Examining the Role of Neutralization in Pro-Environmental Behavior

Environmental concern in the form of pro-environmental attitudes and normative expectations often serve as explanatory variables of pro-environmental behavior, but the evidence on their impact on pro-environmental action remains inconclusive. Instead of focusing under which conditions individuals reveal their preferences for environmentalism, this article provides empirical evidence for the role of neutralization techniques to account for the lack of pro-environmental actions. We use representative panel data on renewable energy usage from a total of five panel waves collected in Germany during the years 2015 to 2019 to show how neutralization can explain why respondents who reveal their environmental concerns do not act on them.