Annual progress report - 2003 (pdf format) - Policy Studies Institute

PROJECT PROGRESS REPORT
Programme Name : Environment and Human Behaviour Programme
Project Title : Environmental issues and human behaviour in lowincome
areas in the UK
Award No : RES-221-25-0050
Award Holder(s) : Professor Anne Power, CASE, LSE
Period of Report : 01.05.2003 to 31.12.2003
Institution(s) : CASE, London School of Economics
Total ESRC Award : £39, 127.19
Aims and Methods of Research
Aims
Our aims in carrying out this research were to:
- draw together and build on existing work to produce a practical overview of the
relationship between environmental issues and human behaviour in the context of
low-income areas in the UK
- explore how public policy could potentially draw on any relationships, or factors,
which we find to encourage and support positive changes in environmental
behaviour
Data collection
- Overview of existing information: a review of existing literature and analysis of
available information on peoples' environmental attitudes and behaviour, and a
review of relevant policy
- New research: interviews and focus groups with residents and service providers in
10 low-income neighbourhoods, to fill gaps in knowledge in this relatively new
and unexplored area
Analysis
Identifying key themes in the data and using these to address our questions and
develop hypotheses to be tested by further thematic analysis, with a practical and
people-centred focus.
Identifying potential policy responses
Review of relevant policy approaches, identifying how these impact on the issues and
behaviours we identified, and assessing the potential for policy to support
environmental behaviour change. We also proposed a think tank event to bring
together policy makers, practitioners and those living in low-income areas to review
policy and its impact in this area, and the potential for change.
Confirmation Statement
We confirm that we have been conducting the research as originally proposed, except
for a change in the number of areas in which we have conducted focus groups and
interviews (see ‘Detailed progress’ below).

Highlights of the Research and Important Findings
We are still in the process of analysing our data and results, but can report the
following initial findings that are emerging from the work:
Overview of existing evidence: We have found a good range of useful existing
evidence and data, covering a wide range of relevant issues, including:
- Local environmental conditions in low-income neighbourhoods
- Impacts of local environmental issues on resource use and other global
environmental issues, and visa versa
- How local, and wider global, environmental issues impact on people and their
quality of life, and environmental concerns of people living in low-income areas
- Responses to environmental concerns and problems by people living in lowincome
areas, and factors effecting people’s behaviour towards the environment in
low-income areas
New data: Through focus groups we have gathered evidence to fill gaps and clarify
more detail in relation to the overview from existing findings, including:
- further investigation of knowledge, concerns and awareness of global
environmental issues among people living in low-income communities
- evidence on the understanding of, and feelings about, links between local
environmental issues and wider global environmental issues
- information on ideas about responsibility for local and global environmental
issues, and mechanisms driving local and global environmental problems
- evidence on people’s ideas about practical, and ‘ideal world’, solutions to
local and global environmental problems
- Some evidence about peoples’ willingness to change their behaviour, and
factors preventing them doing so
Some potentially interesting areas emerging from early analysis include:
- Evidence that people living in low-income areas often have high awareness of,
and concern about, global environmental issues. And that they are often actively
thinking about their wider environmental behaviour and taking active steps to
improve it, by for example, recycling, reducing car use, or carrying out practical
conservation work. This contrasts interestingly with the stereotype of the
environment as a middle class issue
- A strong focus on individual responsibility for environmental problems, especially
at the local level. People we talked to often tended to see ‘people’ or ‘individuals’
as responsible for environmental problems as much as, or even rather than, local
authorities, business or ‘the Government’
- People readily identified ways in which global environmental problems impact on
our everyday lives, such as through changes in weather, skin cancer, and wildlife
changes. Again this contrasts interestingly with the idea that global environmental
problems are often seen as remote and hard to relate to
Overall, our study of the links between the local neighbourhood context, peoples’
experiences and behaviour, and wider global environmental issues is proving
interesting, productive and worthwhile. The picture emerging is reinforcing our
hypothesis of the relevance of a local focus in relation to wider sustainable
development challenges, and as a basis for policy initiatives to change behaviour.

