Greenhouse gas emissions caused by private-sphere behaviors are an important contributor to global warming. Therefore, one major focus of environmental psychology is on Pro-Environmental Behavior (PEB). Despite the importance of the topic, there is low consensus on how PEB should be measured. The present study explores whether self-reported measures of private-sphere PEB can be feasibly translated into a common metric of environmental impact (tCO2-eq). To this end, we reviewed a sample of articles published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology in 2023, analyzed how PEB was measured and assessed its impact in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. We then conducted a meta-analysis to estimate the potential CO2 savings associated with these measures. The analyses reveal high heterogeneity in PEB measurement, with a dominating role of low-impact behaviors. The results suggest that a stronger link between behavioral assessment and its measurable environmental consequences could make PEB research more rigorous, transparent and relevant for interdisciplinary collaboration and climate policy development.
Alfarone et al. (Thu,) studied this question.