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Highlights

Faculty elected as a member of PACES
Sabrina Helm has been elected by the EcoOps community to represent UA employees in PACES, the President’s Advisory Council on Environmental Sustainability. EcoOps is a new project of the Office of Sustainability aimed at building a community for UA employees and alumni who want to make the UA a more environmentally sustainable place to work, study, and play. EcoOps compliments existing student-focused programs.
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CESI involved in The “G.R.E.E.N.” Summer Youth Employment Program
CESI Co-director Sabrina Helm was invited to discuss changes in daily life that can improve sustainability with participants of the “G.R.E.E.N.” Summer Youth Employment Program sponsored by the Tucson Urban League in partnership with Grace Temple Missionary Baptist Church. See the program’s annual newsletter.

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Current Research Projects

One major goal of CESI is to facilitate and support consumer research related to sustainability and social responsibility through collaborative, innovative and integrative effort. Our current research projects are described below. If you wish to learn more about a particular project, please contact the listed Principal Investigator.

Project: Determinants and Consequences of Consumer Social Responsibility
Principal Investigator: Dr. Sabrina Helm

Background

Prior research indicates that attitudes and articulated intentions are no accurate predictors of sustainable consumption behavior. We define sustainability of consumption as decisions made and actions taken by consumers that improve their and their families’ quality of life without compromising the ability of present and future consumers and other life to flourish on the planet. Within this broader context, the research project aims at identifying determinants as well as consequences of consumers’ social responsibility (ConSR) with a special emphasis on self-determination theory and quality of life perceptions.  For the context of the study, we understand ConSR as the conscious and deliberate choice to make certain consumption choices based on personal and moral beliefs and on a willingness to avoid negative external effects the individual‘s consumption has toward society and the environment. The project also aims at validating a scale to measure ConSR that is focused on conservation practices of consumers.

Research Questions:

  1. How can ConSR be conceptualized and how can it be measured empirically?

  2. What are determinants and outcome variables of ConSR as perceived by consumers?

Project: Adolescents’ Environmental Literacy
Principal Investigators: Dr. Anita Bhappu & Dr. Sabrina Helm

In an effort to integrate our teaching and research interests, we will conduct a longitudinal research study among students enrolled in INDV 102 beginning in Spring 2012. The study will measure young consumers’ environmental literacy, as well as their attitudes and behavior related to the sustainable consumption of consumer goods, services, and natural resources. The INDV 102 students will serve as a “treatment” sample with a similar “control” sample being recruited from among UA freshmen NOT enrolled in the course. Data will be collected using interviews, focus groups and surveys. Students enrolled in our graduate RCSC 696 will have the opportunity to analyze data from this longitudinal study or to use our validated survey instruments to collect additional longitudinal data from other populations. The project is both modeled after and linked to the APLUS project on financial literacy conducted by other Norton School researchers.

Research Questions:

  1. What are adolescents’ perceptions regarding sustainability and the environment? How do they define environmental literacy? How environmentally literate are they?

  2. What are antecedents of adolescents’ environmental literacy? How do family and friends influence adolescents’ environmental literacy? How does environmental literacy develop over time?

  3. How does adolescents’ environmental literacy impact their consumption behavior? How does it impact their family and friends’ consumption patterns? How do they define sustainable consumption?

  4. What are ways to increase adolescents’ environmental literacy?

Project: Consumer Engagement in Agritourism
Principal Investigator: Dr. Anita Bhappu

This applied research project, which has been funded by Farm Bureau Financial Services, began with a series of focus groups aimed at better understanding Arizona consumers’ attitudes and behavior related to food and agriculture. We were interested in assessing whether and how these consumers might engage with the Arizona Farm Bureau. Our focus group findings led us to develop several concepts related to agritourism, which is a strategy for creating more sustainable agricultural systems. Agritourism allows consumers to experience local farm products and rural agrarian traditions, and in doing so, can diversify farm income and increase farm profitability. Using 1-on-1 consumer interviews, we refined three agritourism concepts linked to membership in the Arizona Farm Bureau and then tested them via a representative, online survey of Arizona heads of household. Using this survey data, we have now developed an inductive model of consumer engagement in agritourism, which we are planning to validate among consumer members of Native Seed SEARCH.