. First, colonist farmers with direct experience with environmental degradation in other regions of Costa Rica were more likely to be concerned about environmental degradation. Second, childhood exposure to conservation played an important role in influencing conservation orientations. Third, the environment was frequently discussed in relation to the moral and social values present in religious doctrines. The study also found general support for forest conservation laws, and a clear indication that interest in forest conservation has grown in recent years. The study highlights the importance of environmental values, in conjunction with material factors, in influencing forest conservation in rural communities. (shrink)

We live in a world confronted by mounting environmental problems; increasing global deforestation and desertification, loss of species diversity, pollution and global warming. In everyday life people mourn the loss of valued landscapes and urban spaces. Underlying these problems are conflicting priorities and values. Yet dominant approaches to policy-making seem ill-equipped to capture the various ways in which the environment matters to us. Environmental Values introduces readers to these issues by presenting, and then challenging, two dominant (...) approaches to environmental decision-making, one from environmental economics, the other from environmental philosophy. The authors present a sustained case for questioning the underlying ethical theories of both of these traditions. They defend a pluralistic alternative rooted in the rich everyday relations of humans to the environments they inhabit, providing a path for integrating human needs with environmental protection through an understanding of the narrative and history of particular places. The book examines the implications of this approach for policy issues such as biodiversity conservation and sustainability. Written in a clear and accessible style for an interdisciplinary audience, this volume will be ideal for student use in environmental courses in geography, economics, philosophy, politics and sociology. (shrink)

John O’Neill, Alan Holland, and Andrew Light usefully distinguish two ways of thinking about environmental values, namely, end-state and historical views. To value nature in an end-state way is to value it because it instantiates certain properties, such as complexity or diversity. In contrast, a historical view says that nature’s value is (partly) determined by its particular history. Three contemporary defenses of a historical view are explored in order to clarify: (1) the normatively relevant history; (2) how historical (...) considerations are supposed to instruct environmental decision making; and (3) the relative importance of historical and end-state considerations. There are multiple reasons for including historical considerations in an account of environmental values. For example, knowledge of a natural object’s history can add depth and texture to our appreciation of that object. Further, if we were blind to the relevant history, we could not adequately understand and defend environmental policy goals such as preserving the potentials of natural systems or maintaining ecological health, for these goals appear to have irreducibly historical aspects. While historical considerations are important, such considerations are insufficient to guide our normative thinking about nature and how it should be dealt with practically. But they succeed in broadening and deepening our understanding of the nature and sources of environmental value. (shrink)

Several recent authors have recommended that “sense of place” should become an important concept in our evaluation of environmental policies. In this paper, we explore aspects of this concept, arguing that it may provide the basis for a new, “place-based” approach to environmental values. This approach is based on an empirical hypothesis that place orientation is a feature of all people’s experience of their environment. We argue that place orientation requires, in addition to a home perspective, a (...) sense of the space around the home place and that this dual aspect can be modeled using a “hierarchical” methodology. We propose a “triscalar,” place-oriented system for the analysis of environmental values, explore the characteristics of place-orientation through several examples, and employ these characteristics to distinguish acceptable and unacceptable aspects of the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) idea. (shrink)

This short article represents the first attempt to define a new core cultural value that will enable engaging the business sector in humankind’s mission to heal nature. First, I start with defining the problem of the current business culture and the extant thinking on how to solve environmental problems, which I called “the eco-deficit culture.” Then, I present a solution to this problem by formulating the “semiconducting principle” of monetary and environmental values exchange, which I believe can (...) generate “an eco-surplus business culture.” This work adds one new element, the eleventh cultural value, to the ten core values of progressive cultures postulated by Harrison (2000). (shrink)

The journal Environmental Values is thirty years old. In this retrospective, as the retiring Editor-in-Chief, I provide a set of personal reflections on the changing landscape of scholarship in the field. This historical overview traces developments from the journal's origins in debates between philosophers, sociologists, and economists in the UK to the conflicts over policy on climate change, biodiversity/non-humans and sustainability. Along the way various negative influences are mentioned, relating to how the values of Nature are considered (...) in policy, including mainstream environmental economics, naïve environmental pragmatism, the strategic role of corporations, neoliberalism and eco-modernism/techno-optimism. At the same time core value debates around intrinsic value in Nature and instrumentalism remain relevant, along with how plural environmental values can be articulated and acted upon. Naturalness, human relations to non-humans, and Nature as other, remain central considerations. The broadening of issues covered by the journal (e.g. covering social psychology, sociology and political science), reflect the need to address both human behaviour and the structure of social and economic systems to confront ongoing social-ecological crises. (shrink)

Review of John O'Neill, Alan Holland and Andrew Light, Environmental Values (London: Routledge, 2007 ).

