Exploring, Understanding and Enhancing Palm Oil-Related Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Abstract

<p>Popular, versatile, and relatively inexpensive, the oil palm crop is highly profitable for Southeast Asian economies and farmers. However, palm oil agriculture is also associated with widespread deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, increased global temperatures, biodiversity loss, human rights violations, respiratory illnesses, and death. This thesis presents a directed line of research that aimed to: (1) explore what specific pro-environmental behaviour would be most beneficial in addressing this problem, if adopted by many Australians; (2) understand the barriers and drivers of the most effective pro-environmental behaviour; and (3) develop and test a behaviour-change intervention to enhance the target behaviour based on the barriers identified in the previous study.</p> <p>A preliminary study guided by Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM; McKenzie-Mohr, 2011) involved interviews with 11 experts to generate a list of proenvironmental behaviours that could potentially help address the palm oil crisis. This list was then sent back to the experts for an assessment of potential effectiveness in addressing the environmental destruction attributed to oil palm plantations. It was also distributed to 300 Australians from the general community to establish current penetration (i.e., how many people were already engaging in each behaviour) and probability of adoption. The results identified the most impactful behaviour to target as encouraging consumers to purchase products with sustainable palm oil (SPO).</p> <p>The next study was a qualitative study that involved interviews with 13 Australian consumers to understand the range of barriers and drivers that might hinder or facilitate SPO consumer behaviour. A subsequent online survey with 781 Australian participants was conducted using the Capability-Opportunity-Motivation model of behaviour (COM-B) of the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW; Michie, van Stralen, & West, 2011) as a framework to determine which drivers and/or barriers would best predict SPO purchasing behaviour. A lack of knowledge (capability) about the palm oil issue was a significant barrier to purchasing products containing SPO (explained 18% of the unique variance in SPO purchasing behaviour), along with difficulties around product availability (opportunity) and fewer progreen consumption attitudes (motivation). </p> <p>The final study involved the development and evaluation of an intervention with 628 Australians, aimed at increasing knowledge about the issue of SPO, while equipping participants with information about product availability and enhancing pro-green attitudes. In an online experiment, participants were randomly assigned to either: (1) a newly-developed interactive website on palm oil and SPO; (2) an existing promotional video on SPO; or (3) an interactive website on differentiating between real news and fake news (an attentional control condition). The results revealed that the intervention groups increased both knowledge and the intention to purchase SPO (compared to the attentional control). However, after two weeks follow up (36% attrition), there was no significant difference in self-reported SPO related consumer behaviour among the three groups. Reduced perceived product availability might help explain this intention-behaviour gap.</p> <p>Overall, it can be concluded that, in addition to increasing consumer capability and motivation, promoting sustainable consumption requires creating opportunities for people to engage in the desired behaviour. Policy-level changes are likely essential in order to address some of the structural barriers associated with inadequate opportunities for consumers to purchase SPO. </p>