Introduction

This short, topic-based publication presents key findings of the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) 2023 for the five questions related to the environment. One question covers attitudes towards climate change, another frequency of visits to the outdoors in general, and three relate specifically to people’s nearest green or blue space. These cover walking distance to that nearest green or blue space, frequency of its use and satisfaction with it. More information on the questions is included in the glossary.

Publication of data from the environment questions in the SHS has changed this year. In previous years, a main Scottish Household Survey: Key Findings document was published, which included an Environment chapter. This year, the results have been published in this stand-alone official statistics report.

All results are estimates based on survey data rather than exact figures. Findings have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Tests of statistical significance have been performed for differences between socio-demographic groups or in findings over time; these use figures pre-rounding. Where language such as “broadly the same” or “no difference” is used, then there is no statistically significant difference. If an “increase” or “decrease” is referred to, then the difference is statistically significant.

Within this report data are shown for selected responses over time using bar charts (e.g. Figure 1). There is then a chart showing variation in the response across a range of socio-demographic characteristics for the most recent data. In these charts, the 2023 average is shown as a horizontal dashed line. A vertical line bar crosses this for each characteristic showing the groups furthest from the average in each direction (e.g. Figure 2). Where these characteristics have a natural ordering it is not necessarily the case that the ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ group are furthest from the average. For instance, to take age as an example, the youngest and oldest groups may not necessarily be furthest from the average. This means that statements such as “as age increases, so does the percentage of people that…” are not necessarily valid conclusions from these charts.

National Indicators

Two National Indicators, included within Scotland’s National Performance Framework (NPF) are based on these questions:

• Visits to the Outdoors (under Environment outcome)
• Access to Green and Blue Space (under Communities outcome)

Data for these indicators, including performance arrows, will be updated on the NPF website under the relevant outcomes in due course following publication of this report.

Access to data

The analysis relating to different socio-demographic groups in the population presented here are only a selection of all possible breakdowns, and generally are those with interesting findings and sufficient sample sizes.

Further detail of all available breakdowns can be found in the relevant tables of the SHS data explorer. These include characteristics such as age, education and urban-rural classification which are further described in the Glossary. General information regarding the SHS including methodology can be found on the SHS webpage.

The data in this report is provided for available years where the data is comparable. Data for 2020 and 2021 is excluded because results for those years are not comparable to other years due to a change in survey method, as a consequence of COVID restrictions. Also, some questions are not asked every year– for example, satisfaction with nearest green or blue space was not asked in 2018 or 2020.

An official statistics publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.