Assessing Environmental Attitudes under China’s Accelerating Ecological Civilization: A Case of the Urban Green Infrastructure Project in Zhangjiagang Bay

Urbanization places one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity (Seto et al. 2012). Urban green infrastructure (UGI) is considered a novel ecosystem in cities (Pickett et al. 2001) and is playing an increasingly important role in global biodiversity conservation, particularly through planning, design, and management (Aronson et al. 2017). The key challenge in UGI conservation, design, and management is to balance human perceptions and needs with the ecological requirements to preserve and enhance biodiversity (Aronson et al. 2017). The priority that it places on conservation planning and design is subject to social, cultural, and economic factors (Aronson et al. 2017), which is never an easy process to reach a consensus. Without a good understanding of the diverse environmental perspectives of the stakeholders, UGI projects often die prematurely or gradually fade out due to unsustainable implementation or management in the long run (EPA 2022; Hagemann et al. 2020; Thorne et al. 2018; Zuniga-Teran et al. 2020). The imminent and pivotal first step to success lies in environmental consensus-building rooted in the belief in environmental ethics and values (Parris et al. 2018).

Research relevant to environmental ethics and values remains primarily focused on the growing theoretical complexity of its classifications (Chang et al. 2011; Cocks and Simpson 2015; Thompson and Barton 1994) and does not fully translate this progress into the urban applied fields. The nature of UGIs provides potential in both ecocentric and anthropocentric perspectives in environmental ethics (Hagemann et al. 2020; Thorne et al. 2018; Zuniga-Teran et al. 2020). For this reason, UGIs are an ideal scenario to test the practical application of theoretical classifications using suitable environmental-attitude assessment tools (Hagemann et al. 2020; Thorne et al. 2018; Zuniga-Teran et al. 2020). Meanwhile, the Chinese resonant philosophy of ecological civilization shares the same theoretical roots of process philosophy with environmental ethics (Wang et al. 2020) and is widely acknowledged in both government and research circles in China. For this reason, the authors selected the Zhangjiagang Bay (ZJG Bay) Eco-Park project in the Yangtze River Delta of China, which is included in the UN’s SDG Good Practice list, as a UGI case study site.

This paper starts with a review of the literature to understand the interconnected relationship between environmental ethics and China’s top-down ecological civilization policies and the theoretical progress of the environmental assessment tools and their applications in UGI projects. This is followed by the discussion of implementing the UN’s SDG listed Good Practice of ZJG Bay Eco-Park project under the ecological civilization in China. Next, the authors examine different environmental attitude assessment tools and adapt the selected tool. Finally, the authors present the survey data of ZJG Bay Eco-Park, discuss the results, and draw conclusions based on the findings.

Whitehead’s philosophy anticipated the development of environmental ethics and may have influenced Leopold’s The Land Ethic from 1970 (Callicott 1980; Henning 2016). He is widely considered to be the founding father of environmental ethics. This means that process philosophers were the key contributors to the seminal discussions that constituted the field of environmental ethics (Henning 2016) (Fig. 1). In the view of pioneering environmental philosophers, there is no ethic in environmental ethics unless it recognizes the intrinsic value of the nonhuman (Cocks and Simpson 2015; Leopold 1949). Therefore, in the early discussions that constituted the field of environmental ethics, there were two major perspectives: ecocentrism, which celebrates the intrinsic value of nature, independent from its direct value to human beings (Cocks and Simpson 2015), and anthropocentrism, in which the nonhuman environment is measured by its tangible and intangible value to human beings (Norton 1984). Later, researchers started to further divide the anthropocentric perspective into strong anthropocentrism and weak anthropocentrism (Cocks and Simpson 2015; Norton 1984). In strong anthropocentrism, the nonhuman environment is considered to be a commodity or merely an object of use, while the weak anthropocentrism perspective measures the natural environment by its value to human beings, but the value is significantly expanded beyond the commodities associated with strong anthropocentrism (Cocks and Simpson 2015). Further, the biophilia hypothesis boldly asserts the existence of a biologically based innate human need to affiliate with life and lifelike processes. Wilson (1984) and Kellert (1996) refined a typology of environmental values that reflects a range of physical, emotional, and intellectual expressions of the attitudes toward nature, such as utilitarian, naturalistic, ecologistic-scientific, aesthetic, symbolic, humanistic” moralistic, dominionistic, and negativistic environmental valuations.