Sustainable development has increasingly found its way into the context of environmental legislation. Russian environmental legislation is not effective for transitioning toward sustainable development. The main obstacle is ignoring traditional environmental values, which are not properly incorporated into laws and regulations. However, rich Russian traditions and culture imply a big potential to develop environmental legislation in accordance with sustainable principles. The paper explores areas where environmental regulations should be revised and implemented with adequate legal (...) mechanisms based on traditional values. This paper contributes to the discussion of improving environmental legal norms in any domestic legislation. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists (...) aspire, it may establish many of them with some clarity. (shrink)

Several recent authors have recommended that “sense of place” should become an important concept in our evaluation of environmental policies. In this paper, we explore aspects of this concept, arguing that it may provide the basis for a new, “place-based” approach to environmental values. This approach is based on an empirical hypothesis that place orientation is a feature of all people’s experience of their environment. We argue that place orientation requires, in addition to a home perspective, a (...) sense of the space around the home place and that this dual aspect can be modeled using a “hierarchical” methodology. We propose a “triscalar,” place-oriented system for the analysis of environmental values, explore the characteristics of place-orientation through several examples, and employ these characteristics to distinguish acceptable and unacceptable aspects of the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) idea. (shrink)

A tension is sometimes evident between some philosophical and anthropological approaches to environmental values, in particular between philosophical aspirations for a thin, cosmopolitan moral language that transcends local culture, and anthropological aspirations to uncover a thick normative vocabulary that is local to particular cultures. The potential dangers in the philosophical project of presenting specific local understandings and evaluations of nature as universal are illustrated in other papers in this volume. However at the same time they also highlight a (...) false a ssumption that underpins the apparent conflict between the two disciplinary approaches, the assumption that wider cosmopolitan conversations require abstraction from thick normative vocabulary. Examples of local resistance to the imposition of particular understandings of nature point in the opposite direction, illustrating the way in which it is as one moves to thicker descriptions with greater interpretative depth that the possibility and actuality of shared conversation around values emerges. The project of engaging in more universal ethical reflection is quite compatible with the project of uncovering interpretative depth. The general critical project of philosophy is enriched by engagement with the anthropological project. (shrink)

Several recent authors have recommended that “sense of place” should become an important concept in our evaluation of environmental policies. In this paper, we explore aspects of this concept, arguing that it may provide the basis for a new, “place-based” approach to environmental values. This approach is based on an empirical hypothesis that place orientation is a feature of all people’s experience of their environment. We argue that place orientation requires, in addition to a home perspective, a (...) sense of the space around the home place and that this dual aspect can be modeled using a “hierarchical” methodology. We propose a “triscalar,” place-oriented system for the analysis of environmental values, explore the characteristics of place-orientation through several examples, and employ these characteristics to distinguish acceptable and unacceptable aspects of the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) idea. (shrink)

While the subject of framing has achieved considerable recognition recently among social scientists and policy analysts, less attention has been given to how societies arrive at stable, collective frames of meaning for environmental values and policy. This paper proposes four models of societal processes by which framing occurs: narration, modelling, canonisation and normalisation. These four models are developed, compared, and explored in detail through a case study of the framing of the impacts of climate change on human societies (...) in US science policy from the 1960s through the 1990s. I conclude by offering a number of potentially fruitful avenues for further research into the dynamics of framing. (shrink)

Some writings by Alan Holland provide the starting point for an exploration of sources of environmental value in human social practices. It is argued that many practices both serve human purposes and also provide a setting for the emergence of environmental value. Such practices are ones in which activity is embedded in, and so both strongly constrained and enabled by, its conditions and media. Capitalist 'modernisation' has tended to erode these practices and associated values in favour of (...) external purposes and instrumental values, especially in the farmed countryside. In the face of this, and partly on grounds of social justice, a re-valuation of urban open spaces is advocated. (shrink)

