Whose residents are the greenest of them all?

26 November 2009 | By Jim Dunton

The challenge faced by councils in fostering sustainable behaviour among residents has been highlighted by data on local attitudes to recycling and carbon footprints compiled for LGC.

Rankings of local authorities from data services firm Experian (see box, bottom) show how councils compare in the proportion of residents who qualify as “eco-evangelists” – the most environmentally aware demographic – and those non-co-operators classified as “wasteful and unconvinced”.

Authority-by-authority figures for total CO₂ emissions have also been published, showing the most polluting authority areas clustered in the greater south-east.

How does your council rank? See files on the right

Martin Wheatley, the Local Government Association’s programme director for environment and planning, warned that social demographics play a large part in behaviour.

“It’s difficult to get people who are marginalised to focus on environmental issues,” he said. “Councils will have to try to understand more about the residents who fall into this group, and lead by example.”

Meanwhile, Mark Pestereff, central government consultant at Experian, warned that while the most eco-friendly people have adopted many laudable habits, they find it hard to cut down on their energy use and are often frequent fliers.

“What we’ve found is that some of the eco-evangelists tend to have some of the highest CO₂ emissions,” he said. “You would think that they would be using less, but they are big producers.”

Central London authorities dominate the rankings of green-thinking residents but the figures also show that many of the councils with the most eco-evangelists also have the highest levels of non-co-operators.

The findings underscore the street-by-street approach that councils will have to adopt to build up co-operation for recycling and energy-saving drives.

Tower Hamlets LBC tops the list of councils with the highest proportion of “wasteful and unconvinced” residents, with 34% of its population in that category. But it also ranks 21st in the green stakes, with 30% of residents described as eco-evangelists.

In acknowledgement of its poor recycling record, Tower Hamlets has put substantial resources into encouraging residents to go green, such as introducing a food-waste collection service.

However, opinion was split on over the best strategies to boost recycling. Wandsworth LBC – the highest-ranked mainstream local authority on the eco-evangelist list – is pursuing a “simple is best” strategy and pushing a “cutting-waste-cuts-council-tax” line.

Mandy King, the borough’s senior policy analyst on sustainability, said a poll of residents had revealed that providing a selection of bins for different types of waste was not popular. So the council had opted to give householders orange bin bags to use for their mixed recycling, and made a definite choice not to make recycling compulsory.

“You can see whether or not your neighbours are recycling and we think this has introduced an element of peer pressure, appealing to people’s better nature,” she said.

However, she accepted that what works in Wandsworth would not work everywhere, adding that demographics and the council’s reputation might be a greater influence on people’s behaviour.

“Authorities being high on the evangelist list isn’t necessarily because of the wonderful things that councils do,” she said. “My feeling is that it is perhaps more socio-economic.”

Barnet LBC, which is 12th on the eco-evangelist list, has pursued a different approach, making recycling compulsory – even though it has yet to prosecute any resident under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Michael Lai, acting environmental services manager for waste strategy, said this had allowed staff to target the households not using the bins provided by the council.

But he said the council was planning to use ongoing analysis being conducted by the seven North London Waste Authority boroughs to target recycling and waste-reduction strategies more accurately to particular neighbourhoods, home types or ethnic groups.

“We’re working on a map of recycling trends… looking at what’s actually going into the bins on an area-by-area basis,” he said. “Each borough will make its own way forward, but we’ll be looking at differences between neighbourhoods and types of household.”

Experian created 10 profiles as part of its GreenAware research, ranging from “eco-evangelist” to “wasteful and unconvinced”.

Eco-evangelists are proactive. They are well educated, have high incomes and know a lot about carbon offsetting. They generally do not trust business with regards to climate change.

Their greatest shortfall is their reluctance to give up their luxuries, and they are frequent fliers. They buy energy-efficient products, but don’t save energy in the home.

The wasteful and unconvinced think environmental concern involves sacrifice. Mostly on low incomes, they are likely to live in social housing and at best only recycle paper. Research indicates that an unwillingness to change their lifestyle seems to be the real reason for not going green.

However, they are more likely to use public transport and generally don’t fly more than once a year.

In between the two eco-poles are eight other categories, including the “confused but well behaved”, the “too busy to change”, and the “why should I bother?” brigades.