On the Behaviour and Attitudes of Firms and Individuals Towards Resource Efficiency and Climate Change Mitigation

This book empirically examines environmentally related behaviour and attitudes of firms and individuals. The main part of the book is on the investigation of energy and material efficiency increases in firms. It deals with the relation between energy and material efficiency innovations and firms’ process innovation strategies - an investigation which has not been addressed by studies until now. Moreover, the author also asks if entrepreneurs exhibiting pro-environmental attitudes are also more likely to envision energy and material savings in the future. Normally one should expect consistent results, because the use of both input factors can negatively affect the natural environment. The results, however, point to intriguing differences between energy and materials as input factors. The subsequent part of the book examines the level of the individual. In particular, it investigates the association between an individual’s concerns about climate change and one’s actions towards reducing the effects of climate change and intentions to pay for mitigating such effects. The author also contributes to the existing literature by investigating the role of economic factors that may serve as contextual factors influencing these relationships.