Britain’s public is becoming more ‘carbon conscious’ – here’s what that means

As climate change intensifies, growing public awareness and gradual changes in behaviour will hopefully translate into transformative motion. We explore how lifestyles and governance systems need to vary to deliver a sustainable, low-carbon future for the UK.

Our research in Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation suggests that the knowledge, attitudes and behavior of the British public about climate change have improved significantly during the last decade. Recycling rates are rising, energy consumption is decreasingAND polls show that more voters are taking climate change into consideration when selecting which party to vote for.

In the recent scientific workWe reviewed over 240 academic studies to summarise the ways people can act of their different roles to take motion on climate change. We then compared surveys from 2008 and 2022 asking Britons about their knowledge of climate change, their attitudes towards it and their consumer decisions. We call the knowledge, skills and motivation needed to scale back an individual’s carbon footprint ‘carbon capacity’.

In 2008, 66% of respondents said they knew ‘a fair amount’ or ‘a lot’ about climate change; this rose to 80% in 2022. Over the identical period, the proportion of respondents who said they were conversant in the term ‘carbon footprint’ rose from 51% to 68%. We also found that a big majority (81%) of individuals within the UK agree that ‘significant lifestyle changes’ are needed to attain climate targets.

More engagement at home and in stores

Energy efficiency in homes has improved significantly. For example, the proportion of people that say they usually turn off lights in empty rooms has increased from 67.2% in 2008 to 73.3% in 2022.

The percentage of people that usually buy organic, locally produced and seasonal food has increased from 12.6% to 19.2%. The popularity of eating meat is largely influenced by: Demographic aspectsand we found that younger, higher educated, left-leaning people were more more likely to limit the quantity of beef of their food plan.

Recycling rates have also improved since 2008, rising from just over 70% to almost 78% of individuals saying they recycle at home. In 2022, almost 25% said they often buy products with less packaging, up from just 11% in 2008. Younger people and oldsters are much more more likely to buy second-hand, repair or reuse items.

One of the actions aimed toward increasing the capability of the complete population to avoid wasting carbon is let’s discuss climate changeAround two-thirds (64%) of individuals surveyed in 2022 said that they had talked about climate change prior to now month, and again we found that younger, higher educated and more affluent people were most probably to achieve this.

There has been a noticeable increase within the practice of writing to politicians about climate issues (4.9% in 2022, up from 0.4%), which may be attributed to the increased ease of doing so – for instance, using email templates and online petitions. This is consistent with evidence that UK politicians have experienced a major increase generally correspondence lately, particularly in the course of the pandemic.

Bigger and harder changes are needed

Although people reported that that they had increased their efforts to avoid wasting energy at home, more effective measures were introduced, equivalent to the installation of warmth pumps still lagging behind. Structural barriers, particularly those related to home ownership, prevent many individuals from taking motion to enhance energy efficiency. For example, private and social renters could also be more constrained in making these improvements than homeowners.

The percentage of people that say they’re flying less due to climate change has fallen barely, from 23.8% in 2008 to 21.7% in 2022. However, six in 10 people said in the newest survey that they would really like to travel more. Although it was noted noticeable increase in distant work lately it it didn’t amount to to an overall reduction in transport-related emissions amongst UK residents.

There is a growing interest in sustainable food decisions and Meat consumption within the UK is falling. However, our research shows that the proportion of vegetarians and vegans stays relatively low at 7.7%, having fallen by one percentage point since 2008 – although estimates of vegetarianism vary across studies.

Our findings also show that people significantly underestimate food waste. According to food waste charity Wrap, UK households generate a mean of 241 kg of food waste per 12 months – which equates to 16% of all food purchased. However, 91% of respondents to our 2022 survey believed that the food they waste was lower than 10% of what they bought.

There appears to be a growing awareness and commitment to reducing carbon footprints within the UK. Younger, more educated and wealthier people are inclined to be probably the most committed and more in a position to change their lifestyles. This shows how essential addressing socio-economic inequalities might be to any climate solution.

The progress made to this point is commendable, but incremental changes to on a regular basis habits, equivalent to turning off the lights and recycling, have gone further than more effective changes, equivalent to installing low-carbon heating systems or making significant dietary changes. More widespread lifestyle changes are needed to handle the total range of environmental challenges.

Measures to encourage people to make higher decisions about climate are inclined to fail preferred by decision makersIf we’re serious about increasing the UK’s ability to scale back carbon emissions, we want to see more concrete measures, equivalent to removing barriers to make low-carbon living decisions easy, inexpensive and attractive.