GENEVA, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Switzerland is a nation of shoppers but the overwhelming majority of them are considered shopping less, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said Monday in a survey it carried out.
In Switzerland people "consume as if tomorrow did not exist," they "buy the heaviest cars in Europe," fly twice as much as their neighbors and produce more waste per head than any other country.
"Yet nine out of 10 people think about the possibility of consciously reducing their consumption or have already done so," said WWF.
In French-speaking Switzerland, this proportion increases to 19 out of 20, who consider shopping less while younger people are also among those who want to peddle back on spending.
The survey was carried out by the German market research group GfK for WWF Switzerland, reaching 1,000 people in all regions of the country.
The survey found that for 44 percent of respondents, saving money was the primary reason for wanting to buy less, making their reasons for reducing consumption economical rather than ecological, said WWF.
On a national level, only 20 percent of people considered consuming less to protect the environment, according to the survey.
In Italian-speaking Switzerland, people cited environmental concerns as a reason to rethink their consumption more often than those in all other areas of the country.
For the German-speaking Swiss, the desire to have more time rather than material goods was mentioned more often than in other regions.
WWF said in a statement that "our current consumption of resources is damaging for the environment".
It said energy efficiency has brought about "some improvement", but it is not enough, and people need to rely more on the principles of self-sufficiency to protect the environment in the long term.
