Scottish Climate Survey: technical report

Introduction

Survey background

In 2024, the Scottish Government, through ClimateXChange, its centre of expertise on climate change, commissioned Ipsos to conduct a new nationally representative survey of Scottish adults aged 16 and over, with the aim of generating reliable estimates of Scottish adults’ awareness and understanding of, and engagement with, climate change-related issues. Findings from the survey are intended to serve multiple policy and public engagement objectives in Scotland.

Results will support the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of key Scottish Government strategies and plans, and will also be used to inform communications and engagement activities by the Scottish Government and its agencies. Furthermore, the data is intended to provide a valuable resource for external stakeholders involved in climate action and public engagement, including local authorities, businesses, the third sector, researchers and community organisations. The survey was designed to enable replication in the future which will allow tracking of changes in public attitudes and behaviours over time.

Survey design

The Scottish Climate Survey is a ‘push-to-web’ survey involving three postal mail outs designed to encourage participants to complete the survey online. Push-to-web is a quantitative data collection method in which offline contact modes are used to encourage sample members to complete an online questionnaire.The survey is fully ‘device-agnostic’ and so can be completed on mobile devices or a desktop PC/laptop. The first two mail-outs are an invitation letter and a reminder postcard containing information about how to access the survey online and a unique passcode for accessing the survey. At the third mailing a paper self-completion questionnaire is included alongside a reminder letter, to help optimise and maximise response.

The survey data were collected between 25th October 2024 and 12th January 2025 using an online questionnaire and a paper self-completion questionnaire. Up to two adults (aged 16+) from each selected household were invited to complete the survey, either online or using the paper questionnaire. Valid responses were received from 4,089 people in total. The household-level response rate was 19.6% and the individual-level response rate was 13.1%.

This work was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the international quality standard for Market Research, ISO 20252.