Environmental, Social, and Spiritual–Ecological Perceptions of Sustainable Living at Govardhan Ecovillage, Maharashtra, India: An Exploratory Descriptive Study

Ecovillages provide useful settings for examining how environmental practices, social relationships, and cultural values are experienced in community contexts. This exploratory descriptive case study examines respondents’ perceptions of selected environmental, social, and spiritual–ecological attributes at Govardhan Ecovillage (GEV), Palghar District, Maharashtra, India. Guided by Socio-Ecological Systems Theory, Resilience Theory, the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, and Community Resilience Theory, the study used a cross-sectional questionnaire administered to 122 individuals associated with GEV through non-probability purposive sampling. Fifteen Likert-scale items addressed environmental practices, community participation and relationships, and spiritual–ecological values. Responses were summarized using item-level frequencies and percentages, alongside descriptive summaries of the selected domains. Positive responses were common across the items, although the environmental items showed comparatively more variation and several domains displayed ceiling concentrations. The selected items were informed by the study’s conceptual framing and GEV context; however, systematic indicator development and formal content or construct validation were not undertaken. Accordingly, the findings describe perceptions among the surveyed participants and should not be interpreted as validated measures of sustainability or as an assessment of GEV’s system-level socio-ecological resilience. The non-probability sample, self-reported data, potential social-desirability bias, and restricted response variation limit generalizability and warrant cautious interpretation. The study offers context-specific descriptive evidence that may inform future research using independently validated indicators and spatially explicit land-system data.