Public Environmental Awareness and Behaviour in Malaysia

Abstract

Considering the causes of environmental degradation are mainly due to anthropogenic activities, this study aims to explore the need of indicating the social-psychological factors among Malaysians in qualifying the level of public environmental awareness and behaviour. A nationwide study has been conducted to examine environmental awareness and behaviour from 13 States and three Federal Territories. The result demonstrated current level of environmental awareness and behaviour among Malaysians, as according to the four categories; water pollution, air pollution, waste management and climate change. 21834/ajqol.v2i5.10 Mei, N.S., et.al., / Asian Journal of Quality of Life, AjQoL, 2(5), Jan. / Mar. 2017 (p.43-53) 44 IntroductionRapid urbanization and determination to pursuit luxury modern lifestyle among the public has caused environmental degradation. Harmful waste generation, climate change, environmental pollution and ecosystem breakdown, to name a few, are the environmental catastrophes that reduce the quality of life. These have been long articulated by a significant number of researchers from various scientific disciplines (Dominick et al., 2012;Asmuni, Khalili & Zain, 2012). The root causes leading to these occurrences is triggered by satisfying human greed through aggressive economic activities without due consideration of environmental consequences.Considering anthropogenic activities are the main causes of environmental degradation, human social psychological factors pertaining to the environment has both direct and indirect implications to quality of life. Despite numerous environmental events and campaigns about anthropogenic pollutions implemented by government and nongovernment institutions that aimed at changing public environmental behaviour, environmental awareness and commitments are less researched and reported. Public awareness and concern towards environmental issues varies at different levels to influence their corresponding environmental behaviour. It should be highlighted that indicating public environmental awareness and behaviour can serve as a useful reference for policy decisions towards a better environment, hence the quality of life.This article discusses the public environmental awareness and behaviour performance in terms of four (4) categories of water pollution, air pollution, waste management, and climate change and examines the performance level of environmental awareness and behaviour among Malaysians as the outcome of a nationwide survey. Literature ReviewKnowing the significance of exploring environmental awareness of Malaysians, it is essential to understand the context of environmental awareness. According to Hassan, Noordin and Sulaiman (2010), environmental awareness has three (3) concepts that include emotional, attitude and practice of sustainability awareness. With the motivating of psychological factors and emotional forces, the intention to conduct the series of environmentally friendly actions is driven. Based on the study accomplished by Altin et al. ...

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