THE 5 URGENT ACTION POINTS*
* Average urgency of each challenge for the inhabitants of the 28 countries questioned, on a scale of 0 to 10
In December 2017, companies, States, and public and philanthropic institutions came together for the One Planet Summit in Paris, reminding us in unison that “We are ONE planet.” An obvious statement that has become a conviction and a global awareness that our destinies are interdependent. This is reflected in the ELABE survey for Veolia conducted in late 2017*. In each of the 28 countries questioned, 84% to 98% of inhabitants state that “our destinies are all linked by the choices that we make today regarding energy, food and fighting pollution.”
*Methodology
ELABE survey for Veolia, conducted in 28 countries from 11/10 to 12/04/2017 among representative national samples of the resident population aged 18 years and above (500 people questioned in each country, i.e. 14,000 respondents). Representativeness guaranteed by the quota method applied to the variables of sex, age, socio-professional category or equivalent reference per country and region.
The 4 levers
Creativity (technological innovations), individual responsibility (changes in behavior), funding and regulations are seen as comparably important in meeting the challenges of food, energy and fighting pollution. Each of these levers is considered to be important by 75% to 85% of the population in 24 of the 28 countries questioned.
The world’s inhabitants as a whole are therefore convinced of the necessary complementarity of these levers to successfully rise to the challenge of our resources.
The solutions
Innovate and explain
While they are confident about future innovations, the world’s citizens are nonetheless cautious about their country’s capacity to implement them widely over the next two decades.
A considerable challenge lies ahead of companies and public players: they must continue along the path of environmental innovation, educate about disruptive solutions that come up against the difficulty of imagining what currently remains unknown, deliver the capacity to deploy them, and demonstrate their efficacy and performance.
