This presentation showcases the results obtained in the paper titled ‘Factors influencing citizens co-production of environmental services’, which explores the role that local government-level factors play in shaping pro-environmental behavior in citizen involvement in the production of public services. To do so, this study analyzes the enablers and barriers of public services’ coproduction, both at the individual and institutional levels. To understand the salience of individual and organizational influences on citizens’ coproduction, the authors analyze the pro-environmental behaviours of a sample of citizens in Wales. Environmental sustainability is seen as perhaps the paradigmatic societal challenge requiring citizens’ coproductive efforts. This research constitutes one of the results of the research project ‘CITADEL: Empowering Citizens to Transform European Public Administrations’, funded by the European Commission within the program H2020 Horizon, under GA 726755.

1. Factors influencing citizens’ co-Factors influencing citizens’ co-
production of environmentalproduction of environmental
services: a multi-level analysisservices: a multi-level analysis
José M. Alonso
Rhys Andrews
Judith Clifton
Daniel Díaz-Fuentes
Contact:
jmanuel.alonsoalonso@unican.es

2. Introduction
 Co-production, defined as ‘direct and active
contributions’ from citizens to the work of public
organizations, has the potential to help governments
meet environmental policy objectives
 Despite an explosion of interest in the promise of
coproduction as a solution to wicked issues like climate
change, few studies fully address its multi-level nature
 We present an analysis of the individual-level and local
government-level factors influencing the pro-
environmental behaviours of citizens across Wales

3. What is public service
coproduction?
 Co-production is an umbrella term covering different
approaches to citizens’ involvement in public service
delivery
 Essentially, it signifies a relationship between
citizens and public sector organizations that “requires
a direct and active contribution from these citizens to
the work of the organization” (Brandsen and
Honingh, 2016: 431).
 Environmental co-production, constitutes an example
of co-production in the implementation of core
services i.e. those that are statutory (e.g. waste
management )

4. Levels influencing
coproduction behaviours
 Macro level – supranational institutions,
nations, regions
 Meso level – districts, neighbourhoods,
networks, organizations,
 Micro level – households, individuals
For this analysis, we focus on the micro
(individual) and meso (local government)
levels

5. Individual factors influencing
coproduction – values
 Altruistic motives and intrinsic rewards play key roles
when explaining citizens’ willingness to engage in co-
production of public service delivery
 Citizens’ self-efficacy, constitutes a powerful intrinsic
motivator favouring coproduction behaviour, since this
factor reflects both willingness and ability to participate
in the delivery of public services

6. Individual factors influencing
coproduction – demography
 Women are more likely to volunteer than men
 The elderly are more likely to engage in civic activities,
but middle-agers appear to be the most proactive
when volunteering
 Well-educated people are more aware and concerned
about social and environmental issues
 Rural residents place a higher priority on the
environment, and city-dwellers may have lower
willingness to co-produce in general

7. Local government factors
influencing coproduction
 Compatibility of public organizations with citizens’
participation, especially partnership structures
 Willingness of public officials to engage with citizens
 An inclusive administrative culture versus a paternalist
or producerist culture
 Gaps in public service provision
 Political representation related to key social concerns,
such as Green Party viz environmental issues

8. Study context – Wales
 EU and UK policies to address
climate change have been
influential in Wales, where a
commitment to sustainable
development has been legislated
for via the Well-being of Future
Generations (Wales) Act 2015.
 According to some estimates,
municipal and household recycling
rates in Wales are among the very
best in the world (Eunomia, 2017).

9. Units of analysis
 The pro-environmental behavior of citizens across
Wales is an apt setting for multi-level analysis of
coproduction, because:
 There are several potential levels of analysis
 There is good quality data available for many of those
levels of analysis
 Level 1 – about 5,000 respondents to outdoor
recreation module of the National Survey for Wales
(2016)
 Level 2 – 22 Welsh local authorities

10.  Dependent variable
Environmental co-production indicator: sum of co-
production behaviours coded 1= respondent
undertook the activity, 0=otherwise, resulting in a
co-production index bounded between 0 and 10.
Behaviours: recycling, switching to a green energy supplier,
buying energy efficient appliances, reducing energy used,
purchasing eco-friendly products, gardening for wildlife,
local MP or AM about environmental issues, signing a
petition about climate change, volunteering to help protect
the environment and, being a member of an environmental
group.
Individual level variables

11.  Independent variables:
 Carer dummy
 Self-efficacy: survey question 5-point Likert scale
about the extent respondents can influence
decisions.
 Female dummy
 Age
 Education dummy
 Urban dummy
Individual level variables

12.  Organizational compatibility: number of
Communities First partnership members by LG
(weighted by deprivation and number of LSOAs).
 Willingness of PO to engage: aggregated indicator
measuring the percentage of informants that
strongly agree that their locally elected political
representative works closely with the community
 Administrative culture: Dummy coded 1 if Labour
controls the LG.
Local authority level variables

13.  Quantity and quality of public services: per capita
spending on environmental services; aggregate
indicator of citizens’ satisfaction with the recycling
collection service provided by the local council.
 Political representation related to key social
concerns: percentage share of the vote gained by
the Green Party in the 2013 local elections.
Local authority level variables

14.  Poisson multilevel models to account for the
discrete and nonnegative nature of count variables
and accommodate variables at different levels.
 Bayesian approach based on Metropolis-Hastings
random walk sampling via MCMC simulation
techniques.
 We use weakly informative priors in our MCMC
simulations; Normal(0, 10^4) prior for the “fixed”
parameters of the model; half-Cauchy prior with
mode at 0 and scale set to 30, for the variance
hyperparameter.
Methods

15. Determinants of pro-environmental behaviours:
Individual level covariates

16. Distribution of pro-environmental behaviours

17. Determinants of pro-environmental behaviours

18. Conclusion
 Multi-level analysis of coproduction can illuminate
the potential enablers and barriers to effective
policy interventions
 Individual values and attitudes matter – especially
altruism and self-efficacy
 Institutional factors matter – especially institutional
structures, priorities and performance
 Policies focused on promoting individual efficacy
and participatory institutional structures can
reinforce each other.

19. Limitations and future studies
 Cross-sectional data - need for investigations
using longitudinal or experimental data,
 Case studies – to examine the dynamics of
coproduction and pro-environmental behaviours
in more depth
 Single institutional setting - would be interesting
to compare the factors influencing environmental
coproduction with those influencing coproduction
in healthcare, education and other public services

20. The research leading to these results has received funding from
the European Community’s Horizon 2020 Programme under
grant agreement No. 726755 (Project CITADEL: H2020-SC6-
CULT-COOP-2016-2017).