Theme 3: Understanding and influencing pro-environmental behaviour: Research projects

The consumption theme of the evidence base aims to:

  • Provide a broad understanding of current behaviours, how to influence behaviour to more pro-environmental actions, the motivations and barriers to change and what will best achieve change at a household level
  • Provide the underlying evidence base necessary to develop sustainable consumption policy and inform  the future development of the pro-environmental behaviour framework, through commissioning new social research and reviewing existing evidence
  • Build and enhance the existing evidence base on consumer behaviour.

The evidence generated through this programme will support policy and communication development in delivery of Sustainable Consumption and Production across a number of behavioural areas within Defra and more widely by others inside and beyond government.

In order to improve the support we give to consumers Defra has developed a framework for pro-environmental behaviour. This summarises our understanding of the evidence on consumer behaviour and is designed to support policy development and implementation in Defra, other Government departments and externally.

The framework includes an extensive evidence base, 12 headline behaviour goals (arrived at through a process of stakeholder engagement), a core set of principles and approaches on achieving behaviour change, and an environmental segmentation model that divides the public into seven clusters each sharing a distinct set of environmental values, attitudes and beliefs. The framework also makes an initial assessment of policy implications by segments, goals and wider themes.

We have developed an extensive analytical framework, based on available evidence, which has focused on developing an in-depth understanding of current behaviour and how to support more sustainable behaviours in the future. 

Research commissioned under this theme will build and further extend the evidence base on consumer behaviour with a particular emphasis on moving towards the practical application of policies, initiatives and strategies to encourage pro-environmental behaviour.  

Page last modified: 22 May 2009
Page published: 31 October 2005