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Environmental awareness and environmentally friendly behaviour
- case Sulkava Rowing Event
Author:
Anja Tuohino
Researcher
Lake Tourism Project
University of Joensuu /
Savonlinna Institute for Regional Development and Research
Kuninkaankartanonkatu 5
P.O.BOX 126
57101 SAVONLINNA
FINLAND
email: Anja.Tuohino@joensuu.fi
Abstract
During the past few decades, concern for the environment has increased significantly and, at the same time, people’s
values and attitudes towards nature have changed substantially. As far as tourists are concerned, however, many
research results have shown that environmental awareness has more to do with tourists’ aim to collect cultural capital
than with their genuine concern for nature. In other words, there is an absence of environmental ethics as tourists do not
transfer their environmental beliefs into their consumer behaviour.
This paper presents the results of a survey made among tourists (non-rowers) and participants (rowers) in the biggest
rowing event in the world, Sulkavan Suursoudut, organized in July 2001 for the 34th time. In the Finnish scale, we can
talk about a mass tourism event as during one weekend it gathers over 20,000 people to the small village of 3,500
inhabitants.
The purpose of the survey was to find out the environmental images of non-rowers and rowers in this special event.
The paper will focus on their attitudes towards environmental sustainability, and on how these attitudes reflect their
consumer behaviour. The survey tries to find answers to the following questions: are these images just mental images
without no reflections on the behaviour of the respondents, or are they really behaving like they think? The questions of
the survey dealt with environmental issues such as nature protection, nuclear power, preservation of meadows, the use
of car etc.
A random sampling method was used. The data was collected during the rowing event by using a structured
questionnaire. The questionnaire contained five parts to clarify different types of research problems. Environmental
awareness was one of them consisting of twelve statements concerning environmental attitudes and behaviour. The
number of respondents was 375 rowers and 211 non-rowers. The data was processed in statistical groupings.
The results of the survey show that the environmental awareness of the two groups, i.e. non-rowers and rowers, was
somewhat similar. However, the balance between environmental awareness and environmentally friendly behaviour is
far and difficult to attain. Both groups were aware of environmental aspects but not ready to transfer their
environmental beliefs into their consumer behaviour.
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Introduction
Concern for the environment has increased significantly during the past few decades and, at the
same time, people’s values and attitudes towards nature have changed substantially. As far as
tourists are concerned, however, many research results have shown that environmental awareness
has more to do with tourists’ aim to collect cultural capital than with their genuine concern for
nature. In other words, there is an absence of environmental ethics as tourists do not transfer their
environmental beliefs into their consumer behaviour.
This paper will focus on tourists' images of the environment and on how these images will reflect
their consumer behaviour? I will try to find answers to the following questions: are these images
just mental images without no reflections on the behaviour of the respondents, or are they really
behaving like they think? Are environmental images just a trend or is there an ideology behind?
Sport tourism or tourism sport
According to Ritchie & Adair (2002), sport and tourism are today among the most sought-after
leisure experiences in the ‘developed´ world. Sport events, among other special events, are
increasingly seen as unique tourist attractions and destination image-makers. However, it was not
until in the 1990s that the field of special events was regarded as a serious area of research (Jago &
Shaw 1998 cited by Gandhi-Arora & Shaw 2002).
Gammon and Robinson (1997) divide sport and tourism into two categories: sport tourism and
tourism sport. In sport tourism, sport is the principal motive, while in tourism sport, it is only a
secondary motive of the holiday. Furthermore, sport tourism can also be divided into two subcategories: recreational and competitive. Accordingly, Ritchie & Adair (2002:2) see that sport
tourism includes “travel to participate in a passive or active sport holiday and it may involve
instances where either sport or tourism is the dominant activity or reason for travel”. Standeven
and De Knop (1999:11-14) have defined sport tourism as follows: “all forms of active and passive
involvement in sporting activity, participated in casually or in an organized way for noncommercial or business/commercial reasons, the necessitate travel away from home and work
locality”. In the case of Sulkava Rowing Event we can see these both elements. Among participants
there are those for whom sport plays a secondary and recreational role, while for rowers, especially
for those who participate in the competition series, sport is the main motive for participating in the
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event. Similarly, participation in the event can be seen either as active or passive way of spending
one’s holiday. Passive sport tourists are those who follow the event merely as spectators while
active sports tourists take actively part in the rowing activities. In this paper passive tourists are
referred to as non-rowers and active ones as rowers.
