Understanding perceptions and attitudes towards the Deposit Return Scheme

The Deposit Return Scheme was due to come into operation in Scotland in 2023. Back in 2019, Zero Waste Scotland asked Union Insight to conduct research to understand the perception and attitudes towards the DRS and segment the population according to the most effective and relevant channel to reach these groups. 

Given the complex set of objectives, Union Insight designed the overall project in three phases:

1. Conduct quantitative research to understand consumer attitudes, motivations and behaviour.
2. Segmentation project to map the quantitative results against the Scottish population.
3. Qualitative research to fully understand the attitudes, behaviours and motivations of the different segmented groups that were vital for developing an effective messaging framework for ZWS. 

The survey was conducted through an online panel to collect a representative sample across Scotland. Quotas were set with the research panel, by region, age, and gender to ensure a representative sample of adults across Scotland were contacted. The sample was weighted to ensure the sample was representative of the Scottish population and household base. A geodemographic overlay was applied to allow us to map the survey results out to the wider population. 

Once the quantitative study was complete, our lead statistician built a segmentation model using a hierarchical clustering approach. This model defined five segments across the Scottish population. 

The qualitative stage comprised eight focus groups , each with six participants, across three locations across Scotland. One focus group for the smaller segments and two groups for the segments containing a larger proportion of the Scottish population to gain more robust insight. 

Following the qualitative study, the results were summarised by the lead researcher on the project. A final report of the whole mixed methods research study was written up and presented to ZWS.