Swiss Environment Survey 2018

The last detailed nationwide Swiss survey on attitudes toward the environment, perception of environmental problems, knowledge on environmental issues and various aspects of related behavior such as recycling, consumption, mobility, and energy use - along with the respondent households’ socio-demographic characteristics — it was conducted in 1994. A replication of this survey after roughly ten years is intended (1) to analyze changes in attitudes toward the environment and related behavior and take stock of the current situation. The goal of the project is not, however, limited to replication. Two new question modules will provide empirical answers to research questions on (2) environmental justice and (3) the dependence of strategic environmental decision-making on the time horizon considered. The second module, environmental justice, will initially deal with the subjective perception of environmental stressors as a function of a household’s socioeconomic status, or with the relationship most often examined in similar studies. However, we also intend to examine the relationship between “objective” environmental stressors — those measurable with a high degree of precision — and the respondents’ subjective experience of stress. We will therefore link data on air pollution and noise exposure obtained from governmental agencies that use Geo Information Systems with subjective responses from every household. While previous surveys have often emphasized capturing “symbolic” behavior with regard to the environment, we will adopt a resource-oriented approach, focusing especially a household’s “strategic” decision-making vis-à-vis the environment. Such decisions exert long-term effects on a household’s energy consumption and mobility, and include those on residential location, the size of the residence and ownership of a motor vehicle. We are also interested in whether people are aware of the full costs and benefits of actions whose consequences will be apparent only much later. We hypothesize that a person’s decision-making time horizon can play a role in determining whether such cost-effective environmentally friendly investments as home improvements are made (which they often are not). The data necessary to examine these research questions comes from a nationwide survey, carried out in the three major Swiss languages. The target population comprises all German-, French- or Italian-speaking residents of Switzerland over 18 years of age. Respondents will be selected randomly in a two-stage procedure: first at the household level and then at the individual level within the household. The selection and survey procedures are intended to result in 3'369 respondents; a sample size intended to allow relatively specific estimates and adequate analysis of the effect of SES on the hypothesized effects. The data collection will be conducted by telephone (CATI interviews) and via a mail survey. The resulting data will be analyzed with multivariate statistical techniques, among others. They will also be made available to interested researchers in well documented form shortly after fieldwork ends. For the 2018 survey (wave), 1,098 cases could be included in the analysis.