Get Sust! Issue 35

What do you want and when do you want it?

Forum for the Future and UCAS asked some 25,000 university applicants from the UK and overseas what they think about the future. Their responses make fascinating reading for course leaders and graduate employers, but more importantly, for anyone involved in building design – hey, listen up; these are your future clients speaking!

This is the second ‘Future Leaders Survey’, and Forum says the results show that today’s young people are struggling to feel optimistic about the future. But they have expectations from the leaders of today, in business, government, the media and beyond.

“This generation is intensely aware of the big challenges facing the planet and eager to see broader social and political change, but is less willing to adapt individual personal behaviour,” say the report’s authors.

Interestingly these young people see a much greater role for coercion – for example banning 4x4s in city centres and taxing aviation – than current trends would suggest.

Headline results include:

86% believe that material consumption needs to decrease
more than 66% claim they would be happy without a car if public transport were good enough
41% think personal carbon quotas would be good for them personally, and 49% think these would benefit society as a whole
42% say that “learning about sustainable development will help me get a job after university/college”
82% say that “having an interesting job” is key to their personal happiness in the next 10 years
the most popular environmentally friendly actions are: walking and cycling instead of driving (65% do this and 14% plan to) and buying local food, which 51% have already done.

Learn more:

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Full details are at www.futureleaderssurvey0708.org.uk.