Projects

Attitudes to SuDS measures

Attitudes to SuDS measures

This project, led by Icaro Consulting with the support of Ipsos MORI, Waterwise and the UK Green Building Council, was designed to explore what consumers think about water retrofit measures that either reduce water consumption and/or mitigate surface water flooding episodes (e.g. SuDS measures like permeable paving, as well as green roofs, rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling).

The research was split into two phases: the first (in 2010) looking at attitudes and reactions in general; and the second (in 2011) exploring households specifically in a ‘moment of change’ and therefore potentially more amenable to making retrofit decisions:

  • Phase 1 involved four deliberative events – in Watford, Hull, Cambourne and Thatcham – to explore households’ initial reactions to a range of water retrofit measures, followed by site visits to BRE Innovation Park and Lamb Drove in Cambourne (which have a range of community scale SuDS-based measures).
  • Phase 2 focused on a specific target audience in the form of those who were at, or who had just had, a moment of change (e.g. moved house, decided to undertake large scale home renovations, etc.) This involved focus groups, in-home depth interviews and a series of post-tasking tasks to try to simulate the retrofit process for real (e.g. participants going in to B&Q, calling installers to arrange visits and get quotes, etc.) It also involved telephone depth interviews with SuDS installers.
Download the full report.