Acquisition of Environmental Awareness: The Interplay with Institutional Development

Acquisition of environmental awareness is undoubtedly a necessary step towards environmental progress. However, due to the complex and interdisciplinary character of the argument, only a little literature has emerged regarding this issue. The paper contributes to fill in this lacuna and investigates the main factors responsible for the acquisition of environmental awareness from the institutional perspective. The acquisition of environmental awareness is seen as an interactive process involving institutional transformation and cognitive responses. The analysis shows that enforcement of formal rules and purposeful construction of informal rules contribute to create a favourable framework for such an acquisition. In enhancing environmental concern, a policy maker should allocate additional resources to formal rules enforcement, while informal rules should be accounted for by considering cultural backgrounds and human capital. Formation of environmental awareness through the spread of environmental education is argued to be a functional tool. The analysis leaves much space for further multidisciplinary research on environmental awareness and could serve as a starting point for the development of an empirical analysis of its determinants.