Attitudes towards Environmental Issues, 1988

Based on the report from the UN Commission for Environment and Development, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiated the world-wide interview survey on environment and environmental protection the fall of 1987. UNEP saw it as important to analyze data on people's attitudes towards environment, environmental protection and nature resources in different parts of the world.

In the survey's introductory letter, UNEP underlines that " such a study may help the UN organizations to structure their programmes, the multilateral financial institutions to identify where possibilities exist, bilateral aid agencies to target their funds properly and national governments of countries tested to reorient their development activities". In total, 21 countries participated in the survey.

The Norwegian survey was firstly suggested by the Ministry of Environment and finances by the Research Council of Norway. Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) were assigned the task of project coordination. Norwegian Gallup Institute collected the data.