What women do: Exploring the link between pro-environmental actions, work, travel and home

Introduction. The Community Public Sector Union (CPSU) is committed to representing members and campaigning for their rights. To find out what women members want, the CPSU carries out an annual survey. The What Women Want survey was carried out in 2011 for the sixth time in conjunction with the University of Queensland’s Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) and the Centre for Work + Life, University of South Australia. In 2011, a new section called ‘TheEnvironment’ was added to the What Women Wantsurvey, asking about women’s beliefs and actions in relation to the environment. This new section exploreshow working women manage sustainable living at work and at home, and the factors that can facilitate or hinder pro-environmental action. The broad aim of this survey is to investigate how work and home life can be best configured to support pro-environmental action, and to inform decision-making regarding working arrangements that best promote wellbeing and improve environmentally sustainable outcomes. This report outlines the findings from the survey questions, taking a closer look at the pro-environmental actions that women do; the potential influence of work, traveland home-related factors, and what women say would help them to reduce their environmental impact. The report covers demographic information and the frequency of pro-environmental action at work and at home, followed by fourmainsections: the association between pro-environmental action and working arrangements; commuting; home life, and work-life balance. All contrasts discussed in the main sectionsare significant (i.e. not likely to be due to chance) at p< .05.The report then considers women’s views on barriers and facilitators to pro-environmental actionand concludes with a general summary and implications for action.