The present survey is the fourth of its kind. Certain basic questions in the enquiry have remained unchanged, such as how important environmental care is compared with other social goals, what people think about traffic and transport in the city, and questions relating to recycling. But certain additions have been made over the years, such as those concerning community planning and perceived environment, and questions on recycling and other environmental behaviour have been extended, too.

The environmental attitudes of Helsinki citizens have recently been surveyed for the fourth time since 1989. These recent findings can also be compared with findings made in 1994 and 2000. The four cross-sections studied vary strongly in economic terms: spring 1989 was a time of optimism with work for everyone and rising values of property. In 1994, it was just the opposite due to a barely overcome economic recession. In 2000, the situation resembled 1989, although unemployment in the wake of the recession was still a severe problem.

In terms of environmental attitudes, our eyes fall on the position of environmental protection among other social goals. All four surveys show that environmental care ranks highly on people's list of priorities, although a certain variation over time can be seen. For each new survey, the attitude gauges have been extended with new questions on environmental behaviour such as driving your car to work, sorting and recycling your household waste and choosing environment-friendly options in the supermarket.

The empirical data were gathered by postal questionnaires sent to 2300 Helsinki residents. The response rate was 63 %.

The survey allowed comparisons with a study made 33 years ago, where people had the opportunity to state the importance of various phenomena by means of a so-called budgeting method. The same technique was applied now.

Environmental issues had increased their share of the budget from 13 per cent in 1972 to 15 per cent now. And whereas 27 per cent of this imaginary budget had then been earmarked for housing, which used to be a big problem, only 14 per cent had this time. The creation of jobs and social and health services had taken their place. So, obvious changes have taken place in the welfare factors in Helsinki.

People's opinions about traffic and transport in Helsinki had not changed significantly, even in the longer perspective. But certain trends can be discerned. The most important change is that there has been a moderation of certain very strong attitudes expressed in 2000. On the other hand, people's attitudes towards the building of underground traffic arteries has not changed, and 85 per cent are in strong or moderate favour of building such roads. One of the new questions concerned speed limits on main roads to reduce traffic noise. Here opinions differ markedly: while 30 per cent are strongly in favour of such limits, another 30 per cent are strongly against them.

The existence of a recycling station near your home clearly increased people's readiness to sort and recycle waste. Putting old newspapers into the paper recycling bin seems to have become everyday routine to most, and the recycling of glass and old batteries is getting there, too. Milk cartons and tin cans are recycled by more and more, but less than half do so regularly.

An important finding concerns differences between generations in terms of environmental attitudes, recycling behaviour etc., differences that remain even when the background factors of gender and educational level have been eliminated. The flagrant example are the 30-40 year olds, who show surprisingly low environmental awareness compared with both younger and older age groups. This feature grows with lower education and is stronger among men than women. The question is whether there is some kind of generation-specific common experience that has made these people of good working age such bad environmentalists.

The City of Helsinki Urban Facts
Finland
Mr. Markku Lankinen (Senior Researcher), tel. +358 9 169 3111

01/09/2005

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Markku Lankinen

research

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Environmental sustainability

Waste management and recycling, Noise