Climate change risk perceptions and environmentally conscious behaviour among young environmentalists in Australia

Purpose - We investigate environmentally conscious behaviour among young individuals in Australia with a special attention given to their climate change risk perceptions. Design/methodology/approach - Twenty in-depth interviews were employed in this qualitative investigation. The informants of the investigation are young individuals (aged between 19-25 years) in a major city in Australia. Twenty semi-structured, in-depth interviews ranging from 1.5 - 3 hours were conducted. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to ensure informant diversity and access to ‘information rich’ cases of youth engaged in environmental groups, activism and environmental behaviour. Findings - Four thematic categories were derived. They are: unperceived adverse effects of climate change, disassociation between adverse effects of climate change and environmentally conscious behaviour, challenges to the dominant economic model and, redefined environmental paradigm. Research limitations/implications - Based on the implications of the findings, several recommendations for communicating climate change remedial actions and promoting environmentally conscious behaviour among young individuals are made. Originality/value - The commodity culture of Western consumer society is driven by the dominant social paradigm, which in turn inhibits consumers’ engagement in environmentally conscious behaviour. As such, it is intriguing to investigate how young Australians who were brought up in a Western consumer society such as Australia integrate environmental practices into their everyday lives supported by climate change risk perceptions.