Browsing by Subject "Tampere"

This research examines the environmental attitudes of the employees in the City of Tampere. This research is one of the goals in the city’s environmental strategy in 2003 and it is made for the environmental protection department of City of Tampere. The purpose of this study was to find out the environmental attitudes of the employees in the City of Tampere, the behaviour related to the attitudes and the relationship between the attitudes and the behaviour. The results will be utilized when planning the environmental work of the city. The theoretical frame structure in this study is based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and it is applied to fit for the research. The Theory of Planned Behaviour is used a lot in the attitude-behaviour studies. There is a one-component model of the attitudes in the background of this theory. In this study the examination of the environmental attitudes is based on the one-component model. In the examination of the relationship between attitudes and behaviour the whole Theory of Planned Behaviour is used instead. A term ‘free rider behaviour’ is also included in the theoretical frame structure although it will not be studied with any special questions. Quantitative methods were used in this research. The research was conducted through a mail survey study to 1000 employees in the beginning of June 2003. 462 people out of 1000 returned the questionnaire. The results showed that the employees consider concern about the environment in Tampere well-founded. Trashing and littering in a public place or in the nature worries the employees by far the most. The second most worrying thing is the pollution of the air and water. They are also worried about the destruction of the constructed environment for example culturally valuable buildings and places. Concern is clearly higher among women than among men. The employees in the City of Tampere believe in their own possibilities to influence the state of the environment. Environmentally friendly behaviour is seen important although other people would not behave at the same way. Majority of the employees support the intervention of the society with limitations and by far more than half of the employees support different kinds of payments and taxes that advance the sale of environmentally friendly products. These results also show some kind of readiness to lower the standard of living. The employees think that conservation of the environment is important and its position in the society’s decision-making should be strengthened. Despite of the employees’ environmentally friendly opinions, even two out of three employees admit that they are able to behave more environmentally friendly than they do now if they just want to. The employees for example sort and recycle their waste well, but the behaviour in regard to consumption and commuting has a lot to improve.