Appendix: The Decade that Matters Research Study Design
Study design: business leaders
The business leaders research survey and data analysis was conducted between November 2022 and January 2023. Research was conducted via an online survey.
- Margin of Error = +/- 2.51 percentage points
- Sample = 1,519 business leaders, excluding sole traders, from the UK, US, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results.
In this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 2.51 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all personas in the universe represented by the sample. The margin of error for any subgroups will be slightly higher.
About the study sample: business leaders
All survey respondents were determined as business decision makers and work at companies with employees in the UK, US, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, and around 36 percent had more than 250 employees. The survey reached energy decision-makers in a wide range of industries, with the largest groups in IT and telecommunications and Finance (14 percent) followed by Manufacturing and Utilities (13 percent).
The sample was made up of at least 250 respondents from each country UK, US, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Study design: policymakers
The policymakers research survey and data analysis was conducted between November 2022 and January 2023 as above. Research was conducted via an online survey.
- Margin of Error = +/- 2.52 percentage points
- Sample = 1,505 policymakers who work in the public or third sector from the UK, US, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results.
In this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 2.52 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all personas in the universe represented by the sample. The margin of error for any subgroups will be slightly higher.
About the study sample: policymakers
All survey respondents were determined as decision makers in the third and public sector influencing policy.
The sample was made up of at least 250 respondents from each country UK, US, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Online social listening
Alongside the third-party research are insights into the conversations around climate change, compiled using a social listening tool, Brandwatch. Brandwatch is a social media suite company owned by Cision and is the largest archive of consumer opinions (delivering access to over 1.3 trillion public documents – and inclusive of the full firehose of data from Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr for time covered).
By using Brandwatch's Consumer Intelligence tool to track online conversations on renewable energy and climate change, we could analyse the state of play on a macro level, drawing insights from over a billion mentions of key phrases online.
For the Decade That Matters 2.0 report, we monitored both the broader keywords around global warming, climate change and net zero, while also tracking more specific keywords within the renewable energy sector such as offshore wind, solar energy, hydrogen and battery storage. This is not a comprehensive list of the keywords used in this report, but provides a flavour of how insights for were developed using data from Brandwatch.