April 22, 2022
Sustainability in the UK
Post Summary – Relevant Facts
- Climate change is a big topic in the United Kingdom. 75% of adults in Great Britain worry about climate change and 81% reported making many changes to their lifestyle to help tackle the climate change.
- Sustainability is a national concern in the United Kingdom. There has been an increase in the search for sustainability-related terms such as recycling and plastics, carbon neutrality and food waste.
- 60% of 1,250 British adults would opt for sustainable banking with banks that had a positive environmental impact.
- Interest in ethical brands has increased since July 2020. There are several sustainability apps that help people care for the environment and improve their lifestyles at the same time.
Introduction
In a series of articles, we would like to share the insights that we have gained from the research that we have been doing in order to define our sustainability solution for banking and personal finance services.
Attitudes, topics and rating schemes vary considerably by country. Understanding these regional sentiments and engagement is key to providing a compelling experience for banking customers.
Banking apps have long provided insight into a user’s spending and we believe there is a big opportunity to provide simple and actionable sustainability insights as part of Statement and Category views.
Current solutions are comprehensive but can take weeks to implement and are not always easy to understand within a banking App. Our simple API based solution, Merchant Reconciliation System, can be implemented within days and used as a way to evaluate any Topic, access any Rating Scheme or a 3rd party service that offers CO2 calculation, advice and offsetting for example.
Sustainability in the UK
Climate Change is a big topic in the United Kingdom, generating 8,422 articles from six newspapers within the last five months of 2021. This compares to 4,507 reports generated from the same sources in the previous five months of 2020, showing an increase of 86.86 percent. Both the volume and growth rate indicate that sustainability is fast becoming a mainstream topic of concern.
The newspapers that generated extensive coverage of climate change or global warming in the UK are the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Guardian, Observer, The Sun, The News of the World, Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Times and Sunday Times.
The most commonly referenced Sources were: the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), the Nature Climate Change journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, and the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Growing Environmental concern
A survey by the National Statistics Office in October 2021 showed that 75% of adults in Great Britain worry about climate change.
Three issues that stood out from the respondents’ responses are:
- they worry about their family and future generations;
- they feel anxious and helpless, and
- they are concerned about the expense of making eco-friendly changes.
Adults who said they worried about the environmental impact were three times more likely to change their lifestyles. Overall, 81% of the adults in Great Britain reported making many changes to their lifestyles to help tackle climate change.
Top Searches
Sustainability is a national concern in the United Kingdom, with more interest coming from the smaller cities across the UK. The most-researched sustainability topics from the different cities were sustainable diets, recycling and plastics, carbon neutrality, and food waste.
Google search behaviour revealed that people are concerned about the environment and the societal impact of what they do every day. Searches went up for topics such as ways to reduce carbon footprint, vegetarian recipes and reducing food waste.
Trends in Consumer Behaviour
An independent market survey in 2021 showed that sustainability remains a key consideration for consumers.
Here are some interesting results:
- 32% of consumers are highly engaged in the adoption of sustainable lifestyles
- 28% percent of consumers stopped buying products due to environmental concerns.
- Gen Z is adopting more sustainable behaviours compared to any other group.
- The five most important brand practices that consumers look for were waste reduction, providing sustainable packaging, reducing carbon footprint, respecting human rights, and committing to ethical work practices.
A separate survey by Deloitte showed that 60% of 1,250 British adults would opt for sustainable banking with banks that had a positive environmental impact. The respondents said they would leave their bank if they found out it was linked to environmental harm like financing of fossil fuels.
Sustainability Apps
There are hundreds of sustainable apps that help people care for the environment and improve their lifestyles at the same time. Here are the five best environmental apps with high ratings and good reviews from users:
Good on YouThis is an app for fashion sustainability and ethical fashion shopping. With the app, you can discover alternatives to your favourite fashion brands. The app rates each brand for its impact on people, the planet, and animals.Explore the AppGoEthicalThis marketplace and lifestyle app bring buyers and sellers together to showcase their products. Users can shop from a wide assortment of ethical and sustainable products or register as a seller and start selling their products. Explore the AppEarth HeroEarth Hero makes acting on climate change efficient. Users can join volunteer groups and connect with other communities to address climate change issues.Explore the AppKlimaThis app lets users calculate their carbon footprint and neutralize 100 percent of their CO2e emissions. The Users can get personalized tips on how to live climate-healthy lives.
Explore the AppCoGoThis app helps users to understand how their spending creates an environmental impact. Users can connect to their bank, and the app analyses their purchases to calculate their real-time carbon footprint every time they make a purchase. Reviews showed excellent user experience with the app. Explore the App
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Good on YouThis is an app for fashion sustainability and ethical fashion shopping. With the app, you can discover alternatives to your favourite fashion brands. The app rates each brand for its impact on people, the planet, and animals.Explore the AppGoEthicalThis marketplace and lifestyle app bring buyers and sellers together to showcase their products. Users can shop from a wide assortment of ethical and sustainable products or register as a seller and start selling their products. Explore the AppEarth HeroEarth Hero makes acting on climate change efficient. Users can join volunteer groups and connect with other communities to address climate change issues.Explore the AppKlimaThis app lets users calculate their carbon footprint and neutralize 100 percent of their CO2e emissions. The Users can get personalized tips on how to live climate-healthy lives.
Explore the AppCoGoThis app helps users to understand how their spending creates an environmental impact. Users can connect to their bank, and the app analyses their purchases to calculate their real-time carbon footprint every time they make a purchase. Reviews showed excellent user experience with the app. Explore the App
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Want to know more?
Snowdrop Solutions currently works with leading digital and traditional banks in Europe, the UK and Asia Pacific. Snowdrop is a location and data intelligence company that has been a Google Trusted Partner since 2013 and Visa Europe since 2020. Our transaction enrichment solution, the ‘MRS’ API, brings together our deep understanding of the Google Maps APIs, a proprietary database and a second to none matching algorithm. We offer superior match rates and accuracy to any of our competitors and a unique customer centric approach that, other than transaction enrichment, provides cost savings and churn reduction to our clients, over and over.
If you want to know more about our product, you can access more information on our dedicated MRS page or by contacting us. A member of the team will respond to your request promptly.