Environmental Awareness in Different European Cultures

Abstract

The 28 countries of the European Union represent a rather heterogeneous group regarding their geography, history, and national cultures. Their response to the current global challenges depends on their way of viewing the world, and that is largely influenced by their national values and beliefs. The research compares the environmental awareness in distinct country groups and identifies the components of national culture, which, by their different approaches to the environmental sustainability, influence the most. The time span of the analysis is seven years from 2012 to 2018. National culture is defined by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, and the environmental awareness data were collected from the Eurobarometer surveys of the EU. The main findings show that the environmental awareness in the EU increases with time and is higher in indulgent, more individualistic, and more long-term oriented countries, while the level of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance or power distance did not matter. The Scandinavian countries are remarkably environmentally aware, while the other groups of countries do not differ in this respect.