THE ERB ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS INDEXMaster’s Project - 2006School of Natural Resources - University of MichiganCristina TurneyKevin P. EckerleSubmit proposal and unsigned coversheet in electronic form. Also submit two hard copies of the proposal and the signed coversheet.1. Erb Environmental Index Title of Project2. Andrew J. Hoffman and Thomas P. Lyon Name of Project Advisor Signature / Date3. Client Information: Erb Institute for Global Sustainability Andrew J. Hoffman/Thomas P. Lyon Name of Client Organization Name of Primary Contact School of Natural Resources, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Street Address Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234 734-647-9709 [email protected] City, State Zip Code Phone Number Email Address4. Final Team Members: Cristina Turney Name of Member 1 Signature / Date Kevin Eckerle Name of Member 2 Signature / Date5. Project Summary:The primary goal of this project is to produce a quantitative measure of public awareness of environmental issues in the United States. We will generate this measure through the analysis of general indices of environmental sentiment including membership in environmental non-profit organizations, the publication of articles on environmental issues in the general media, as well as industry-specific media outlets. This quantitative measure of environmental sentiment will then be used to measure historical changes in public environmental awareness and as a correlate in analyzing historical changes in environmental action, such as public investment in environmental investment funds, environmental political action, and corporate environmental action. The calculation of this environmental awareness index can then be updated regularly by members of the Erb Institute and used by both the Erb Institute and external agents to assess future changes inpublic environmental sentiment and the inclusion of public environmental sentiment in the decision-making processes of political bodies, corporations, and non-government organizations.6. NRE 701 Instructor Approval:Signature / DateABSTRACTGauging public sentiment regarding the importance of environmental issues is currently a difficult task. Disparate resources are available for the government or corporate decision-maker who wishes to understand public opinion regarding the environment before acting. Today these societal actors must rely on historical measures of sentiment or public reactions to past policy decisions to estimate current public sentiment. By contrast, the Erb Environmental Index will provide an up-to-date measure of public opinion regarding the environment to enable societal actors to make more accurately informed decisions.This project team will gather data from a variety of sources to build an index for environmental sentiment in the United States. Team members will create a database of a variety of environmental sentiment data by gathering information from a breadth of existing resources including media coverage of environmental issues, corporate compliance with existing environmental laws and membership in environmentally-focused organizations. The team will then validate the index by creating a historical data set of environmental sentiment based on the current metric and track the current metric with other historical public opinion measures and policy decisions. This database will then enable future Erb Institute representatives to maintain the Index, continually updating it to allow for historical tracking of trends in public sentiment.TABLE OF CONTENTSAbstract iIntroduction and Problem Statement 1Background 1Description of Research 3Methodology 4Schedule of Major Tasks 5Anticipated Results and Products 6Institutional Resources 6Budget 7Personnel 8References 9ERB ENVIRONMENTAL INDEX PAGE 1INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM STATEMENTPresently, there is no single metric which aggregates and quantifies public opinion regarding the environment. As a result, decision makers in the corporate, government, and non-profit sectors cannot accurately gauge changes in public sentiment regarding environmental issues. The current methods of public opinion polling provides only snapshots of environmental awareness on specific issues at discrete points in time; there is very little data which is consistently collectedover time thereby allowing for more historical analyses (but see Mohai 2003 and the use of data from the General Social Survey). Consequently, decision makers lack the appropriate information to guide their actions.The Erb Environmental Awareness Index is intended to generate an accurate and current measureof public environmental awareness. The Index will provide a collective barometer of the strengthof non-market environmental forces facing societal actors. It will focus on emerging issues, rather than compliance with existing statutes, but will provide measures of compliance and of government resources devoted to enforcement as a way to indicate the overall support from government for environmental laws.To create the Erb Environmental Awareness Index, the team will collect a variety of data sets, including membership in environmental organizations, and the publication rate of environment-related articles in general as well as focused media sources. We will then validate the index and use it to gauge changes in public opinion over time and resulting legislative decision-making consequences. Finally, we will provide guidelines for continually updating the index and using it as a decision-making tool.BackgroundAs global environmental conditions change, it is becoming increasingly important to generate consistent measures of public opinion on environmental issues so that interested stakeholders canact in a manner consistent with public opinion. However, quantitative measures that are consistently produced and
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