Changes to original award
None
Research staff
Name Status Period of appointment
Professor Anne Award holder and research Providing input throughout project
Power* supervisor
Jake Elster Research officer Main researcher for the project. Part
time for first 3 months, then full
time.
Catalina Turcu Research assistant Part time for 4 months
Rebecca Gibbs Research assistant Part time for 3 months
*Not funded under the programme award
Publications
None to date
Engagement with potential research users (outside the academic community)
Involvement of users in the research process:
- We have directly elicited opinions and information from local residents, community
activists, and service providers in low-income areas. These groups, i.e. those
directly involved with addressing environmental problems at the local level, will be
one of the key audiences for our research findings
- We will be directly engaging policy makers, practitioners and local activists through
the ‘think tank’ event that we plan to run towards the end of the research. We hope
to actively engage policy makers in organising and running the event in order to
maximise their engagement with, and stake in, the lessons which emerge
Dissemination of outcomes:
- We have presented initial findings from our research through ESRC Environment
and Human behaviour programme events and in collaboration with the ESRC’s
dedicated media dissemination team
- We have already started disseminating our initial findings, and engaging potential
users with the ideas behind our research, through direct formal and informal contact
with a wide range of organisation, including:
- Jake Elster is on the Environment Agency’s environmental equality steering
group, looking at links between environmental issues and equity
- initial discussion about ideas and findings from our research, and agreement to
share further findings, with the Wildlife Trusts’ head of programmes
- helping the Sustainable Development Commission in their work on Sustainable
Regeneration. Thinking from this research has informed that work
- we are involved with Encams, the Sustainable Northern Ireland Programme,
Forward Scotland, IDeA, and the Shell Better Britain Campaign, in developing
new work, partly informed by this research. We will use these relationships to
further disseminate the outcomes from this research.
- we have ongoing relationships with the National Tenants Resource centre and the
Community Development Foundation, both organisations with strong interest in
the issues covered by this research

- we are developing a relationship with Groundwork UK, and will use this to further
disseminate findings from this research
Contribution to Programme
The Environment and Human Behaviour Programme aims to look at 3 fundamental
questions:
- why do people behave as they do towards the natural environment?
- how do/will people seek to adapt their behaviour in response to environmental
change?
- what public policy approaches might persuade people to change their behaviour,
wither to mitigate negative environmental change, or to adapt to it, in a way that is
least costly to society as a whole?
It also aims to ‘identify new directions, theories and methods in environmental social
science research’.
Our research is contributing to these aims by, for example:
- bringing together a wide range of existing evidence to help build and present a
clearer picture of the importance of the local context and local action in relation to
efforts to address wider global environmental and sustainable development
challenges. The local environment, and links between environmental issues and
low-income areas, are issues attracting increasing attention in policy and practice.
This research will help consolidate existing knowledge and highlight gaps and
promising areas for investigation
- helping build a picture of factors which influence individuals’ behaviour towards
the environment, and the complex ways in which everyday lives and behaviours
are linked to wider environmental impacts
- helping better understand the mechanisms by which people try and respond to
environmental problems and pressures, and the ways they try and adapt their
behaviour towards the environment
- gathering evidence about what policy responses and mechanisms designed to
influence behaviour may be more effective, or acceptable to people living in lowincome
communities
- through these insights providing potential lessons that could help policy makers
and practitioners address environmental problems, mitigate environmental impacts
on low-income communities, and support more positive environmental behaviour

Detailed progress
i) Development of research
Months Headline developments
Initial delays due to problems recruiting research assistant
May-July Development of thinking, theories and hypotheses
2003 Gathering existing evidence and building picture of the field
Identifying gaps for focus group research
Gathering initial contacts for organising focus groups
July – Aug Organising and running focus groups
Sept / Oct Delays due to loss of research assistant and recruiting new assistant
Oct - Dec Continuing with focus groups
Service provider interviews
Dec Focus groups and service provider interviews completed
Preparation of data (e.g. transcription of focus groups)
January 2004 Analysis started
iii) Difficulties encountered
The main difficulties encountered have been with staffing. We had initial delays
recruiting a research assistant, and then this person left for another job, causing
further delays while we replaced them.
iv) Changes in objectives or methodology
The only changes so far have been:
- we have had to reduce the number of focus groups we ran from 10 to 6, due to
delays discussed above. We are happy that we have gathered sufficient data from
this smaller sample to address the questions we are interested in and give us valid
results.
Other than this we do not envisage any other changes to the research we originally
planned.
v) timetable changes
Due to delays discussed above, we have had to apply for a two month extension to our
project. We envisage that we will finish the work within this new timescale.