ABSTRACT
There are a variety of primarily economic and socio-psychological theories and models that identify the factors that determine environmental behaviour. Many of these theories take rational choice theory as their point of departure. This chapter examines a survey which contains information on environmental behaviour, environmental attitudes, knowledge, motivation to take action on climate change and socio-demographic questions. Therefore it explained the differences in environmental behaviour through the four dependent variables covering different aspects of environmental behaviour. This leads us to conclude that knowledge is one of the most important factors in determining environmental behaviour. In general, the results of the survey gives greater support to theories that stress the importance of altruism, social pressure, personal ethics and knowledge rather than to theories relying on the maximisation of private benefits when it comes to explaining people's climate-relevant behaviour. This is an important point, although it is usually overlooked by the different theories on environmental behaviour.