Environmental attitudes and consumer behaviour
Studies conducted in different countries have showed an awakening interest in green products or
increase in environmentally friendly attitudes. During the latter half of the 1980s, environmental
concern became translated into a specific activity of green consumerism. Surveys show that there
has been a permanent change in consumers' attitudes. The ecolabelling of tourism products seems to
be an effective means of communicating the green message to the increasingly responsive tourist
audience. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the increase in popularity of sustainable
tourism as a whole is directly related to the emergence of green consumerism (Sharpley 2001).
Sharpley & Sharpley (1996) see that the nature of tourist consumption has changed from a
producer-led to a consumer-led form of consumption. Consequently, new and alternative forms of
tourism, like ecotourism or nature-based tourism, have enjoyed increase in popularity. However,
this has been more as a result of people’s need to maintain their cultural capital and social
differentiation than of a genuine concern for the environment. Thus, as a form of consumption in
modern society, tourism has become a marker of social status, a cultural signifier of taste. To their
mind, ecotourism, for instance, is more about the tourists’ aim to collect cultural capital than about
their concern for nature.
Witherspoon´s research from 1994 (according to Sharpley 2001) confirms this result. Witherspoon
observed that up to one half of those who claim to embrace green values never transfer these beliefs
into their consumer behaviour. Mihalic (2001) has received the same result. According to her, there
is a difference between the declarative and actual environmental sensitivity for tourist demand,
which is the difference between environmental awareness and environmental behaviour.
Environmental awareness is much greater than seen in tourists' (non-environmental) behaviour. She
sees that the problem lies in the absence of environmental ethics that should be aimed towards
environmental behaviour.
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By studying Danish consumers buying organic products, Grunert & Juhl (1995 cited by Björk 1995:
66) found out that there is a relationship between values, environmental attitudes and consumer
behaviour. However, the correlation between attitudes and behaviour is not always high. According
to Uusitalo (1991 cited by Björk 1995:66), the reason for this can be that “expressed favourable
attitudes towards environmental protection are based on existing information on collective interests
and social welfare, while in actual choice situations, the decisions are still based on individual
utility consideration”. In geographical studies it has also become evident that environmental
knowledge is not something that explains ‘spatial behaviour’. This is explained by saying that
behaviour is influenced by intentions, which are influenced by attitudes, and further, which are
influenced by beliefs about social norms (Whalmsley & Lewis 1993). Hence, attitudes are just one
factor among others influencing consumer behaviour.
Environmental attitudes of the Finns have been researched sporadically since the 1970s and
systematically since 1983. The results point out that the ecological self-image is high; up to 71 %
said that they are ready to take care of nature even it costs more (Kuisma 2001, cited by Vänttinen
2001:38).
In general, Finns are more worried about global environmental problems than problems in their own
country or local community. Nature protection is more valued among women, young and the welleducated. Surprisingly enough, people living in the country do not consider nature protection as
important as those living in the urban areas, which is probably due to the fact that nature is part of
their everyday life. (Kuisma 2001, cited by Vänttinen 2001:38)
Uusitalo (1991) talks about ´free riders´ who want to have a full benefit of other people’s work but
who are not willing to participate themselves. According to her, in addition to Finland, these free
riders can be found in Ireland and Philippines. This phenomenon is explained in many ways. In
Finland we may think that technology is solving the problems, while in other countries people do
not see environmental problems so threatening that it would reflect their environmental behaviour.
Purpose, data and methodology
This paper concentrates on the results of the survey conducted in the biggest rowing event in the
world, Sulkavan Suursoudut, organized in July 2001 for the 34th time. One of the main purposes of
the survey was to find out about the environmental images of tourists (non-rowers) and participants
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(rowers) in this special event. The paper focuses on their attitudes towards environmental
sustainability and on how these attitudes reflect their consumer behaviour. The questions of the
survey dealt with environmental issues such as nature protection, nuclear power, preservation of
meadows, the use of car etc.
A random sampling method was used. The data was collected during the rowing event by using a
structured questionnaire. The questionnaire contained five parts to clarify different type of research
problems. Environmental awareness was one of these parts consisting of twelve statements, of
which ten described the attitudes and two the behaviour.
The number of respondents was 375 rowers and 211 non-rowers. The data was processed in
statistical groupings. The background of the respondents was as follows: 44 % women, 56 % men
among rowers, and 50 % - 50 % among non-rowers. In both groups over 50 % of the respondents
had an academic degree. Their level of income was also relatively high.
