Bentley’s research project suggests ways to enhance sustainability programming on campus

University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Accelerated Master’s Degree (AMD) student Taylor Bentley (BA ’27, MS ’28) has long wondered whether reading about sustainability practices influences how people put them into practice. Her interest led her to collaborate with Noah Webster, research associate professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research and SEAS (by courtesy), through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). Webster is also co-director of U-M’s Sustainability Cultural Indicators Program (SCIP). 

SCIP uses representative survey data to monitor and assess what Webster calls “sustainability culture,” referring to the way the beliefs and attitudes of U-M students, staff and faculty influence sustainability behaviors. Results from these surveys provide feedback for campus groups and sustainability leaders to utilize in strengthening U-M’s culture of sustainability through their programming. 

Bentley started working with Webster through a Program in the Environment summer internship. Together, they analyzed SCIP data to inform potential changes to U-M Flint’s Planet Blue Ambassadors program and continued working together afterward through UROP. “Taylor struck me as being very genuine in her commitment to sustainability, which made me feel comfortable about offering her the summer internship position,” explained Webster. 

For her UROP project, Bentley was given an opportunity to develop her own innovative research questions and then asked to use SCIP data collected in 2024 to examine these questions. She started by reviewing related academic literature, and then cleaned and analyzed SCIP data from Ann Arbor students to understand the potential link between how well-informed people were about sustainability and engagement in sustainable behaviors. Bentley hoped that her results could lead to actionable changes within U-M programming to foster behavioral commitment to sustainable practices. 

Bentley explained that there was a gap in research studying how literacy affects sustainable behavior. “My work was rather new, and had not been examined before using SCIP data. I wanted to know if adding more sustainability education would actually help students complete more sustainable behavior goals,” she said.

Bentley’s project used SCIP data on individual sustainability habits and examined their association with responses to a blanket value statement inquiring about commitment to sustainability. She found that greater sustainability literacy was associated with more frequent engagement in sustainable practices like conservation, waste prevention and sustainable food purchasing. Further, she found that greater sustainability commitment was associated with both sustainability literacy and behavior. “Taylor identified that commitment is a key linchpin in explaining how and why sustainability literacy is associated with sustainable behaviors,” said Webster.

Bentley said this means that campus organizations could consider developing more opportunities to foster this sense of commitment. “These results suggest that sustainability programs may need to do more than share information. They may also need to help students feel personally invested and capable of acting on what they know,” she explained.

As a Graham Sustainability Scholar and a Planet Blue Ambassador, Bentley has experience in spaces in which sustainability campaigns are planned and carried out. She said her UROP project allowed her the opportunity to approach her data findings with a human perspective. “I think my through line is sustainability research and people,” she said. “I want to highlight that it’s important to combine sustainability education with strategies that help strengthen motivation and engagement.”

Bentley, who is in the Environmental Justice specialization at SEAS, said the UROP project helped her understand how to analyze data as a storytelling strategy. “Noah really helped me with how to conduct research, literature reviews and data analysis,” she explained. “I had never heard of SPSS, which was the program that we used to examine the data. I think it was really valuable to get this sort of hands-on knowledge by looking at the data, coding the data and getting the information I needed from the data.”

For Webster, Bentley demonstrated her commitment to the project throughout the research process. “Taylor is a highly conscientious, motivated student who showed a tremendous willingness to learn the best approaches to test the innovative questions she developed,” he said.