Almost a century later, Chinese intellectuals have been attracted to the philosophy of Whitehead, who called his thought the philosophy of organism (Henning 2016; Wang et al. 2020; Whitehead et al. 1978). Whitehead’s thoughts on process philosophy not only provided them with a theoretical foundation (Fig. 1) to shift from the celebrated achievement of modernism and economic growth in Chinese society to the more cutting-edge thought on the European postmodernism and also to the fulfillment of the dual commitments of the Chinese Government of ecological civilization and scientific ways of thinking. It joins the recent revival of traditional Chinese wisdom with China’s environmental movement (Wang et al. 2020). China has welcomed Whitehead’s thought and sees it as a way of clarifying and supporting the commitment to an ecological civilization, which has been strongly re-emphasized by President Xi (Wang et al. 2020).

Since 2007, China has continuously demonstrated its commitment to a much more harmonious relationship with the environment (Wu and Wallace 2014). There is plentiful evidence in this regard. The Communist Party formally drafted the goal of becoming an ecological civilization into its Constitution in 2012. Thirty-six universities have organized Centers for Process Studies in China, and Wang et al. (2020) documented hundreds of publications associated with Whiteheadian thought on ecological civilization since 2002. It has also launched a series of national and regional ecological-oriented mega-planning projects.

Despite US propaganda, which often criticizes China’s commitment as halfhearted (Wang et al. 2020), the real question appeared to be centered on whether the interest in the ecological civilization is solely a top-down process of the political leadership imposed on the people or is embraced and actively responded to by all levels of decision-makers and the general public in China. There is a lack of research from the bottom-up perspective to answer this question: are decision-makers at different levels also fully on-board in terms of the commitment to pursuing ecological civilization? The analysis of this information is very relevant because it is important to provide useful preliminary steps for understanding and influencing behavioral changes.

A growing number of researchers have pointed out the pivotal practical values of environmental ethics theoretical classifications (Chang et al. 2011; Cocks and Simpson 2015; Thompson and Barton 1994) and have developed a variety of scales to assess environmental attitudes since the 1970s (Dunlap and Van Liere 1978; Maloney and Ward 1973; Weigel and Weigel 1978). Among all, the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale has been recognized as the most well-known and widely applied scale because of its relatively high reliability and generality (Dunlap and Jones 2002; Hong 2006; Hong and Fan 2016; La Trobe and Acott 2000; Lalonde and Jackson 2002; Stern et al. 1995). It was first introduced in China by Hong (2006) and later became popular in Chinese academic circles and was applied broadly to environmental education and conservation behavior as well (Chang et al. 2011; Luo and Deng 2008; Wu et al. 2012; Wu and Zhu 2017; Yu 2014). With its broad scope, the NEP scale touches on diverse environmental theories and topics, such as anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, ecological equilibrium, and so on. This tool is effective at capturing the environmental worldview but falls short of explaining the strong links between attitudes and actions (Thompson and Barton 1994; Wu and Zhu 2017). Ecocentric and anthropocentric individuals may, although not always, express positive attitudes toward environmental issues, with the difference in these two orientations translating into action that is absent from the NEP scale (Cocks and Simpson 2015).

