What are the top sustainable priorities for citizens?

Over the past two months, we’ve seen record high temperatures around the world, with evidence suggesting that we’ll be seeing an increase in ‘extreme danger days’ where any property in a city would be expected to experience dangerous levels of heat. With increasing evidence of the impact that climate change is having on our environment, 68% of people think that government and businesses need to act now or risk failing future generations – but just 39% agree that their government has a clear plan in place to tackle climate change.

So, what is it that cities and nations should be doing to address the concerns of their citizens? And how can you work to ensure that you’re fully engaging the community with the development and implementation of your strategy?

In this CITY NATION PLACE article, Ipsos research is shared to offer detailed insights about the core sustainability issues that citizens want to see cities, nations, and places focus on.

Fossil fuels were a key concern. Please click here to access the full article, or join us for the 2022 CITY NATION PLACE conference.

The data show that larger-scale issues are recognized as being highly important to address, but citizens are highly concerned about cost and inflation. Demonstrating a large-scale, long-term vision, but focusing on the smaller, concrete steps that will make progress against that vision is important to generate citizen engagement. There are also generational differences evident in the data, so the ways in which places communicate the objectives and impact of these programs should be tailored to the audience.

- Jason McGrath, Ipsos EVP, Head of Nation Brands Index