Environmental impact analysis based on sustainable behavior, sources and uses of energy.

The study aims to explain the relationship between environmental impact from the variables of energy use priorities, sources of information on energy, relevant factors of life, and energy and sustainable behavior, based on the perception of ejidatarios and communal farmers of Ejido Cruz Colorada, located in the municipality of Chignahuapan, in the state of Puebla, Mexico. For that, a questionnaire was designed based on an on-site investigation, in which characteristics of ejidatarios and community members were identified with respect to age, level of education and tasks performed. The design of the items was based on a literature review and a reflexive design was used to measure the variables. The instrument was applied to 123 ejidatarios and community members, and the results obtained confirm the presence of convergent and discriminant validity of the latent variables. The relationships between these variables were tested using the partial least squares (PLS) model. The results indicated that the variables of energy use and energy information sources have a positive and significant effect on sustainable behavior, in addition, sustainable behavior has a negative and significant effect on the variable of environmental impact. Specifically, it is observed that energy information sources have a small effect (0.127) on energy behavior, while energy use has a moderate effect (0.210) on sustainable behavior; in turn, sustainable behavior has a large effect (0.337) on the environmental impact dimension. The constructs of sustainable behavior and information sources explain 35.5% of the variance of the endogenous construct called environmental impact.