Who Cares about the Environment in 2009?

Who Cares about the Environment in 2009? is a survey of NSW people's environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. It provides a point-in-time snapshot and documents longer term changes, tracking questions that have been asked over some or all of the previous surveys. It also canvasses some new issues.

In 2009, the environment remains a priority for people in NSW. It is one of the five most mentioned priority issues for attention in NSW, both now and in the future. There has also been a marked growth in people's knowledge and concerns specifically about climate change.

The 2009 research also explores people's understanding of 'environment', 'sustainability' and other associated concepts in more depth, and it examines the motivations, triggers and barriers people have to adopting environmentally friendly behaviour.

The Research

• Summary and full report
• Launch and seminar presentations
• Demographic fact sheets for findings on: age; education level; gender; city; town and rural residential location; regional location; and language
• Data tables: demographics, regional, and segments 

Who Cares 2009? - Summary

• Report Summary (1057WC09Glance.pdf, 1.24mb)

• Full report (1056WC09.pdf, 2.95mb)

Launch and seminar presentations

Following the launch of Who Cares about the Environment in 2009? in February 2010, seminars were held across NSW to disseminate and discuss the research. These seminars included regional findings specific to each area in which the seminars were held. The launch summary of the research and the detailed findings presented at the seminars are available here. The seminar presentation includes the findings across all the regions.

Launch presentation (10532WC09LPres, 658kb)

Full seminar presentation (10533WC09Seminars.pdf, 296kb)

Demographic fact sheets

These sheets bring together all the findings of significant differences for a range of demographic characteristics.

• Age (120572WC09Age.pdf, 1.07MB)
• Education (120572WC09Educ.pdf, 1.08MB)
• Gender (120572WC09Gendr.pdf, 882KB)
• City, town and rural residential location (120687WC09City.pdf, 1.09MB)
• Regional location (120686WC09Regnl.pdf, 1.3MB)
• Language spoken at home (120688WC09Lang.pdf, 699KB)

Qualitative research

This component of the research was conducted with seven focus groups. Reports will be available soon.

Survey data tables

Detailed data, including showing significant differences are provided in for all questions in the Who Cares? 2009 survey by age, gender, education, residential location type, English/non-English language background and children/no children, employment status and dwelling type (demographic tables). There are also tables for NSW regions, based on local government regions, and for the behaviour segments identified in the research. A guide to interpreting the data is located at the beginning of each set of tables.

Previous Surveys

Surveys have been conducted every three years since 1994. The 1997 report is available in printed form, 2000, 2003 and 2006 are available for immediate download.