The trend in environmental management toward more adaptive, community-based, and holistic approaches will require new approaches to environmental valuation. In this paper, we offer a new valuation approach, one that embodies the core principles of adaptive management, which is experimental, multi-scalar, and place-based. In addition, we use hierarchy theory to incorporate spatial and temporal variability of natural systems into a multi-scalar management model. Our approach results in the consideration of multiple values within community-based ecosystem management, rather than (...) an attempt to maximise a single variable such as economic efficiency. We then offer two heuristics – one procedural and one evaluative – to guide a community toward shared goals, and to develop indicators to measure progress toward these goals. We illustrate our approach by application to environmental and developmental decisions in the Southern Appalachians. (shrink)

While an environmental ethic is not explicitly developed in A Theory of Justice, or Political Liberalism, it is possible to extrapolate some principles dealing with non-human nature, and thereby some environmental protections, with what Rawls provides. However, his inability to provide a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic might threaten the stability of a 'well-ordered' society, and this possibility gestures to the potential 'problem' of pluralism in general. Certain environmentalists will be dissatisfied with the status of their environmental (...) class='Hi'>values in a Rawlsian society. If the group is 'unreasonable', then while they are not technically threats to 'stability' (in that they are not part of the 'overlapping consensus' to begin with), they might instead be threats to the well-orderedness of the society. If the group is 'reasonable', Rawls must hope that they will also agree with enough of the political conception of justice, and be swayed by appeals to reasonableness, that they will join in the overlapping consensus despite their environmental concerns. There appear to be reasons to believe that, at least given a well-ordered society, this will often be the case. (shrink)

Social scientists are increasingly interested in beliefs about farm animal well-being and the factors that predict these beliefs. Yet little attention has been given to the role of values, which social psychologists consider to be the building blocks of human cognition. This study draws from research on values in the environmental social sciences to examine the relationship between environmental values and Americans’ beliefs about farm animal well-being. It also makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating the (...) importance of measuring beliefs about farm animal well-being on large industrial and small family farms separately. A series of paired sample t-tests finds Americans believe the well-being of farm animals on large industrial farms is significantly worse than on small family farms. Multiple regression results reveal the importance of environmental values, as well as various demographic factors, in understanding beliefs about farm animal well-being. They also suggest the presence of direct and indirect effects of values on beliefs. Implications and avenues for further research are discussed. (shrink)

Public decisions on environmental risk have traditionally been weighed in terms of the principle of efficiency and its methodologies, such as cost-benefit and risk-benefit analysis. These original essays argue for moving beyond the market paradigm toward making policy that incorporates environmental values. Scholars representing a broad range of disciplines present a thorough analysis and methodological investigation of environmental risk and the potential for integrating environmental values into the policymaking process. They address the normative and (...) theoretical roots of environmental risk, describe the distinct domain that exists for environmental values as opposed to economic values, and look at the conflicts between economic and environmental values within the applied context of the NIMBY (not in my back yard) phenomenon. (shrink)

Recently the problematic of values and value orientations became one of the most frequently addressed. Social changes are directly and also indirectly related to va_lues and the latter seem to be directly implied by the cultural and social changes connected with changing value orientations and thus also the changing norms. The changes concern the target values, as well as particular ones and make both the affirmation of existing values system and the rise of the system social changes (...) possible. These can be - and most often also are - thought as a part of the learning process and change. Integral to these changes are also processes concerning the rise and acceptance of the environmental value orientations and value structures. The need of the acceptance of the environmental values led to reconsideration of the incorporation of the new arising values into existing value systems. (shrink)

This study aims to identify the relationship between students’ environmental value and pro-environmental behavior within a values-belief-norm framework. To conduct an empirical study, we used a sample of 558 online surveys and adopted the partial least squares path modeling method to test the relationships between variables in the conceptual model. The results indicate that EV positively predicted PEB among young adults. In addition, we highlight that risk perception and moral anger play critical chain mediating roles in the (...) relationship between EV and PEB. This study has meaningful implications for practitioners seeking to encourage the public’s ecofriendly behavior by suggesting ways to encourage RP and stimulate individuals’ moral emotions about the environment. (shrink)

Bryan Norton's convergence hypothesis, which predicts that nonan‐thropocentric and human‐based philosophical positions will actually converge on long‐sighted, multi‐value environmental policy, has drawn a number of criticisms from within environmental philosophy. In particular, nonanthropocentric theorists like J. Baird Callicott and Laura Westra have rejected the accuracy of Norton's thesis, refusing to believe that his model's contextual appeals to a plurality of human and environmental values will be able adequately to provide for the protection of ecological integrity. These (...) theoretical criticisms of convergence, however, have made no real attempt to engage the empirical validity of the hypothesis, the dimension that Norton clearly takes to be the centerpiece of his project. Accordingly, the present paper attempts to provide an empirical analysis of the convergence argument, by means of a study of the Vermont public's environmental commitments and their attitudes toward national forest policy. Our findings support a generalized version of Norton's thesis, and lead us to suggest that environmental philosophers should try to be more inclusive and empirically minded in their discussions about public moral claims regarding nature. (shrink)

Bryan Norton 's convergence hypothesis, which predicts that nonanthropocentric and human-based philosophical positions will actually converge on long-sighted, multi-value environmental policy, has drawn a number of criticisms from within environmental philosophy. In particular, nonanthropocentric theorists like J. Baird Callicott and Laura Westra have rejected the accuracy of Norton 's thesis, refusing to believe that his model's contextual appeals to a plurality of human and environmental values will be able adequately to provide for the protection of ecological (...) integrity. These theoretical criticisms of convergence, however, have made no real attempt to engage the empirical validity of the hypothesis, the dimension that Norton clearly takes to be the centerpiece of his project. Accordingly, the present paper attempts to provide an empirical analysis of the convergence argument, by means of a study of the Vermont public's environmental commitments and their attitudes toward national forest policy. Our findings support a generalized version of Norton 's thesis, and lead us to suggest that environmental philosophers should try to be more inclusive and empirically minded in their discussions about public moral claims regarding nature. (shrink)

If we are to assess whether our attitudes towards nature are morally, aesthetically or in any other way appropriate or inappropriate, then we will need to know what those attitudes are. Drawing on the works of Katie McShane, Alan Holland and Christine Swanton, I challenge the common assumption that to love, respect, honour, cherish or adopt any other sort of pro-attitude towards any natural X simply is to value X in some way and to some degree. Depending on how one (...) interprets ‘value’, that assumption is, I contend, either false or vacuous. I argue that to assess the appropriateness of a person’s pro-attitudes towards a natural entity one must in some cases appeal to the concepts of status and/or bond, and not just that of value. To develop my argument, I appeal to the works of two nature writers – Robert Macfarlane and J. A. Baker. (shrink)

This study examines how the match between personal and firm-level values regarding environmental responsibility affects employee job satisfaction and creativity and contributes to three literature streams [i.e., social corporate responsibility, creativity, and person–environment fit]. Building on the P–E fit literature, we propose and test environmental orientation fit versus nonfit effects on creativity, identifying job satisfaction as a mediating mechanism and regulatory pressure as a moderator. An empirical investigation indicates that the various environmental orientation fit conditions affect (...) job satisfaction and creativity differently. More specifically, environmental orientation fit produces greater job satisfaction and creativity when the employee and organization both demonstrate high concern for the environment than when both display congruent low concern for the environmental. Furthermore, for employees working in organizations that fit their personal environmental orientation, strong regulatory pressure to comply with environmental standards diminishes the positive fit effect on job satisfaction and creativity, while regulatory pressure does not affect the job satisfaction and creativity of employees whose personal environmental orientation is incongruent with that of the organization. (shrink)

This short article represents the first attempt to define a new core cultural value that will enable the new strategy for engaging the business sector in humankind's mission to heal nature. The presentation is just a primitive concept, which will be calibrated further in the coming months.

To assess whether and how environmental values and sense of place relate to sustainable farming practices, we conducted a study in South Kona, Hawaii, addressing environmental values, sense of place, and farm sustainability in five categories: environmental health, community engagement and food security, culture and history, education and research, and economics. We found that the sense of place and environmental values indexes showed significant correlation to each category of sustainability in both independent linear (...) regressions and multivariate regression. In total, sense of place explained a larger share of the overall farm performance. However, each indicator showed relative strengths; environmental values showed significantly higher correlation to environmental and educational practices. Furthermore the scales were complimentary, and the use of both scales greatly improved prediction of good farming practices from a multiple-impact perspective. With implications for community and environmental impacts, results suggest that a more comprehensive view of farmers’ environmental values and place connections may help illuminate individual farmers’ decisions and sustainability-related practices. (shrink)

