Swiss Environmental Panel
Panel respondents: In order to participate in the survey, please proceed to the questionnaire page.
News
Report: The full report on the SEP wave 10 basic survey is now available.
Report: The results (in German) on CO2-Footprints within the Swiss population (SEP wave 10) are now available.
Interview with Sarah Gomm on the CO2-footprint within the Swiss population (Le Temps): external pageEn graphiques – En Suisse, les personnes qui contribuent le plus au réchauffement ne sont pas celles que vous pensez (in French).
Weitere Informationen auf Deutsch finden Sie unter Schweizer Umweltpanel.
Goals
How does the Swiss population perceive environmental quality and trends therein? Which opinions and preferences does it have on environment-related issues and policy, for example concerning climate or mobility policy? How do these preferences change over time?
Against this backdrop, the Swiss Environmental Panel explores public opinion in Switzerland in relation to environmental preferences and behavior, changes therein, and linkages to preferences and behavior in other policy realms.
Several thousand randomly selected individuals take part in the Swiss Environmental Panel and answer on these and related questions. The Swiss Environmental Panel was conceptualized by ETH Zurich and is, since September 2018, conducted by ETH Zurich with a mandate of and in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Environmental Agency (Bundesamt für Umwelt, BAFU).
Contact: Sarah Gomm, Clara Brügge, Thomas Bernauer, Lukas Rudolph
The video is also available in external pageFrench and external pageItalian.
Public opinion is highly relevant for the actions of politicians and decision-makers. It gives information on support and interests of the public and motivates people on all levels to get involved (EUA, Eurobarometer). In the realm of environmental public opinion such data is rarely taken into account in political planning and reporting. A systematic documentation of such data does not exist, and, for Switzerland, the availability of public opinion data is scattered and fragmented, lacking continuity. Based on the central elements of previous public opinion surveys (“Umweltsurvey”, “Univox Umwelt”, “BFS Omnibus Umwelt”), it is therefore the goal of the Swiss Environmental Panel to provide a continuous and flexible survey instrument, adhering on the one hand to high scientific standards and being on the other hand practice-oriented. With the data generated, this project aims to provide a valuable information base for scientific purposes, political decision making, the public administration and the general public.
The Swiss Environmental Panel is based on a representative sample of the Swiss resident population from 15 years of age, based on the harmonized population registry of the Swiss Federal Statistical Agency (Bundesamtes für Statistik, BFS/SRPH). This includes the resident population with non-Swiss nationality. Respondents were invited with a letter in the main language of their municipality. The survey could be taken on paper or electronically in Swiss German, French, Italian or English. In order to assess changes over time, some questions were adopted from similar surveys in 1994 and 2007 (“Schweizer Umweltsurvey” by Andreas Diekmann and colleagues). The project is a panel-study, i.e. the same persons are surveyed repeatedly. The project conducts two survey rounds per year.
