Diving deeper into Eco Mindsets – five key insights from our research with Keep Britain Tidy

Our recent research in collaboration with environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy revealed deeper, and sometimes surprising, insights into the Eco Mindsets.

Keep Britain Tidy recently turned to MHM to gain a better understanding of their public perception: What was the public’s awareness of and engagement with them? How could they best appeal and cater to the needs of the wider public?

To answer these questions called for a UK-wide, nationally representative survey that provided a clear and robust overview of each of the Eco Mindsets, as well as each mindset’s awareness of, engagement with and expectations for Keep Britain Tidy.

As part of this we learnt some new and fascinating things about many of the mindsets, including the five below:

Anxiety about the climate shows up in every age group

The Eco Mindsets are valued-based, but can have an age, geographical or other demographic skew. But this isn’t the case when it comes to climate anxiety. Unlike other mindsets, we see Anxious Escapists distributed fairly evenly across all ages. In other words, worry about the climate isn’t limited to the young.

Change-makers are active and engaged on a variety of issues

We know that Change-makers are highly engaged on climate issues. But it’s not just the environment that draws their concern: in contrast to other mindsets, significantly more Change-makers in our research identified health / the NHS, and inequality / poverty as topics of concern too. This mindset is generally driven by the vision of a fairer, healthier world.

Whose responsibility is it? It depends who you ask

When it comes to the question of litter, whose responsibility is it to pick it up? For Waste Watchers, it’s more about getting finding accountability at the root cause of the problem. While Waste Watchers have a strong concern about waste and pollution and are well versed in monitoring their own sustainble behaviours, they strongly overindex on seeing the responsibility of solutions lie with those causing the problem.

The say/do gap is nuanced and more prominent for some mindsets than others

And for Conscientious collaborators in particular. In our research this mindset was the second most likely to say that the environment is very important to them personally – but far less likely to be carrying out a range of pro environmental behaviours. This mindset are looking for organisations and governments to lead the charge on change-making.

For Justice defenders, fear is a motivator to action

While some mindsets find fear paralysing, Justice defenders identified worry and anxiety about the future of the planet as a motivator to action.

But it’s vital to bear in mind that fear alone can be paralysing. Even with Justice defenders, who are the most provoked into action by fear and anger, the appeal of hope and achievement are the most motivating of all.