In this regard, Thompson and Barton (1994) operationalized the Ecocentric and Anthropocentric Attitude toward the Environment (EA) scale and found that ecocentric attitudes were significant predictors of both self-reported and observed behaviors even after controlling for a traditional measurement of environmental attitudes. Later, Røskaft’s (2007) team in Norway used this EA scale to evaluate the belief–attitude relation among sheep farmers, wildlife managers, and research biologists toward carnivores. The results suggested that environmental beliefs might transform ecocentric values into negative or positive attitudes toward one specific environmental category based on the cognitive hierarchy model. Furthermore, Kopnina and Cocis (2017) adjusted the EA scale to better fit the field of environmental education, with a specific connection to sustainable development aims, and tested it on three groups of students in different majors. The results demonstrated that different environmental attitudes result in variations in motivations and choices of conservation behavior. For instance, ecocentric individuals are more likely to act on proenvironmental attitudes and engage in conserving behaviors. Typical examples of this can be found in environmental organizations.

Along with theoretical progress in environmental ethics, researchers continuously specify the typologies in environmental perspectives (Callicott 1992; Kellert 1996; Norton 1984, 1995). Inspired by Kellert’s environmental value typology (Diehm 2012; Kellert 1996; Wilson 1984), Delavari-Edalat and Abdi (2010) developed the Biophilia Tendency (BT) scale and conducted a survey on the two ethical groups of Asia and White British in an urban park in the United Kingdom, finding differences in negativistic, moralistic, and naturalistic values. Unlike the NEP and the EA scales, the statements in the BT scale focus specifically on talking about the perspectives toward trees. Perhaps partly due to its narrow focus, the BT scale is not used as widely as the other two. However, the detailed differential classifications based on the theoretical typologies of the BT scale make it possible to raise these environmental value distinctions to the conscious level, which helps understand the underlying motivations, which is particularly important in the applied fields of UGI planning and design, where environmental behaviors are constantly taking place.

UGI is urban green spaces that contribute to the biodiversity and conservation of ecosystems and the welfare of the population by forming part of a network of spaces that connect the city and nature (Cameron and Blanuša 2016). Since this requires a long-term environmental commitment and problem-solving in a complex environment, the planning and design of UGIs are highly relevant to the influence of different environmental attitudes. Previous studies have indicated its pivotal practical values in the realm of environmental education and the promotion of outdoor conservation programs (Chang et al. 2011; Cocks and Simpson 2015; Thompson and Barton 1994) by using different environmental attitude assessment tools. Some researchers have also begun to investigate the environmental perspective of UGIs of users after the fact (Chang et al. 2011; Luo and Deng 2008), but their orientations at an early stage that shapes the implementation process have not yet been assessed (Parris et al. 2018). It also calls for appropriate environmental orientation tools that can be applied to UGIs to proactively assess these orientations. On the one hand, such tools should better reflect the progress in increasingly more specific theoretical ethical classifications. For instance, it might work better to further differentiate strong-anthropocentric and weak-anthropocentric orientations on the EA scale to apply the theoretical progress in the urban-applied field of UGIs. On the other hand, to improve the policy implications of environmental assessment, which is particularly important in the practical fields of UGIs, tools should be better able to explain motivation and provide more detailed environmental perspectives. The BT scale, originally designed for detailed attitudes of trees, is a winner in this regard. To sum up, an early conscious understanding and evaluation of underlying attitudes can help craft messages tailored to different environmental perspectives and establish a consensus amid the constant conflicts between growth and protection over time, facilitating more constructive behaviors, careful maintenance, and long-term sustainable successes (Zuniga-Teran et al. 2020).

Following the imposed national strategy of ecological civilization, ZJG Bay Eco-Park was initiated by the local government as part of the ongoing mega UGI projects along the Yangtze River that involve collective efforts by different sectors and that are in different phases spread over a long period (Fig. 2).

There are two main merits of studying the ZJG Bay Eco-Park project in this study. First, under the natural protection strategy and local government initiation, this large-scale project involves multiple critical aspects of removing polluting industries, restoring the ecological landscape, building green infrastructure, maintaining biodiversity, and ensuring public access to the eco-park (Fig. 3). Subject to a variety of consultations and collaboration with fishing farms, semioperational port enterprises, villages, local grassroots volunteer groups, professional planners, and construction companies (United Nations 2021), the project is ideal for studying the environmental perspectives of stakeholders at an operational level and for assessing the extent to which it aligns with the central government’s position on the ecocentrism–anthropocentrism spectrum and its impact on the project.

