Attempts to mitigate the environmental impact of oil-palm expansion by improving production standards have been of limited success. An alternative approach aims at a better understanding of the factors that drive consumers to reduce excessive vegetable oil consumption. Our studies focused on consumers’ environmental knowledge as a potential determinant of palm oil consumption. They revealed critical limitations in consumers’ palm oil-related knowledge across different domains, study settings and assessment approaches. The more our participants knew about palm oil and its environmental consequences, the stronger were their reported intentions to reduce their consumption. This relationship was significantly stronger for subjective versus objective palm oil-related knowledge. In addition, we examined whether consumers can be stimulated to consult information about palm oil by making information access the default option. While this simple situational nudge promoted information access, we did not find it to significantly increase actual engagement with the information material. This result suggests that it might be necessary to complement default nudges for information access with other measures to enhance palm oil-related knowledge and to reduce palm oil consumption to more sustainable levels.

In their seminal 2002 paper, Kollmuss and Agyeman asked the important question ‘Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour?’ The article has had a remarkably high rate of readership, with 64,900 electronic views to date, and 16 years later, this question remains significant. But are environmental educators and researchers any closer to understanding why people engage in pro-environmental behaviour? For this special issue of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education and its focus on ecologising education, it is timely not only to re-explore but to (re)story the concepts of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour, in order to generate fertile ground for the creation of new understandings and practices in environmental education. After considering relevant literature published between 2000 and 2018, this article offers an original framework for considering the complex, varied, and interconnected influences on the development of pro-environmental behaviour by (re)storying the development of pro-environmental behaviour through articulating it as a living forest.

This paper provides a brief discussion on the implications and outcomes of ethnographic filmmaking as a means to understanding environmental perception among farming communities. I argue that the unique contribution of filmmaking as a research method lies in its epistemological ability to engage with diverse ways of knowing. In this paper, I provide a close examination of a vignette filmed during my research to demonstrate how this methodological and analytical approach can be used to reveal environmental perception and knowledge as processes, rather than as substances.

Empowering students to act in an environmentally responsible manner is being increasingly touted as a central goal of formal environmental education. Acting in a responsible manner requires the development of environmental knowledge as well as positive attitudes and values towards the environment along with other attributes. While some guidance about how to plan and teach environmental education is available in curriculum and policy documents, teachers are often either unfamiliar with such documents and/or unaware of the theories and pedagogy of environmental education (Cutter-Mackenzie & Smith, 2003; Eames, Cowie, & Bolstad, 2008). This paper offers a definition of environmentally responsible behaviour and identifies the role that knowledge could play when environmentally responsible action is taken by students that could be useful for teachers.

Three different lenses are used to examine the knowledge developed by 11-12 year old students and their subsequent actions during engagement in an environmental education programme (n=22). The lenses consist of a cluster of types of knowledge developed by Jensen (2002), a framework for analysing understandings of sustainability and the type of actions taken (Jensen & Schnack, 1997; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002).

The results suggest that these students developed different types of knowledge that informed the actions taken and that their actions can be categorised as action competence. It is also suggested that these types of knowledge need to be taught explicitly. A three part model is then proposed that could assist students to learn about the nature of action, enabling them to work towards potential solutions for complex environmental issues.

Traditionally, environmental education has been aimed at the community or in primary schools and governmental pressure to reduce environmental damage has focussed on large businesses. More recently, the role and importance of small business and how to engage them in the environmental debate has come under scrutiny. Researchers have identified education as one method of increasing the understanding of small business owner-managers' role and knowledge of practices that, when implemented, will reduce the negative impacts of their businesses. However, there is little attention given in the literature to the perspective of the small business owner-manager and environmental education. This research was conducted to begin to address this gap. Research results confirm that there is limited environmental education for small businesses and that there is a disconnect in meeting the needs of such a disparate group. Six elements were identified by the small business owner-managers in the design of environmental education for them: use of plain language, provision of best practice examples, industry specific information, solutions for immediate improvement, practical content and use of trusted sources to deliver the program.

This paper presents the findings of a small-scale research project about student teachers' perceptions and experiences of environmental education. The context of this study is a pre-service teacher education faculty in rural New South Wales, Australia. A combined methods approach was applied, with a survey designed from rich data elicited through focus group interviews. The focus of this paper is on the findings of the survey, revealing that prospective teachers' preparedness in environmental education is diluted by their teacher education experience and that such experiences are not providing a stimulus for novice teachers to practice environmental education.

Despite the ever-growing body of knowledge about human impact on the environment and the need to work towards a sustainable future, participation in environmental action initiatives among the general population remains low. There is an increasingly urgent need to develop a culture of participation among young people who in turn may become future leaders. This article describes a study that was undertaken to investigate pre-service teachers’ environmental knowledge, their willingness to participate in environmental initiatives, and their perceptions about environmental education in schools. The study participants were pre-service teachers between the ages of 19 and 22. Data were collected through online surveys, followed by focus group interviews where pre-service teachers were given the opportunity to expand and comment on the survey responses. Findings from this study are consistent with previous research on pre-service teacher literacy, attitudes, perceptions and participation. However, the pre-service teachers’ perceptions about the role of schools and adults in nurturing environmental awareness and active participation among youth provides educators with new insights for the development of a more comprehensive environmental education curriculum that focuses on integration of theory and action.

Engaging and exciting students about the environment remains a challenge in contemporary society, even while objective measures show the rapid state of the world's environment declining. To illuminate the integration of drama and environmental education as a means of engaging students in environmental issues, the work of performance companies Evergreen Theatre, Leapfish and Eaton Gorge Theatre Company, the ecological oratorio Plague and the Moonflower, and a school-based trial of play-building were examined through survey data and participant observations. These case studies employed drama in different ways — theatre-in-education, play-building, and large-scale performance event. The four case studies provide quantitative and qualitative evidence for drama-based activities leading to an improvement in knowledge about the environment and understandings about the consequences of one's actions. In observing and participating in these case studies, we reflect that drama is a means of synthesising and presenting scientific research in ways that are creative and multi-layered, and which excite students, helping maintain their attention and facilitating their engagement.

The major focus of this research is to investigate whether environmental knowledge has any impact on organizational outcomes through an empirical investigation of 127 Spanish hospitality companies, using structural equation models. Our results show that environmental knowledge is an important determiner for developing organizational outcomes. However, this relationship is completed with just two related constructs: Firstly, the company's acquisition process plays a key role in managing the tension between the knowledge necessary to develop the appropriated environmental initiatives and current knowledge. Secondly, the company's distribution process also sheds light on tangible means for managers to enhance their company's outcomes through environmental knowledge.