Case study: Sulkavan Suursoudut Rowing Event
Sulkava is situated on the shore of Lake Saimaa in the eastern part of Finland. It is a small village
of 774 km2 of which water covers about 25 %. Figure 1 shows the relationship between the
number of inhabitants in the Sulkava village and the number of participants in the rowing event. In
1991 the amount of rowers outnumbered the inhabitants (Vänttinen 2001). Nowadays, over 20,000
people come to Sulkava to either watch or to participate in the event, a mass tourism event in the
Finnish scale. Accordingly, we can talk about rowing tourism as a subcategory of sport tourism.
S u lk a v a R o w in g E v e n t
12000
6
10000
8000
In h a b it a n t s
R o w e rs
6000
4000
2000
20
01
19
99
19
97
19
95
19
90
19
85
19
80
19
75
19
70
19
68
0
Figure 1. The relationship between rowers and inhabitants in Sulkava during 1988-2001 (Vänttinen 2001:figure 2)
Results
As mentioned above, there were twelve statements to measure environmental awareness and its
reflection to the behaviour in the questionnaire. Ten of the statements were measuring the attitudes
and two the behaviour of the respondents.
Those concerned about attitudes can be seen as
humanistic (see Pietarinen 1987). According to him, humanism maintains that the natural
environment should promote human development in a variety of ways. He continues that
environment is not to be seen only as a source of raw materials, but also as a means of attaining
ethical, aesthetic, and mental equilibrium (Saarinen 1998).
The use of a car as well as a membership in a nature conservation organization, can be seen as a
measurement tool of environmental attitudes. In western societies the car is a symbol of freedom
and a part of building of our own identity. In this sense, giving up using a car is an excellent means
of describing people’s real environmental attitudes.
Attitudes and behaviour were measured by using the Likert-scaled statements (5-point, ranging
from fully agree (1), to fully disagree (5)). As can be seen in Table 1, the mean scores among
rowers and non-rowers are similar. The respondents agreed on the statement ’people should be
ready to compromise over their standard of living to relieve the burden on nature’ and the statement
’in terms of biodiversity, it is important to preserve fields and meadows’. The respondents disagreed
on the statement ’I would be ready to give up driving my car if it furthered nature conservation’. As
these results show, the environmental attitudes are not reflecting the behaviour. However, a slight
willingness to join any nature conservation organization can be seen.
Quite many means were around three, which can be interpreted in two ways. The respondents were
either not willing to say their opinion/ to answer this kind of statements or they really did not know
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what to say. The latter means that these kind of environmental statements can be seen too difficult
to answer.
Table 1. Statements measuring the environmental attitudes and behaviour
Statement
rowers
non-rowers
People should be ready to compromise over their standard of living to relieve the burden
on nature
1,89
1,91
Conservationists are utopians who do not recognize the development needs required in
modern society
3,44
3,41
No more nuclear power plants should be built in our country
2,82
2,80
Modern forest use methods, including clear cutting, are acceptable
3,12
3,05
Motor traffic on water is a threat to nature, and thus, should be more strictly restricted
and controlled through legislation
2,83
2,79
The building of lakeside cottages should be restricted to preserve piece of nature
2,90
2,86
Too many sites are already included in the national Natura 2000 Network
3,01
3,03
In terms of biodiversity, it is important to preserve fields and meadows
1,89
1,80
To prevent contamination of lake waters tourist traffic on lakes should be restricted
2,73
2,78
I would never join any nature conservation organization
3,16
3,26
Snow mobiles and other motor traffic on Lake Saimaa should be restricted to preserve
the natural habitat of the endangered Saimaa seal
2,34
2,31
I would be ready to give up driving my car if it furthered nature conservation
3,74
3,69
n=314
n=176
As there was not a remarkable difference between the rowers and non-rowers, the following
analysis concentrates on evaluating more deeply the attitudes and behaviour among the rowers only.
It can be assumed that the answers among the non-rowers are somewhat similar.
As Figure 2 points out, rowers are not willing to give up driving their car even if it furthered nature
conservation. At the same time, they see very important to compromise over their standard of
living to relieve the burden on nature. What a conflict! The membership of any nature conservation
organization is unimportant, too.
140
N um ber of
re s p o n d e n ts
120
v e r y im p o r t a n t
100
v e r y u n im p o r t a n t
8
80
60
40
20
0
P e o p le s h o u ld
b e re a d y to
c o m p r o m is e
o v e r th e ir
s ta n d a rd o f
l i v in g t o r e l i e v e
th e b u rd e n
n a tu re
I w o u ld n e v e r
j o in a n y n a t u r e
c o n s e r v a tio n
o r g a n iz a tio n
I w o u ld b e
r e a d y to g iv e u p
d r i v in g m y c a r i f
it fu r th u r e d
n a tu re
c o n s e r v a tio n
Figure 2. Behavioural statements and standard of living.
