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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1499781
This article is part of the Research Topic Green Lifestyle Transformation in the Digital Era View all 5 articles

Transforming Students' Green Behavior through Environmental Education: The Impact of Institutional Practices and Policies

Provisionally accepted
POMI SHAHBAZ POMI SHAHBAZ 1,2*Shamsheer Ul Haq Shamsheer Ul Haq 1
  • 1 University of Education Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan
  • 2 Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, Liaoning Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Environmental education is crucial for achieving ecological sustainability goals and transforming human behavior to promote responsible consumption. Higher education institutions play a fundamental role in transforming societies aimed at a more sustainable future through the dissemination of environmental education to millions of young people worldwide. Therefore, this study aimed to measure the role of environmental education in transforming students' green behavior (SGB), along with other higher education institutional factors such as green campus initiatives (GCI), institutional ecosystem (IEC), institutional sustainability system (ISS), and institutional support system (ISP) through students' green intentions (SGI). The study data were collected from 480 Chinese students enrolled in the four cities with highest number of higher education institutions through face-to-face cross-sectional survey. The collected data were analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings indicate a significant and positive impact of GCI, IEC, ISS, and ISP on SGI, which further positively affects the SGB. This implies that green initiatives at campus, green ecosystems, sustainable and environmentally oriented policies, and support systems of educational institutions greatly contribute to the development of students' green intentions (SGI), which further turn into green habits fostering their green behavior. Moreover, environmental education also played a significant moderating role between SGI and SGB. The provision of support systems, organizing hands-on workshops and seminars, providing sustainable food items at cafeterias, and short campus visits focusing on campus green practices may inspire students to adopt green practices in their daily routines.

    Keywords: Environmental sustainability, Environmental Education, Higher education institutions, pro-environmental behavior, responsible consumption

    Received: 21 Sep 2024; Accepted: 18 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 SHAHBAZ and Ul Haq. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: POMI SHAHBAZ, University of Education Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.