Wave 1: Baseline survey
- Survey period: Spring 2018
- Results report wave 1 (German)
- DownloadResults report wave 1 (PDF, 1.1 MB) (French)
- DownloadResults report wave 1 (PDF, 1.3 MB) (Italian)
- Data wave 1: Data on external pageSWISSUbase
Wave 2: Core topic - Climate
- Survey period: autumn 2018
- Results report wave 2 (German)
- Short summary wave 2: DownloadGerman (PDF, 784 KB) and DownloadFrench (PDF, 882 KB)
- Data wave 2: Data on external pageSWISSUbase
Wave 3: Core topic - Food waste
- Survey period: summer 2019
- Results report wave 3 (German)
- Short summary wave 3: DownloadGerman (PDF, 583 KB) and DownloadFrench (PDF, 601 KB)
- Data wave 3: Data on external pageSWISSUbase
Wave 4: Baseline survey
- Survey period: fall/winter 2019
- Results report wave 4 (German)
- Data wave 4: Data on external pageSWISSUbase
Wave 5: Core topic - 5G
- Survey period: Spring/Summer 2020
- Results report wave 5 (German)
- Data wave 5: Data on external pageSWISSUbase
Wave 6: Core topic - environment and health
- Survey period: Fall/ Winter 2020
- Results report wave 6 (German)
- Data wave 6: Data on external pageSWISSUbase
Wave 7: Basline survey
- Survey period: spring/summer 2021
- Results report wave 7 (German)
- Data expected to be available: Fall 2022
Wave 8: Core topic - circular economy
- Survey period: fall/winter 2021
- Results report wave 8 (German)
- Data expected to be available: Fall 2022
Wave 9: Core topic - trust
- Survey period: spring/summer 2022
- Data expected to be available: Winter 2023
Wave 10: Basic survey
- Survey period: autumn/winter 2022
- Results report wave 10 (German)
- Full Report wave 10 basic survey (German)
- Estimated dates available: Winter 2023
Wave 11: Core topic – noise pollution
- Survey period: spring/summer 2023
Data for the Swiss Environmental Panel is available to the public in the external pageSWISSUbase.
Zitation: Franziska Quoß, Lukas Rudolph, Sarah Gomm, Stefan Wehrli, and Thomas Bernauer. 2021. Swiss Environmental Panel Study 2018-2021, Wave 1-6, Cumulative Data [Dataset]. ETH Zurich - Institute of Science, Technology and Policy. Distributed by FORS, Lausanne, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23662/FORS-DS-1220-2call_made external pagehttps://doi.org/10.23662/FORS-DS-1220-2
Principal Investigator
Project Coordinator(s)
Lab Coordinator(s)
Project Team
- Gian-Luca Kaufmann
- Jan Linder
- Patricia Maissen
- Hanna Pahls
- Patricia Wäger
- Lukas Walker
Former Employees
- Dr. Lukas Rudolph
- Dr. Franziska Quoß
Press
- Interview with Sarah Gomm on the CO2-footprint within the Swiss population (Le Temps): external pageEn graphiques – En Suisse, les personnes qui contribuent le plus au réchauffement ne sont pas celles que vous pensez (in French).
- Interview with Sarah Gomm and Clara Brügge about the 8th wave (Circular Economy): external pageKreislaufwirtschaft? Ja, aber bitte nicht so ernst (in German)
- Short empirical analysis on potential Downloadurban-rural divide in Swiss environmental politics (PDF, 2.2 MB) (in German)
- Interview 'The majority wants to reduce foodwaste' with Lukas Fesenfeld on external pageRadio SRF 4 News
- Interview 'City versus country - The place of residence has little to do with how environmentally conscious we are' with Sarah Gomm and Thomas Bernauer on external pageSRF Wissen
- Article in Migros Magazine on the results of the 5th survey wave: 'external pageThe big fight for 5G-Netz' (page 48 ff.)
- Article on Heise Online about the results of the 5th survey wave: 'external pageSwitzerland: Divided opinion of the population about 5G network expansion'
Publications
- Gomm, S., & Bernauer, T. (2023). external pageAre actual and perceived environmental conditions associated with variation in mental health?. Environmental Research, 223, 115398.
- Swiss Federal Office of the Environment (2022). external pageBelastung hängt von subjektiv wahrgenommenen Umweltstressoren ab.
- Däubler, T., Quoß, F., & Rudolph, L. (2021). Do citizens use sociodemographic characteristics as cues to infer candidate issue positions? Swiss Political Science Review, 00, 1-23. external pagehttps://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12493
- Fesenfeld, L., Rudolph, L., & Bernauer, T. (2021). Citizens support ambitious but costly food waste governance. external pagehttps://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/vh58r/
- Rudolph, L., Quoß, F., Buchs, R., & Bernauer, T. (2020). Environmental concern leads to trade skepticism on the political left and right. external pagehttps://osf.io/d7r2hc
