**1. Introduction**

Anthropogenic activity contributes to global warming, changes in the water cycle, changes in climate extremes, rising of sea levels, and the melting of ice caps. In fact, it is extremely likely that humans have been the dominant cause since the 1950s by contributing to an increased concentration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere, which is the main cause of climate forcing [1]. The current state of anthropogenic activity is distressing the earth system, in some cases, beyond the planetary boundaries [2].

The production and consumption activities of cities are responsible for the majority of global GHG emissions [3]. While around half of the world's population resides in urban areas, cities have been said to be responsible for 71% to 76% of global energy-related CO2 emissions [4]. The mitigation of these GHG emissions has been a common focus of researchers and policy-makers.

As cities become more compact, distances between services decrease, resulting in less dependency on cars and shorter trip lengths [5–12]. Many cities have emphasized dense urbanization and the reduction of emissions from the private transport sector in their plans, even though these aspects

may constitute only a small part of cities' total baseline emissions [13] and factors other than land use planning may have a more decisive role in shaping the structure of emissions from travel [14].

Emissions from aviation are rarely included in city-level policies and studies, even though they can exceed those from ground transport in wealthy European countries [15–17], especially when short-lived climate forcers are included in calculations. The aviation sector currently produces 2% to 3% of total anthropogenic carbon emissions [18,19] and the emissions from it are expected to grow at a rate of around 8% annually [20]. Emissions related to tourism alone account for 8% of global GHG emissions [21].

Many recent studies have found that urban dwellers, although their carbon footprints of local transportation may be lower, are responsible for higher emissions than those that reside in rural areas, due to higher consumption levels [22–28]. Several studies have also extended this pattern to within city-levels, reporting higher carbon footprints in the densest city centers in comparison to those in the outer urban areas [29–33]. This pattern is also related to the so-called rebound effect; cars are expensive to possess and operate, and a car-free lifestyle provides new consumption opportunities that seem to be taken advantage of, resulting in the overall emission load being higher than when possessing and operating a car [34].

Another popular urban planning and development related mitigation strategy is the creation of more energy efficient housing as 68% of cities plan GHG reductions in the building sector [13]. However, while housing energy related emissions might indeed go down significantly along with new energy efficient buildings, again, the overall carbon footprints of the residents might still show upward curves due to higher consumption levels [30].

One of the most common policy levers for GHG mitigation is the raising of awareness [13,35]. However, although public awareness of the impacts of global warming is growing, studies on reduced emissions or changes in behaviors of concerned citizens vary. This implies that there are awareness–attitude–behavior gaps, where an individual's awareness, values, or beliefs are not reflected in their actions or market behaviors. Some suggest that comfort, convenience, and cost overrule values, and barriers include the lack of relevant information easily available, organizational challenges, and time and money constraints [36], and that pro-environmental self-identity may not translate to pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) due to a lack of available options [37].

Studies vary on the extent of these gaps, however. The impact of attitudes on purchasing behavior related to produce and products has been found to be weak, while norms are a significant predictor [38]. Another study, which used a value–belief–norm model, found a weak connection [39]. The same value–belief–norm model also explained household energy savings and cost-effective behaviors while other studies suggest little connection between environmental concern and energy consumption [36]. Conserving energy is usually done for reasons other than concern for environmental impacts [40] and change in travel behavior is rarely due to climate concern [36,40,41]. However, other researchers found that environmental concern or knowledge (along with lower income) can lead to more PEB related to food, energy, and travel [42,43].

A dissonance between environmental attitudes and behaviors has also been found regarding air travel [44,45], and when it comes to international travel and tourism, individuals do not take the same measures to limit their environmental damage as they do around the home [46,47]. In addition, it is not uncommon that "green" measures taken at home are used as a justification of long-distance travel [48].

Factors other than climate concern are often found to be more decisive in GHG mitigation. Higher education is associated with lower personal CO2 emissions [49], and income with higher emissions and other environmental impacts [9,49,50]. Environmental attitudes have been found to have no effect on the income–carbon relationship, except with the most climate concerned of the population [9]. Another obstacle in GHG mitigation is that PEBs related to household energy saving do not necessarily translate to lower emissions due to structural factors [51].

Even though the connection between environmental attitudes and behavior has been extensively studied, so far, few studies have paid attention to the spatial aspect. However, it is likely that

environmental attitudes are manifested differently, and that they affect the behavior differently in different types of residential areas and housing types.

The aim of this study is to analyze how pro-environmental attitudes (PEAs) and residential urban zones affect PEBs regarding household energy consumption, purchasing choices of produce and clothing, and GHG emissions from travel, using results from a map-based online survey (softGIS) [52] targeting young adults living in the Helsinki Metropolitan area (HMA).

The research questions, of which the main novelty value lies on the fourth, are:

