The study examines how environmental awareness relates to sustainable practices in Abu Dhabi and how age, income, and education shape this relationship.
The design adopted was a mixed-methods, consisting of a survey of 350 people, ten in-depth interviews and the combination of the two strands to increase validity and provide social insight.
The study showed high environmental awareness reflected in organic buying, water saving, reduced plastic use, and waste sorting, with weak links to demographics but a strong positive link between awareness and sustainable behaviour (B = 0.669, p = 0.001).
The paper presents a new AI-powered-behavioural model and seals a significant knowledge gap in the region by empirically correlating environmental awareness with sustainable behaviour in the Arab Gulf.
The study contributes to the development of a social policy related to sustainable environmental development by developing behavioural programmes and interventions based on artificial intelligence (AI).
Alhrahsheh, R., Ivanova, G. and Mohamad, M. (2026): From Environmental Awareness to Sustainable Action and Social Impact in the age of AI: A Mixed-Methods Study in Abu Dhabi. World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development (WJSTSD), Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. 439-456.
