Consumer environmental activities

The chart shows the percent of respondents to the Eurobarometer survey “Attitudes of Europeans towards the Environment” who replied “Yes” to the question “Have you done any of the following in the past six months?”, which listed a series of environmentally-friendly behaviours. Replies come from surveys at different points in time (with data gaps for some years). Activities related to the separation of waste for recycling (undertaken by 65% of surveyed citizens) and avoidance of plastics (45%) appear top in the list, while activities such as using less the car (21%) or buying second-hand products (20%) were less frequent. 

As visible in the figure, trends over time are mixed. The most remarkable results are the increase over time in action around purchasing local products (+12 percent points) and products marked with an ecolabel (+4 percent points); and the decrease in reported action to cut down energy (-16 percent points) and water use (-12 percent points). Little improvement was observed in citizens reporting using their car less or buying second-hand products, at the bottom of responses. The trend worsened for citizens choosing more environmentally-friendly ways for travelling. 

These results highlight that progress is not uniform on all action fronts, and that attention should be paid to worsening trends, which might be partially due to the rebound effect of increased resource efficiency. As self-reports of environmentally-friendly activities tend to be over-optimistic, it is also likely that the results of the surveys are over-optimistic compared to actual behaviour.

Environmentally-friendly consumer behaviour can contribute to moving towards a more circular economy. This includes choices when purchasing products, when deciding transport modalities, when committing to reduce the use of water and energy, or when trying to prevent waste and manage it better, among others. This indicator, based on results from the Eurobarometer, informs about the trends on the undertaken by citizens of these environmentally-friendly activities. The set of consumer behaviour activities included here reflects several EU policy objectives, notably those set in waste management policies and within the EU Circular Economy Action Plan.