Welcome letter from the Conference Chair,
Prof. John Thøgersen

Dear friends and colleagues,

It is my pleasure to announce that the International Conference on Environmental Psychology – ICEP 2023 will take place from 20 to 23 June 2023 in the city of Aarhus, in Denmark.

The aim of the conference is to facilitate the scientific debate over the most recent empirical findings and theoretical advances in environmental psychology and related fields, and to stimulate scholarly reflections, knowledge exchange and discussions on the relationship between humans and their environment.

The ICEP is an international benchmark for experienced scholars, junior researchers and professionals in Environmental Psychology across the world. The ICEP 2023 also welcomes the participation of scholars from other fields interested in environmental issues and human behaviour, to strengthen the dialogue and the multidisciplinary collaboration between psychological science and other disciplines, such as economics, marketing, architecture, geography and natural science, and to foster the links between environmental research and policy.

The ICEP 2023 Conference will build upon the success of the previous ICEP editions in A Coruna 2017, Plymouth 2019 and Siracusa 2021, and on the great experience of the BCEP Conferences held in Groningen, Magdeburg and Zurich. The ICEP Conference series is held every two years under the auspices of the Environmental Psychology Division of the International Association for Applied Psychology (IAAP). The ICEP 2023 is organized jointly by the Department of Psychology and the Department of Management, Aarhus University, and has the full support of Aarhus University, Aarhus Municipality and local cultural institutions.The ICEP 2023 will bring together experts in behavioural, social and environmental science from all over the world, in the lively and cosy town of Aarhus, the European Cultural Capital in 2017. ICEP 2023 will be an opportunity for academics and professionals in environmental psychology and related science and practice to strengthen existing networks and to exchange scientific knowledge on some of the most urgent challenges of contemporary human society. The local organization team has attempted to make this the most sustainable ICEP ever. At conference lunches and at the conference dinner, we will only serve vegetarian food and also provide vegan options. As far as possible, we source the food from local producers. To reduce waste, there will be reusable drinking bottles that can be refilled with tap water. And we provide opportunities for participating in the conference online, including an online poster session.

Current levels of emissions and resource consumption are far beyond sustainable, leading to disastrous consequences such as loss of biodiversity, negative health effects, economic consequences, and climate change. To mitigate these negative effects, radical changes in human behaviour are required. In this spirit, we chose the conference theme: “Towards an impact-oriented behavioral science and sustainable behavior change”. With this theme, the ICEP 2023 emphasizes the area of environmental psychology that examines human impact on natural environments. However, other essential topics of environmental psychology will also be central—how the built and natural environment impacts human perception and behavior, how it affects human health, and how we can change the environment to improve well-being. The topics that will be discussed during the conference include, but are not limited to, issues such as:

CLIMATE EMERGENCY AND GLOBAL ISSUES
•    Climate change
•    Ecological behaviour and pro-environmental attitudes
•    Land management, farming and resource conservation
•    Plastic pollution
•    Water resource management and oceans
•    The UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL ISSUES
•    People-environment relations under pandemics and crises
•    Environmental education
•    Citizen participation and environmental policies
•    Place identity and place attachment
•    Social ecology

ENERGY, CARBON EMISSIONS AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
•    Sustainable Energy Transition
•    Life Cycle Assessment and sustainable consumption
•    Transportation, mobility and travel behaviour
•    Nearly Zero Energy Building
•    Energy poverty

ENVIRONMENT, NATURE AND HUMAN HEALTH & WELLBEING
•    Restorative environments
•    Nature-based solutions
•    Urban and peri-urban forestry and human wellbeing
•    Environment and health
•    Ecological design
•    Natural disasters and coping with environmental risks and hazards

ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
•    Urban planning and human behaviour
•    Environmental design
•    Inclusive design
•    Housing and social housing
•    Urban regeneration
•    Extreme environments