The Church has been a strong presence in Singapore, with 18.8% of the population identifying themselves as Christians, making up approximately 364,000 people (Department of Statistics, 2016), and the number grows every year. Furthermore, the strong presence of Christian mission-schools in Singapore makes the Judeo-Christian religion a powerful tool that can be used to reach out to the masses in Singapore starting them from a young age. Therefore, it has a huge potential for development, without much changes to existing systems, hence a viable avenue for environmental conservation efforts.

We will be using the Value-Belief-Norm model (VBN) to organize the findings:

Given that most environmental problems are products of human behavior, changing human behavior would be necessary to solve them – (Clayton, 2003).

Values
Judeo-Christian belief system has addressed the human-nature dichotomy, ensuring it does not overly favour neither the biocentric nor anthropocentric self concepts.  The modern paradigms of Judeo-Christian religion have also embraced the ethical thought of Pragmatism, where the shape and form of what is “good” is continually reevaluated, hence a dynamic concept rather than a static concept derived from ancient sources.

The Church has to learn to exist in a living relationship between language and experience. Firstly, the Church has to identify the problem at hand. Then, the Church learns how to explain environmental concepts in their theological framework and practical wisdom. The Community then questions truth, leading the Church to experiment reformulate understanding.

Beliefs
Once the values have been agreed upon and accepted, the Church provides institutional support by upholding a set of basic values, beliefs and worldviews. This provides the environment conducive for establishing ecological identity that is in line with most virtue environmental ethics. Also, the community can begin to ascribe responsibility appropriately. Much of today’s environmental issues happen because of the problem of bystander effect. E.g. litter on the beach or the side of the road. Judeo-Christian religion places Men responsible for today’s environmental crisis. Secondly, Judeo-Christian religion advocates for people to do the opposite of the bystander effect by becoming “a good samaritan”, these programs are useful in increasing sustainable behaviour.

Norms
By articulating what is right and wrong, the Judeo-Christian religion creates a system of ethics and morality provides the moral framework for individuals behave.

Behavior
The grassroots bottom-up approach prevalent in the Judeo-Christian religion can potentially be an effective model for translating attitudes into actual behaviour.

Behavior – Private Sphere Behaviors:
Research has shown that increased sense of relatedness leads to more prosocial behavior (Pavey, 2001). The Church’s emphasis on relatedness and identity can provide the environment where individuals can belong to a collective identity, thus being more willing to follow group-oriented behavior.

Behavior – Environmental Citizenship:
The church itself is a form of social network with many links. Desired norms and values can be injected and sustained through these links. Especially when norms and values have already pre-existed in their beliefs system, it can be brought up and made more salient.

Behaviors – Policy Support:
Preachers that frame change in a “very easy” way, break it down to the congregation into easy bite-sized changes. Then, the Church can set up the infrastructure and services that can actually reduce the external barriers to environmental behavior. For example, setting up a recycle booth in Church. or even environment programs in the Church curriculum. Doing so will provide not just the development of abstract theories but empowerment of the individual (Ikeda, 2002).  Thus fulfilling his need for competence, he feel agency in his action thus leading to more conservation behaviors. These will feed into a virtuous cycle where easy actions yield higher self-efficacy, which yields more action.

Conclusion
Therefore, by these recommendations, such as ascribing nature with intrinsic value, providing the moral framework, framing the narrative, it sows the seeds of future conservation efforts in the future.

References:
D Ikeda. 2002. The Challenge of Global Empowerment: Education for a Sustainable Future. (3 November 2005; www.sgi.org/english/Features/quarterly/0210/proposal.htm).
Department Of Statistics Singapore. (2016). Retrieved April 06, 2017, from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/publications-and-papers/cop2000/cop2000r2
Pavey, L., Greitemeyer, T., & Sparks, P. (2011). Highlighting relatedness promotes prosocial motives and behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(7), 905-917