Here’s why.
Mind The Gap is an analysis of the most influential frameworks on environmental knowledge, attitudes and actions, and a proposed model of what shapes pro-environmental behaviour.
By Anja Kollmuss (Stockholm Environmental Institute, SEI) and Julian Agyeman (Tufts University), ‘Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour?‘ is one the leading research papers in the field of environmental social science, with a staggering 11079 citations from Google Scholar alone (as of April 4 2024). I read somewhere that this research has of the highest impressions of any research, possibly ever, with 64,900 electronic views to date, making it one of the central streams I swim in (that sounds weird, but you get the idea) when creating a foundation for my own research. It’s my point of reference, most of the time, for how I frame the issues of human impact on biodiversity from an intrinsic, social or political perspective.
Their work, originally published in 2002 and re-visited in 2018, explores (in 2012) and (re)stories (in 2018) the concepts of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour ‘in order to generate fertile ground for the creation of new understandings and practices in environmental education’ and how we understand the human interaction with, perception of, and ability to value environmentalism.
In a very brief summary, their research more generally found that understanding human interactions with, and values of environmentalism or acting environmentally cannot be centralised to any of the then current frameworks, meaning we haven’t really figured out how to make these assessments. While we make progress on learning why people act environmentally or don’t, we can’t really apply a central framework to it.
I recommend giving the paper a read. It’s relatively short as far as research goes and I find it to be an easy and really engaging read. You can access it in full via Climate Access by clicking here.