In both radical and mainstream environmental discourses, anthropocentrism (human centredness) is inextricably linked to modern industrial society's drive to control and dominate nature and the generation of our current environmental crisis. Such environmental discourses frequently argue for a retreat from anthropocentrism and the establishment of a harmonious relationship with nature, often invoking the supposed ecological harmony of indigenous peoples and/or other small-scale societies. In particular, the beliefs and values of these societies vis-à-vis their natural environment are (...) taken to be instrumental in their low environmental impact. Here it is argued that, aside from the empirically problematic nature of such claims, the beliefs of small-scale societies have been seen through an ethnocentric discursive framework which bifurcates belief systems into anthropocentric and ecocentric. Taking a meta-theoretical approach informed by Strong Structuration Theory, it is argued that the beliefs of small-scale societies about their relationship with nature should be recognised as lying on a continuum of anthropocentrism and understood in the context of their attempts to establish ‘environmental ontological security’ in the face of natural uncertainty. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship among the employees–organization pro-environmental values fit, supervisors’ PEVs and employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. Informed by the PEB, organizational values and employee–organization fit literature, we propose and test hypotheses that under egoistic, altruistic and biosphere-value orientations, E–O PEVs fit versus non-fit have significant effects on employees’ private-sphere PEB and public-sphere PEB, identifying supervisors’ PEVs as a moderator. An empirical investigation indicates that the effect of E–O PEVs fit on employees’ private-sphere PEB and public-sphere (...) PEB varies as the value orientation differs. More specifically, under the context of altruistic and biosphere-value orientations, if the organizational PEVs do not match the employees’ PEVs, especially when the former exceeds the latter, employees’ PEB will rise as the organizational PEVs increase. As for egoistic value orientation, when organizational PEVs exceed employees’ PEVs, not only will public-sphere PEB stop decreasing and tend to stabilize, but also private-sphere PEB will rise to a slight degree. Furthermore, compared with altruistic and biospheric values dimensions, supervisors who promote egoistic PEVs will have a more significant effect on the relationship between global E–O PEVs fit and employees’ PEB. Finally, we suggest that the goals of an organization and its supervisors need to be combined within the actual situation of Chinese corporations to truly implement corporate green practices by balancing the profit goal and the environmental goal. (shrink)

This article studies argumentation for acceptability of corporate environmental actions in corporate environmental statements, with emphasis on stakeholder relations and environmental values. Stakeholder theory is commonly taken as the basis for corporate environmental management, and rhetoric typical of the stakeholder approach dominates the field. Although environmental issues are strongly charged with values, the dominant stakeholder approach does not stress the value dimension. The data of the study consists of environmental statements by Finnish (...) forerunning business corporations in the forefront of corporate environmental responsibility. The results of the study indicate that the statements argue for the acceptability of corporate environmental actions through three power-related rhetorical forms that are competing ways to produce acceptability in the data: dominance, subordination and equality, and joint action. Each rhetorical form describes a power-based relationship between stakeholders and the corporation and leans on a specific value type producing legitimacy for that rhetoric form. (shrink)

Pollution and overuse of resources in China have profound implications for the Chinese people and the world. Globalisation may be partly to blame for this situation, but it is hardly the only explanation. China has been overusing its resources for centuries. Traditional values appear to offer environmentally benign guidance for China's economic development, but they are largely impotent in the face of now-pervasive values manifested in Western-style consumption. Government policies go some way toward addressing this problem, but what (...) may be required is a new set of values that brings self-interest and environmental protection into common cause. (shrink)

The critique of traditional Western ethics, and in particular its anthropocentric foundations, is a central theme which has dominated environmental philosophy for the last twenty years. Anthropocentrism is widely identified as a fundamental source of the alienating and destructive attitudes towards the nonhuman world which are a principal target of a number of salient ecophilosophies. This paper addresses a problem about articulating the concern with anthropocentrism raised by the influencial formulations of deep ecology by nature liberation proponent Val Plumwood.

Review of Environmental Values by John O’Neill, Alan Holland and Andrew Light, Routledge, 2007.

