Environment and consumers
Climate, nature and consumer protection and the sustainable use of resources are closely interrelated and have become significant issues regionally and globally.
Under this focus, infas bundles a variety of survey and research projects that look at current life situations, expectations for the future, and readiness to act. The aim here is to obtain ideology-free and objectifiable data that provide a reliable basis for political or entrepreneurial action.
Consumers
Empirical studies dealing with the behavior and experience of consumers have a long tradition at infas – some of them under the perspective of consumer protection, others completely independent of a possible label of consumer research. What the various studies have in common is that they address the following questions:
- How do citizens behave, think and feel about products, technical innovations and services?
- What do they know about these issues, how do they evaluate relevant information, what are the perceived risks and threats to health, finance or data security?
- What opportunities are seen, what barriers to access and what needs exist?
- What choices do consumers make and why?
- How does consumer trust in institutions of politics, business, science and the media turn out, and what arguments or situational occasions can help to arrive at realistic assessments or stimulate sustainable change?
Technological progress and new scientific findings are constantly giving rise to new topics for consumer research, such as digitalization, data protection and the energy transition.
Consumer research projects
Environment
There is hardly a field in which greater upheavals are underway and can be expected in the future than in environmental issues. Climate change is challenging certainties and standards of living, while technological innovations are creating new opportunities and behavioral options. infas measures how developments are assessed, what support they receive and whether they are implemented transparently and comprehensibly.
infas has the expertise to identify the expectations and requirements of the various stakeholders in this area. In terms of methodology, this also involves separating the willingness to act from social desirability in order to create reliable data bases for environmental policy discussions.
Environmental awareness study 2020
A central project of the work focus was the Environmental Awareness Study 2020. This was carried out by infas in cooperation with ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), Dessau. The main topics of this issue were climate protection and socio-ecological transformation.
Public transport plays a significant role in achieving climate targets or ensuring future mobility in metropolitan areas and rural areas alike. At the same time, public transport is in strong competition with private transport and new mobility services.
Environmental research projects
