By popular demand: what people want from a resource efficient economy

Report: By Popular Demand

On Monday 5th November Green Alliance and CIEMAP launched a new report about what people want from a resource efficient economy. This new report shared valuable insights into the values and wishes of the public and demonstrated the potential for significant shifts in habits and practices. Significantly, the research showed that measures offering the biggest carbon savings, and over which the government has most control, are those that are most popular with the public.

The report demonstrates how government and businesses can make the most of the opportunity offered by resource efficiency and was launched as part of a presentation and panel debate held at Broadway House in Westminster.

The event was chaired by Baroness Brown of Cambridge and speakers included Libby Peake (Senior Policy Adviser on Resource Stewardship at Green Alliance), Nick Pidgeon (Director of the Understanding Risk Research Group at Cardiff University), Jim Skea (Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III), Janet Gunter (Co-Founder of the Restart Project), and Greg Lucas (Circular and Renewable Energy leader at IKEA).

The event began with Libby Peake, the lead author of the report, introducing the research and noting that in order to make a successful transition to a low carbon, resource efficient economy, businesses and governments need to understand what people value and want from the products and services they use.

This was then followed by a lively panel discussion in which Jim Skea emphasized that the days of choosing between a range of interventions were over and that now we needed to do all of these things, and quickly.

For further details on the report please visit Green Alliance’s website here.

This report presents findings from research carried out by the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products (CIEMAP) on public attitudes towards policies intended to improve resource efficiency. The analysis is based on a detailed, representative survey and focus group data collected between 2016 and 2018.

Find our methodology here.