When examining more closely how environmental attitudes reflect the general behaviour of rowers,
it can be seen in Figure 3 that rowers consider it very important to restrict snow mobile and other
motor traffic on Lake Saimaa to preserve the natural habitat of the endangered Saimaa seal.
Restrictions on building lakeside cottages were not seen as important whereas motor traffic on
water is seen more threatening. Prevention of lake waters from contamination is also considered
important.
v e r y im p o r t a n t
v e r y u n im p o r t a n t
100
Number of respondents
80
60
40
20
0
M o t o r t r a f f ic o n
w a t e r is a t h r e a t t o
n a tu re , a n d th u s ,
s h o u ld b e m o r e
s t r ic k t ly r e s t r ic t e d
a n d c o n t r o lle d
t h r o u g h le g is la t io n
T h e b u ild in g o f
la k e s id e c o t t a g e s
s h o u ld b e
r e s t r ic t e d t o
p r e s e r v e p ie c e o f
n a tu re
Figure 3. Four statements of environmental attitudes
T o p re v e n t
S n o w m o b ile s a n d
c o n t a m in a t io n o f
o t h e r m o t o r t r a f f ic
la k e w a t e r s t o u r is t o n L a k e S a im a a
t r a f f ic o n la k e s
s h o u ld b e
s h o u ld b e
r e s t r ic t e d t o
r e s t r ic t e d
p re s e rv e th e
n a t u r a l h a b it a t o f
th e e n d a n g e re d
S a im a a S e a l
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As Figure 4 shows, rowers found it very important to preserve fields and meadows to maintain
biodiversity. Modern forest use methods were seen more unimportant than important, Natura 2000
as well as the limitation of nuclear power plants more important than unimportant. Conservationists
were not regarded as utopians.
very important
very unimportant
160
140
Number of respondents
120
100
80
60
40
20
In terms of biodiversity, it is important
to preserve fields and meadows
Too many sites are already included in
the national Natura 2000 Network
Modern forest use mehods, including
clear cutting, are acceptable
No more nuclear power plants should
be built in our country
Conservationists are utopians who do
not recognize the development needs
required in modern society
0
Figure 4. Five statements of environmental attitudes
Some researchers suggest that the nature experience itself promotes positive attitudes towards
responsible environmental behaviour because it leads to the appreciation of the natural
environment. (Brown 1991, Gray 1985 cited by Beaumont 2001:321). Accordingly, enjoyable
experiences in the natural environment would produce a positive response. Beaumont even sees that
the natural environment alone would produce the same response and result in a positive attitude
towards nature and its conservation. This raises a crucial question among the rowers: is the natural
environment producing this kind of response or not?
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Figure 5 shows how important/unimportant rowers saw the environment. Environment (lake) is
seen as a setting for action and it is interpreted in a functional way for relaxion. They want to row
because, at the same time, they want to enjoy nature and the water as an element, admire lake
scenery and experience nature. However, the importance of rowing as an environmentally friendly
way of moving is not very strong.
140
120
amount of respondents
100
80
v e r y im p o r t a n t
v e r y u n im p o r t a n t
60
40
20
0
e n jo y la k e
n a tu re
e n jo y w a t e r
e le m e n t
a d m ir e la k e
s c e n e ry
e x p e r ie n c e
n a tu re
e n v ir o n m e n t a l
f r i e n d ly w a y o f
m o v in g
Figure 5. Experience of lake nature
Conclusions
The results of the Sulkava case confirm the findings of earlier researches about attitudes not
reflecting behaviour. The free rider phenomenon can also be found. People’s own benefit overrides
the environmental behaviour and environmental friendly attitude is just an ‘idea’. Results point out
that the environmental awareness of the non-rowers was parallel with that of the rowers. However,
the balance between environmental awareness and environmentally friendly behaviour is far and
difficult to attain. Environmental awareness and attitudes can be seen more as a cultural or social
capital than as a genuine concern of nature. In other words, there is a conscious or subconscious
disregard for the environment. Thus, it looks like environmental ethics is partly missing. What kind
of future implications can then be expected? With people’s own interests overriding their
sustainable behaviour, the visions of sustainability are not very optimistic. The use of one’s own
car is a good example of this. Another interesting question, which would need a study of its own, is
what kind of environmental effects this mass event causes to Sulkava?
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