Taking Environmental Action: The Role of Local Composition, Context, and Collective SARAH E. L. WAKEFIELD* Department of Geography and Program in Planning University of Toronto 100 St. George Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3 SUSAN J. ELLIOTT JOHN D. EYLES School of Geography and Geology/Institute of Environment and Health McMaster University 1280 Main Street W. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 1K4 DONALD C. COLE Department of Public Health Sciences University of Toronto 12 QueenÕs Park Crescent W. McMurrich Building Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S1A8 ABSTRACT / This article explores individual and community action taken in response to perceived environmental risks by investigating the determinants of environmental action across a range of action types. A conceptual framework is first presented, which provides a foundation for investigating the role of local compositional (i.e., individual characteris- tics), contextual (i.e., neighborhood environment), and col- lective (i.e., social networks) factors in environmental action. To test the utility of the conceptual framework, a quantitative survey was administered to a random sample of households (n = 512) in Hamilton, Canada. The results suggest that the predictors of environmental action vary by action type (i.e., personal change, individual civic action, and cooperative civic action), and that factors related to perceived environ- mental exposure and social capital generally play a stronger, more consistent role in civic environmental action than so- ciodemographic or neighborhood factors. The results underscore the role of social connection in responses to perceived environmental risks. Civic action around local environmental issues is increasingly important to community development and sustainability given the retrenchment of environmental protection and the devolution of (environmental) service provision to the local level in many jurisdictions (Feitelson and Lindsey 2001; Furuseth and Cocklin 1995). In lieu of government regulation and control, local activism has become a driving force in environ- mental protection, as residents band together to gain a greater say in decisions affecting their neighborhoods (Northridge and Shepard 1995). Local governments are grappling with how to involve citizens in various aspects of environmental governance and planning to increase responsiveness, reduce costs, and avoid con- flict (Godschalk and others 2003, Grodzinska-Jurczak and others 2003; Vigoda 2002). In this context, a fuller understanding of how and why people take environ- mental action becomes vital for stimulating progressive change. Environmental action is defined in this study as behavior intentionally undertaken to benefit the envi- ronment (following Stern 2000). Within the social sci- ences, environmental action has been both seen and studied in different ways. Social theorists have focused on environmental action in the context of new social movements (Mayer and Roth 1995; Offe 1985) linking macrolevel social forces to changing patterns of envi- ronmentalism. In particular, recent work has empha- sized the importance of social capital (i.e., the networks and norms that facilitate social engagement) to the development of collective action (Putnam 2000). This research has tended to neglect the relevance of local ecological conditions and local social contexts to civic participation. It also has generally failed to ad- dress questions concerning the determinants of envi- ronmental action at the individual level (that is, who takes environmental action and why) (Greenberg and Schneider 1997). This is especially important given the suggestion in much of the literature that although awareness and concern around perceived environ- mental risks are typically high, levels of action taken are relatively low (Elliott and others 1993, 1999). KEY WORDS: Environmental action; Social capital; Risk perception; Local context; Air pollution Published online: November 22, 2005. *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; email: sarah.wakefield@utoronto.ca Environmental Management Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 40–53 ª 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. DOI: 10.1007/s00267-004-0323-3