Student intern: Nora Booth
Supervisors: Antje Brown (School of Geography and Sustainable Development), Will Cresswell (School of Biology)
Summary: Our project surveyed biodiversity awareness amongst staff working at the University of St Andrews, looking at whether there were any predictors of this that might be used to change levels of awareness and facilitate biodiversity positive behaviour. We found variation in levels of awareness and particularly identified areas where knowledge might be better shared with those working outdoors on how actions impact biodiversity.
Report
We are experiencing a biodiversity crisis, and many are starting to be aware of the problem, yet positive decisions to promote biodiversity are far from universal. The situation is similar to where we were about 25 years ago with climate change. We all now, more or less, acknowledge the climate emergency and are all taking positive steps – or at least are thinking about them – to reduce our carbon footprints. But for biodiversity, the cultural shift from vague awareness that there is a problem to positive behaviours to address the problem has not happened yet. Our project looked at what stage the staff working at the University of St Andrews are with biodiversity. We measured the level of biodiversity awareness that exists within staff and whether there were any predictors of this, that might be used to change levels of awareness and facilitate biodiversity positive behaviour. For example, are levels of awareness and behavioural changes in response to biodiversity dependent on job roles, responsibilities and physical location, which affect daily exposure to biodiversity and biodiversity issues?
We surveyed 232 staff using an online questionnaire or face to face interview. Most staff members can broadly identify common animals and plants, but few can name which species exactly. Inclination to make biodiversity positive decisions varied: staff members chose local and seasonal produce less than occasionally; often deliberately chose not to use pesticides in their garden if they had one; occasionally voted for political candidates primarily based on an environmental platform; rarely kept dogs on leads or cats indoors to protect wildlife if they had a pet; ate meat occasionally; used public transport occasionally and considered the carbon costs of their activities occasionally.
Exposure to biodiversity at work varied: the average median time that staff surveyed spent working outside was 10%; staff members, on average, ate outside less than occasionally, walked outside during the working day more than occasionally, used walking or cycling to get to work rarely, looked out a window where they could view wildlife occasionally and rarely had any memorable experience with wildlife or nature at work.
We then correlated whether the degree of biodiversity knowledge correlated with biodiversity positive decisions. There was a significant positive correlation between degree of biodiversity knowledge and biodiversity positive shopping decisions, biodiversity positive voting preferences and carbon use reduction decisions. There was no significant relationship between degree of biodiversity knowledge and responsible pet ownership, avoiding use of pesticides, use of public transport or amount of meat eaten.
Finally we tested whether biodiversity knowledge correlated with exposure to biodiversity at work. There was significant variation in biodiversity knowledge by role. Surprisingly those roles with a major outdoor component (Estates, Maintenance, and Security and Response) scored the lowest in biodiversity knowledge. This was also shown in a significant negative relationship between the percentage of time spent outdoors for a staff member and biodiversity knowledge. There was a significant positive correlation between whether it was possible to view wildlife from a staff member’s place of work window, although the direction of causation may well be that knowledge improves the view, rather than the view improves knowledge.
The results of the study are consistent with there being variation in biodiversity knowledge, and greater knowledge leads to biodiversity positive decisions in some areas, particularly with respect to climate change. Biodiversity knowledge varies across roles in the University, but is surprisingly lower in those roles that primarily involve outside work; there is a suggestion that access to biodiversity during the working day might lead to increased biodiversity knowledge. If these correlations are causative – and this is always uncertain in any observational study – then improving the University working environment so that staff can experience more biodiversity may lead to more biodiversity positive behaviours and decisions. The largely positive relationship between age and biodiversity knowledge, but the lack of a positive effect of simply working outside on biodiversity knowledge suggest that what drives biodiversity knowledge is not simply based on experience of biodiversity, and that perhaps targeted biodiversity experience creates knowledge and so perhaps biodiversity positive decisions. Put in other words: managing gardens and cutting lawns all day by an estates worker may result in a less biodiversity positive environment in the University, than an administrator watching birds out of an office window, in between procurement decisions.
Thank you to everyone that took the survey!
Nora Booth, Antje Brown & Will Cresswell