Second, implementing the ZJG Bay Eco-Park project will require tremendous effort in a complex and dynamic process, without guaranteeing long-term sustainable success. In other words, although being recognized as UNSDG Good Practice in its initial phase consolidates the results of its ecoactions, it still remains to be seen whether the project will continue its good practice to promote sustained effects. Right now, it presents a fleeting opportunity to understand the environmental perspectives of those who have contributed to the success of stage one of the ZJG Bay Eco-Park project, as well as the potential areas that are worth looking into and that could provide insights into the actions in its later stages. In this sense, the proactive nature of this study sets it apart from the previous studies on environmental attitudes, which mostly assess UGIs after the fact, and gives it the potential to monitor and influence both the building and continuity of consensus.

This study points out that environmental ethics and ecological civilization share the same theoretical roots in Whitehead’s process philosophy and demonstrates the importance of the theoretical development of environmental ethics in urban-applied fields. With its increased diversity and specificity, it can provide detailed explanations of motivation to help raise awareness of ecological civilization and facilitate consensus building. Aligning with the theoretical progress in environmental ethics, the AEA scale adapted in this study is a more fine-grained tool for assessing environmental attitudes, with strong explanatory power and potential value when applied to UGI planning and management.

The implementation and findings of this adapted scale in the ZJG Bay Eco-Park project provide an excellent example. The stakeholders involved have similar environmental attitudes of weak-anthropocentrism with slight inclination differences toward strong-anthropocentrism across subgroups. Importantly, it also unveils the potential hidden conflicts in the internal values of the local officials who align with two different orientations of ecocentric and environmental apathy. In addition, the public is more sensitive to moralistic statements, and the naturalistic experience appeals to them the most. The internal conflicts among officials and the knowledge gap between professionals and residents require ongoing environmental education and policies to raise awareness of important ecological issues instead of simply imposing a policy of ecological civilization from the top down.

With its strong perspective explanation power, this AEA scale could be used to facilitate bottom-up stakeholder participation and a consensus-building process of crafting and communicating urban planning and management policies. Urban and landscape professionals could use this AEA scale early in UGI projects to better understand stakeholders’ environmental value patterns and tailor their proposals and policies. This means that this scale can inform actionable policy implications not only for the future phases of the ZJG Bay Eco-Park project but also universally for projects outside China.

There are several potential lines of further study to expand the knowledge and understanding of environmental ethic theories for use in UGI planning and management. First, building on the quantitative analysis of this study, follow-up qualitative studies such as interviews with the stakeholders of the ZJG Bay Eco-Park could provide more in-depth insights to explain the underlying reasons for their environmental attitudes and sources of internal confusion and conflicts. Second, since the ZJG Bay Eco-Park project is still in progress, it would benefit from a longitudinal study to determine the stakeholders’ environmental attitudes and value changes over time to potentially understand the mutual impacts of implementing UGI projects like this one and to shape environmental attitudes and values toward an ecological civilization. Third, more comparative studies, such as across countries or subpopulations, could consolidate an expanded knowledge in this important field of study. Another potential for further study is inspired by a lesson learned while conducting this case study. This AEA scale is limited to 20 statements for easier practical implementation, which also reduces the number of Kellert’s typologies involved. Further studies might consider making the AEA scale longer to include more Kellert’s typologies to test and optimize the tool.

All data, models, and codes generated or used during the study appear in the published article.

This project is funded by the University Research Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (UES-WJ-21032106) and Jing Lu's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Grant No. 945139 (European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovative Programme) as part of her dissertation process. The authors thank Fundación Tatiana Pérez de Guzman el Bueno for their financial support, Susana Martín Fernández (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) for all her help with the statistical analysis of this article, and the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.