Equip with insight: Sustainable lifestyles surveys

Often there is no sufficient data on what issues are of most importance to people and how attractive new sustainable everyday practices are. Without knowledge of what the current state of sustainability in everyday life in your region is, it is hard to develop a focused plan for the most effective and inviting way to introduce new lower impact habits to people. It is vital to understand what attitudes people have towards sustainable everyday practices and what actions they are already taking in their daily lives. It is equally important to know which new practices are the hardest for people to adopt and why.

The Sustainable lifestyles survey set consists of three different phases that are designed to provide insight on:

1. What attitudes and values are important for a sustainable everyday life?
2. What everyday sustainability actions take place and what do not?
3. What kinds of feelings does climate change evoke in people?

Payoffs

1. Establishing a holistic view of the current state of sustainable everyday practices in your region helps with planning the most effective interventions.
2. Data on the actual choices people have made or are planning to make enables businesses to plan their products and services accordingly and helps in the transition to new practices.
3. Survey data allows you to compare with other countries and track the development of the adoption of sustainable everyday habits and attitudes over the longer term.

Results – Finland

• This insight has been used in the strategic planning of the Sustainable everyday life programme in Finland.
• The media in Finland has used the survey results in their story development and published the main findings.
• Companies and non-profit organisations have also found the results useful to understand their target audiences.

What’s needed

To conduct your own local surveys, you need to be able to carry out a survey process that provides statistically reliable results. We recommend using a service provider who already does national polling work.

Consider which parts of the survey are relevant to you and what type of data has already been collected. What questions will help you to steer your work or produce information that is useful in your stakeholder or media engagement? Take advantage of our ready-made questionnaire templates and tailor them to your specific needs.

You should have the local 100 Smart everyday choices or a similar action list on hand to be used as action statements in the survey.

Download the method as a pdf version: Equip with insight: Sustainable lifestyles surveys (pdf)