Incorporating environmental attitudes in discrete choice models: An exploration of the utility of the awareness of consequences scale David Hoyos a,b, ⁎, Petr Mariel a,1 , Stephane Hess c a Department of Applied Economics III (Econometrics Statistics), University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Avda. Lehendakari Aguirre, 83, E48015 Bilbao, Spain b EKOPOL, Research Group on Ecological Economics and Political Ecology, Avda. Lehendakari Aguirre, 83, E48015 Bilbao, Spain c Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK HIGHLIGHTS • A novel approach to incorporate attitudinal information into discrete choice models for environmental valuation. • Environmental attitudinal information is incorporated following Ryan and Spash's (2012) reinterpretation of the AC scale. • Attitudinal data is incorporated as latent variables under a hybrid choice modelling framework. • More effective environmental policies may be designed when incorporating attitudinal data. abstract article info Article history: Received 10 July 2014 Received in revised form 5 October 2014 Accepted 19 October 2014 Available online xxxx Editor: Simon Pollard Keywords: Discrete choice Valuation Hybrid latent class (HLCM) model Choice modelling Latent attitudes Natura 2000 Environmental economists are increasingly interested in better understanding how people cognitively organise their beliefs and attitudes towards environmental change in order to identify key motives and barriers that stim- ulate or prevent action. In this paper, we explore the utility of a commonly used psychometric scale, the aware- ness of consequences (AC) scale, in order to better understand stated choices. The main contribution of the paper is that it provides a novel approach to incorporate attitudinal information into discrete choice models for envi- ronmental valuation: firstly, environmental attitudes are incorporated using a reinterpretation of the classical AC scale recently proposed by Ryan and Spash (2012); and, secondly, attitudinal data is incorporated as latent variables under a hybrid choice modelling framework. This novel approach is applied to data from a survey con- ducted in the Basque Country (Spain) in 2008 aimed at valuing land-use policies in a Natura 2000 Network site. The results are relevant to policy-making because choice models that are able to accommodate underlying envi- ronmental attitudes may help in designing more effective environmental policies. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Environmental issues such as climate change, the depletion of natural resources and biodiversity loss increasingly threaten the welfare of human civilisation. Confronting these threats requires, among other things, behavioural changes in citizens, governments and companies. Environmental psychology has been devoted to investigating human be- haviour and ways to influence it in order to avoid environmental degra- dation. Theoretical models aiming at a better understanding of how people cognitively organise their beliefs and feelings towards environmental change may help identify the key motives and barriers that stimulate or prevent action. Ultimately, understanding these mo- tives and barriers to human action or inaction may help to design more effective environmental policies. Economists have been historically more interested in analysing the re- sults of rational choice rather than the process of choice (Simon, 1978), however, it is clear that understanding human behaviour requires a deep understanding of the motives behind, as well as the motives for, ac- tion. As a consequence, the psychological process underlying an observed willingness to pay (WTP) response has been receiving increasing atten- tion. WTP to protect natural resources is the product of a highly complex psychological process, with many different factors influencing observed responses at many different levels. Respondent starting points on valua- tion questionnaires differ not only in terms of their socioeconomic charac- teristics or their level of prior information but also of their environmental attitudes and their perception of the environmental issue under valuation Science of the Total Environment 505 (2015) 1100–1111 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 94 601 7019; fax: +34 94 601 3754. E-mail addresses: david.hoyos@ehu.es (D. Hoyos), petr.mariel@ehu.es (P. Mariel), s.hess@its.leeds.ac.uk (S. Hess). 1 Tel.: +34 94 601 3848; fax: +34 94 601 3754. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.10.066 0048-9697/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv