Social Impact
How climate change is perceived by the public at large will have a profound influence over what governments, businesses and other institutions feel they can do. Attitudes will be informed by how climate change science is communicated and how the issues are represented, discussed and responded to in public debate. Will people be willing to change their behaviour? Do they trust what the media says? How visible are the impacts of climate change, both environmental and in terms of human suffering?
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) highlights the enormous potential consumers have to drive positive climate change. They directly control more than one third of emissions through personal decisions about how they heat and light their homes, the electrical appliances they use and the transport choices they make. They may also choose to make different lifestyle choices and change their travel, leisure and working patterns. This can stimulate competition and innovation among businesses in offering greener ways of doing things and encourages them to reduce their own emissions.
The Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), in partnership with the environmental charity Green Alliance, highlighted ten behaviour goals in its work on pro-environmental behaviours:
- Low carbon vehicles
- Alternative transport for short trips
- Avoid short-haul flights
- Tackle home energy efficiency
- Tackle home water efficiency
- Buy local and seasonal food (but the relatively low impact of this behaviour was highlighted)
- Rely less on animal protein and adopt a lower impact diet
- Waste less food
- Have a home environmental audit
- Buy more eco-friendly products
The report also highlighted motivations for and barriers against action.
Motivations:
- Over half of people said it was worth acting even if others do not – they are acting as they think it is the right thing to do – and nearly half disagreed that the environment was a low priority in their life
- Nearly half of people cited the need for any changes people made to fit with their current lifestyle
- Individual benefits accrue from taking up the behaviour (eg improved health, lower financial outlay, alleviation of guilt, etc)
- About half said many people are acting nowadays; it is worth being environmentally friendly as it can make a difference.
Barriers:
- External, practical limits to choosing certain behaviour (eg infrastructure limitations, financial constraints, working patterns and demands on time). 1 in 3 felt time was a barrier. 1 in 5 said it was only worth doing environmentally friendly things if it saved you money though about half said they would be prepared to pay more for environmentally friendly products.
- 1 in 3 felt the difficulty of changing habits was a barrier and about 1 in 5 agreed that effort was a barrier to doing more environmentally friendly things.
- About one-third felt being green is an alternative lifestyle and not for the majority.About one third said it was not worth Britain acting as other countries would cancel its actions out. More than half claimed if government did more, they would too.
There is a need to reduce the value-action gap; the gap between people’s level of concerns for the environment and their everyday actions. Research shows that people are aware that their behaviours have an impact but are less aware of what they can do. Of the high-impact behaviours, insulation is taken up more and more easily accessible than changes to transport modes but there are still considerable barriers to reaching desirable levels of insulation in buildings.
From the research and analysis that have been conducted, it is hard to see much appetite for radical lifestyle change but there is much that can be carried out within the parameters of current lifestyles, such as: challenging wasteful habitual behaviours, encouraging the take up of greener products and services or removing external barriers.
However, the UK is nowhere near where it needs to be in terms of action on climate change. This will necessitate a response – new policies, new business leadership and cost implications for all sorts of products. This will, in some way, impact behaviour. It is very difficult to predict how this will manifest but the motivators and blockages that exist today will inevitably change once the nation takes climate change seriously.