Green influencers and nature-based solutions: The roles of awareness, scepticism and attitude

Combatting climate change and promoting sustainable urban communities are urgent global goals aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 11 and 13. Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer a promising opportunity to address climate challenges by integrating natural ecosystem services within urban development. Although research on NbS is growing, there is limited research on socio-economic factors, particularly public awareness, attitudes, and scepticism and specifically the role that social media influencers might play in promoting NbS initiatives. To address this gap, this study is among the first to integrate social media influencers and attachment theory into a Stimulus-Organism-Response framework to investigate how attachment to green influencers affects awareness, scepticism and attitudes towards NbS. Furthermore, the study provides a novel cross-country comparison of two distinct socio-ecological contexts: South Africa and Norway. Using multigroup structural equation modelling, data from 704 respondents who engage with green influencers were analysed. Results indicate that attachment to influencers is positively associated with awareness of NbS in both countries, but significantly negatively associated with scepticism in South Africa, while Norway displays a more reflective scepticism. These cross-country differences extend influencer marketing theory by demonstrating that influencer attachment does not uniformly reduce scepticism but interacts with socio-ecological context. By positioning green influencers as change agents for sustainability changes, this study contributes theoretically to environmental management and suggests that tailored influencer marketing strategies that foster awareness and critical engagement can effectively promote NbS adoption, supporting climate action and sustainable urban development aligned with SDG 11 and SDG 13. • Green influencer attachment boosts public awareness of nature-based solutions. • Influencer engagement reduces scepticism toward NbS in South Africa, not Norway. • Cross-country analysis reveals context-dependent differences in environmental attitudes. • Tailored influencer strategies can advance sustainable urban development and SDG.