Understanding Sustainability across Cultures: A Three-way Principal Components Analysis

Sustainability is often equated with environmental concerns, but it is a much broader concept that includes issues affecting the long-term economic and social viability of societies, such as poverty and inequality. Do everyday people recognise distinctions between environmental, economic, and social sustainability, and do these distinctions matter for public support? This was investigated in a twelve nation study (N=200 per nation) including developing and developed countries from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Participants read definitions of environmental, economic, and social sustainability, and rated the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals on these dimensions. They also rated their support for these sustainability goals. Responses are analysed using three-way principal components analysis, an advanced analytical technique that allows identification and prediction of individual- and cultural-level associations. These dimensions are then related to people’s support for the UN’s sustainable development goals. Through identifying the underlying individual and cultural patterns in people’s understanding of sustainability, the study has implications for the design of sustainability policy and for communicating sustainability to the public more effectively.