EcoTypes has had as many as eighteen axes, each summarizing a key difference in how we approach issues of environment. These eighteen axes, deployed in the EcoTypes survey during 2022, are below, including related EcoTypes theme and a key question for each.
At present, EcoTypes includes four key axes for each of its three themes, determined via factor analysis as the main axes contributing to each theme—twelve axes total. This smaller number results in a similar statistical outcome while offering greater focus for educational purposes. But the eighteen axes below offer a context from which the twelve EcoTypes axes were derived.
| Axis | Theme | Question |
|---|---|---|
| Aesthetics | Place | Is beauty primarily to be found in untouched, wild nature, or in landscapes crafted by humans? |
| Animals | Place | Should we allow all animals to live autonomous lives, or is it okay to domesticate pets and livestock for our purposes? |
| Change | Action | Can we achieve desired environmental change incrementally, or is more radical change needed? |
| Cities | Place | Is it a good idea to move toward more biophilic cities, or should civic priorities continue to put people first? |
| Diversity | Action | Is environmentalism sufficiently diverse given efforts to date, or should broader participation of poor and marginalized groups receive higher priority? |
| Domain | Knowledge | Should we approach environmental issues by focusing more on ideas and beliefs, or on material practices and behaviors? |
| Economies | Action | Do economies ideally achieve environmental protection via free markets, or are planned economies and regulation best? |
| Ecosystems | Place | Are Earth and its ecosystems inherently stable, with change arising from human disturbance, or are they more dynamic over time? |
| Ethics | Place | Should we care about the nonhuman world for its own sake, or for how it serves human interests? |
| Future | Action | Is our ecological future most likely one of possibility for positive change, or is crisis inevitable? |
| Nature | Place | Is nature typified by its own inherent order and harmony separate from humans, or is it now fully hybrid, interwoven with humanity? |
| Science | Knowledge | Should we trust the ecological findings of alternative claims to truth, or those of orthodox science? |
| Social Scale | Action | Can individual-scale practices make an ecological difference, or should we focus on key institutions? |
| Society | Action | Should environmental action build on social consensus, or is it better to assume that social difference and conflict are inevitable? |
| Spatial Scale | Action | Is environmental action best taken at local scales, or do we need to find ways to act globally? |
| Spirituality | Knowledge | Is it best to approach environmental issues from a sacred perspective or a secular perspective? |
| Technology | Knowledge | Should we be afraid of technology in context of environmental issues, or should we welcome technological solutions? |
| Time | Knowledge | Should we look back to more harmonious times in past to find environmental solutions, or is it best to move into the future? |