https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/643dae8e52f5b18ea2028d73lu69y.dho/9de38bca
By Ben Spencer – Science Editor, The Sunday Times
Do you switch the lights off when you leave the room? What about sorting your recycling? And how many times a year do you take a flight?
Most of us, if the opinion polls are to be believed, are keen on living on a green, healthy planet. Most of us even say we are happy to do something to further that aim. But good intentions do not always translate into action.
According to a new report by Tandem, a green digital bank, there is a growing gulf between what consumers say they want to do to help save the planet, and what they actually end up doing. The bank, which has been tracking consumer behaviour and intentions since 2022, puts the current “green gap” between intentions and actions at 28.7 points. “This is the seventh consecutive month of declining consumer commitment to green,” its report says.
The results are calculated against a baseline of October 2022, when the bank asked consumers what environmentally friendly actions they took in their daily lives, and how they wanted to change things in the future. The answers were averaged and given an index of 100 points. The pollsters then went back regularly to ask the same questions again. In the subsequent 12 months, they saw a surge in consumers’ “green intentions”, on a wave of eco-optimism, rising to 138.3 in October 2023. In the same period, what people actually did to change their behaviour increased far more slowly, to 104.3.
In recent months, both intentions and actions have plateaued. The “action index” rose to 110 earlier in the year, but then stalled at 112.8. The “intentions index” is at 141.5, rising far less in the past year than it did the year before. With the cost of living crisis grinding on, people have other priorities, especially if taking action on climate means paying a premium. When it comes to big-ticket expenditure, such as installing a heat pump or cavity wall insulation, householders are holding off.
As Alex Mollart, chief executive at Tandem Bank, put it: “Consumers need support right across the board if they are to start their green transition. Pace has slowed to an almost standstill as consumers chose more immediate priorities over retrofitting their homes.”
Does any of this matter? To a certain extent. There is no getting away from the fact that household consumption is responsible for 60 per cent of global emissions. But modern LED bulbs mean, for example, that switching the lights off when you leave a room will save a fraction of a kilowatt-hour of energy, pennies on your bill and a few grams of CO2 emissions. Swapping in your diesel car for a modern electric vehicle will make a bigger difference, and if you can persuade everyone on your street to do the same – and buy a heat pump while they’re at it – it would be even more effective. Transport is Britain’s biggest source of emissions. Heating buildings is second.
But there are some things that consumers cannot control. Even if we all bought electric cars and heat pumps tomorrow, 40 per cent of electricity we used to charge them would still be generated by burning fossil fuels. There is nothing we can do about that as consumers – it is down to ministers and businesses to close down gas-fired power stations and replace them with renewables.
Our “micro-actions” – choosing trains over planes, for example, or sustainably-packaged products over plastic – do play another role. They send a powerful consumer message to businesses and politicians. The backlash over plastic bags a decade ago led to the 10p bag levy, and a subsequent 80 per cent reduction in pollution from them. Keeping eco-conscious consumers happy is front of mind for big business, particularly in the retail sector.