This paper recognises the many contributions to work on environmental values while arguing that some reconsideration of elicitation practices is warranted. It argues that speaking and thinking about certain environmental values, particularly ethical expressions, are ill-matched with the affectively neutral, direct question-answer formats standard to willingness-to-pay and survey methods. Several indirect, narrated, and affectively resonant elicitation tasks were used to provide study participants with new opportunities to express their values. Coded results demonstrate that morally resonant, (...) image- based, and narrative-style elicitation tasks help respondents articulate a broader range of noncost and nonutilitarian environmental values. However, it was found that elicitations of this kind are most useful when presented in a affectively subtle and noncontroversial form. Several suggestions for synthesising these methods with more structured forms are offered. (shrink)

Gifford Pinchot, the first official U.S. Forester, wrote: “There are just two things on this material earth—people and natural resources.” This philosophy apparently implies that all things other than people have only instrumental value. Environmentalists, even professional foresters, today believe that Gifford Pinchot’s system of forest management is both theoretically and practically inadequate. A difficult, and central, problem in the theory of environmental management is therefore to characterize exactly how Pinchot went wrong. If we knew that, we would be (...) well on our way to formulating a new theory of management, one that would be more adequate to the complexities of today’s environmental problems. (shrink)

The paper argues that new environmental values are needed as the advanced industrial economy becomes global. Reviewing a range of values from hunter-gatherer, agricultural and industrial societies, the paper suggests that environmental value systems should ideally satisfy three criteria. They should be consistent with scientific understanding of natural systems, they should lead to practical ethical and political proposals and, crucially, they should inspire aesthetic responses of pleasure and awe. Current global value systems fall short of this (...) ideal: Gaia has the potential to combine science and awe, but lacks humane decision criteria, while sustainable development is pragmatic but environmentally minimalist and lacks aesthetic inspiration. The short term need is to integrate different strands of current positions as Hinduism combined pre-existing views. A sequence of priorities is suggested: eliminating irreversible environmental change ; stabilising population change through more equitable trade; and reconsidering the boundaries, practical and aesthetic, between society and nature. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest an interpretation of the concept of 'relational value' that could be useful in both environmental ethics and empirical analyses. We argue that relational valuing includes aspects of intrinsic and instrumental valuing. If relational values are attributed, objects are appreciated because the relationship with them contributes to the human flourishing component of well-being (instrumental aspect). At the same time, attributing relational value involves genuine esteem for the valued item (intrinsic aspect). We also introduce the (...) notions of mediating and indirect relational environmental values, attributed in relationships involving people as well as environmental objects. We close by proposing how our analysis can be used in empirical research. (shrink)

A model is presented that examines the interactions between employee and organizational values toward the natural environment and its influence on important sustainability-related outcomes. Perspectives from the new environmental paradigm , anthropocentric value orientation , behavioral view of HRM , and person-organizational are applied. The overall proposition is that level of congruence between employee and company values toward the natural environment influences employee attitudes toward firm green initiatives, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions.

This study examines the influence of environmental values on consumer intentions to participate in agritourism through the theory of planned behaviour and value-belief-norm theory. It proposes an integrative model by adding two variables, i.e., environmental benefits and the human-nature coordination concept, to the TPB. The study employs a questionnaire survey method and a sample of 640, which was statistically analysed through structural equation modeling. The results reveal that the “environmental values-attitudes-behavioural intentions” framework has scientific applicability (...) in agritourism. Environmental values, measured through the variables environmental benefits and the human-nature coordination concept, are positively correlated directly or indirectly with agritourism consumption intentions, while attitudes and subjective norms serve as mediators. However, the mediating effect of perceived behavioural control is not statistically significant, indicating making efforts to influence attitudes and subjective norms is more useful for and effective in stimulating the public’s intentions towards agritourism. As this study tests the hypotheses with empirical data, it provides practical implications for policy-makers and programme managers. (shrink)

The origins of both economic and philosophical value theory are examined and shown to be closely related. The status of neo-classical value theory is that it is internally flawed in any attempt to describe the real world. Cost-benefit analysis as it applies to the valuation of environmental agents relies upon the claim that this neo-classical theory has a particular status in optimal welfare maximisation and, therefore, suffers the same problems of internal consistency. Economic valuation of the environment is not (...) a scientific process derived from external law but a social process relying upon social agreement. Alternatives to economic valuation are considered and may possess a more plausible social base. However, all environmental valuation is at odds with beliefs based upon the existence of objective and intrinsic values. (shrink)

Pollution and overuse of resources in China have profound implications for the Chinese people and the world. Globalisation may be partly to blame for this situation, but it is hardly the only explanation. China has been overusing its resources for centuries. Traditional values appear to offer environmentally benign guidance for China's economic development, but they are largely impotent in the face of now-pervasive values manifested in Western-style consumption. Government policies go some way toward addressing this problem, but what (...) may be required is a new set of values that brings self-interest and environmental protection into common cause. (shrink)