A face-to-face survey of households in the south-east of England on wellbeing, environmental attitudes, and water use was carried out in the summer of 2014. Potential respondents were selected randomly on high streets in the region but had to meet the criteria of being the person in charge of paying the household water bill as it was assumed that such a person would be more aware of their household’s water consumption, being a home owner so that their willingness to install water saving fittings could be meaningfully assessed, and having a metered water supply so that they had an incentive to conserve water and so that it was possible to obtain data on their actual water consumption. Respondents were also required to live in the water supply area of the South East Water company and were asked if they agreed to South East Water supplying the research team with their household’s actual water consumption data for the previous two years. The questionnaire comprised of 34 questions relating to water use and wellbeing, environmental attitudes, and attitudes to water conservation and water reuse. It also included questions on the housing type, household size, age and employment status of the respondent. Respondents were asked about household income and, additionally, to counter the expected high non-response rate for this question, respondents were assessed indirectly on household poverty. This was done by asking whether or not they could afford a range of basic items: keeping their home adequately warm, paying for a week’s annual holiday away from home, replacing worn out furniture, being able to have friends or family visit for a drink or meal at least once a month and paying for their household water bill. Several questions assessed wellbeing, with these questions adopted from the Third European Quality of Life Survey (TEQLS). For example, respondents were asked “How satisfied are you with life in general these days?” scoring answers on a scale of 1 to 10. General environmental attitudes were assessed by a multi-part question which asked respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements adopted from the New Environmental Paradigm. The survey was completed by 342 people. While respondents were required to give their address so that their water consumption data for the previous two years could be obtained from South East Water, all identifying information has been removed from the dataset. The SPREE project (Servicizing Policy for Resource Efficient Economy) was a three-year project within the environment theme under the European Commision’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7). The aim of SPREE project was to identify potential “Servicizing Policy Packages” for the establishment of Servicizing systems which facilitate the transition from selling products to providing services. The SPREE project included case studies on transport, agri-food and water. The water case study included surveys on water use, environmental attitudes and quality of life conducted in the UK, Spain and Israel. The UK survey data is available here.

A face-to-face survey of individuals and households. Potential respondents were selected randomly on high streets in the supply area of the South East Water company.