Sustainable development and quality of life: expected effects of prospective changes in economic and environmental conditions

In the context of "sustainable development", we studied which attributes ar e important to people's quality of life (QoL) and which changes in QoL peop le would expect from future economic and environmental improvements or dete riorations. About 200 adult subjects evaluated the relative importance of 2 2 different QoL attributes. They subsequently indicated expected changes in those attributes, under three different scenarios in which economic and en vironmental conditions would either improve or deteriorate. On average, sub jects judged the QoL attributes "health", "family", "environmental quality" , "nature" and "safety" to be most important, while "recognition", "comfort ", "status" and "spiritual life" were found least important. The most impor tant QoL attributes as well as "security" were judged as more important by women than by men. Also observed were income and age effects on relative at tribute importance. Our (Dutch) subjects expected significant and varied ne gative QoL changes from an environmental-deterioration scenario involving e ither an improved or a deteriorated economy. In contrast, they had mixed po sitive-negative QoL expectations about environmental improvement combined w ith economic deterioration. Subjects high in environmental concern assigned greater weight to "environmental" QoL attributes, and they expected enviro nmental improvement versus deterioration to more strongly affect their QoL- attributes "environmental quality", "nature", "health" and "unity with natu re", than did subjects low in environmental concern. We conclude that quali ty of life can be meaningfully conceived as a multi-attribute value concept , useful for assessing the expected effects of future economic and environm ental conditions. Suggestions are given for methodological improvement and for further research.