London-wide citizen behavioural tracker

Descriptions

This invitation to tender is for longitudinal research into awareness, attitudes, motivations and claimed behaviours around various circular behaviours and lifestyles amongst a representative sample of Londoners (referred to as 'citizens' throughout the following document).

Our research purpose is to track shifts over time, identifying opportunities and challenges for ReLondon and its stakeholders as we develop, deliver and evaluate the impact of our circular strategies and actions.

While this brief is primarily for the design, set-up and delivery of year one's baseline-setting research, it includes a requirement to provide recommendations and costings for subsequent years so that resources to support our longitudinal approach are clear and able to be planned for.

The budget for this piece of work is £30,000 plus VAT. The work will be awarded as a fixed-term contract subject to ReLondon's standard terms and conditions (available on request).

Background

ReLondon is a partnership of the Mayor of London and London's boroughs to improve waste and resource management in the capital and accelerate our transition to a low carbon circular city. Our mission is to make London a global leader in sustainable ways to live, work and prosper by revolutionising our relationship with stuff and helping London waste less and reuse, repair, share and recycle more.

More on ReLondon can be found on our website.

Citizen-facing work:

ReLondon runs campaigns direct-to-citizens on behalf of the Mayor and the London boroughs, and collaborates with partners to deliver localised circular neighbourhood and recycling pilot projects. The campaigns currently run by ReLondon are:

London Recycles

• Educates Londoners on what can and can't be recycled in their boroughs

• Provides tips and hints on reducing waste and materials use generally

• Hosts London Repair Week (and supports UK-wide Repair Weeks in other cities)

• Creates local authority toolkits for waste and recycling communications

Love Not Landfill

• Encourages 16-24-year-old Londoners never to throw an unwanted item of clothing in the bin

• Encourages fast fashion fans to buy second-hand, swap, share and give to charity through clothing swaps, second-hand pop-ups and social media

• Advises on what to do with clothes when they can't be worn any longer

Eat like a Londoner (now concluded pending a new food waste campaign in 2026)

• Run on behalf of London boroughs

• Helped families and young people reduce food waste at home

• Encouraged sustainable diets

• Provided planning, shopping, storing, cooking and eating tips

NB: a new food campaign is in development focusing on recycling and waste prevention. It will be live by summer 2026.

Local pilots over the past two years have included flats recycling and flats above shops research projects; circular neighbourhood projects e.g. Heston in the loop; deep engagement on recycling participation with primary schools and mosques in Tower Hamlets; and a community food project in Islington, to test an approach promoting sustainable food behaviours using a network of nudges built around a community café.

The brief

While ReLondon has an annual survey of both businesses (SMEs and startups in our network) and local authorities to help measure outcomes for reporting purposes, we have relied until now on campaign-specific surveys and the polling of other organisations (e.g. London Councils' citizen climate survey) to provide data for tracking and reporting on the outcome of our citizen-facing work.

As London Councils' climate survey is no longer taking place, and budgets are no longer available for comprehensive campaign evaluation, ReLondon is now seeking a better value but effective way of monitoring shifts in Londoners' awareness of and attitudes towards more circular, or waste-busting, lifestyles and behaviours. This is likely to be conducted annually as a minimum, but this initial brief and contract is for year one baseline setting, including reporting, plus recommendations/suggested costings for subsquent years.

Research approach:

We would like responses to suggest optimum approaches and costings against the following core requirements:

• Baseline setting in March 2026, possibly through a quantitative survey of up to 25 questions of a representative sample of Londoners (at least 1,100+), with results split by borough; age group; ethnicity; housing type; and living arrangements. Household or individual income may also be of interest. Alternative approaches to baseline setting will also be considered with interest.

• Ongoing methodology for subsequent years against year one baseline, to provide longitudinal tracking data.

We are also interested in proposals which suggest alternative or supplementary approaches to longitudinal behaviour, attitude and motivational tracking, such as:

• Quarterly 'dip' polling against smaller subsets of questions

• Ad hoc insights on one-off topics via online polling or using qualitative methods

• Occasional topic-specific qualitative 'dips' which interact usefully with the quantitative survey data

Costings for any of the above should include data analysis and reporting. We will contract work in the first instance to cover:

(a) design and delivery of the baseline setting research in this first year; and

(b) the provision of recommendations on methodology and costing/resourcing implications for future iterations in the next financial year.

Objectives

Our objectives with the tracker (or alternative approach to this piece of longitudinal research) are:

• To measure awareness and impact of ReLondon campaigns, events and behavioural interventions and projects

 To track awareness of, and (shifts in) attitudes towards, circular behaviours and lifestyles such as swapping and sharing household items, buying second-hand, renting or leasing instead of buying, making things last and repairing more stuff

• To track trends and provide insight about areas to focus on amongst different communities and neighbourhoods, as well as at a London-wide level

• To test understanding of circularity amongst the general population, including language and specific terminology, what circular behaviours mean in practice and their perceived benefits for people and communities

Scope of work

The work proposed and costed for must include the following:

Item By

Inception meeting completed, notes provided and detailed timeline agreed 2-3 March 2026

Refined methodology proposal for year one baseline signed off and recruitment initiated By 3rd week of March

Fieldwork underway By end March

Conclusion of fieldwork End April

Report on baseline research and its implications, with a wrap-up presentation of up to 1.5 hours in-person Mid-May 2026

Future years' methodology and costings recommendations presented Mid-end May 2026

Budget

The budget for the baseline setting research for year one plus the provision of recommendations and costings for subsequent years' behavioural tracking activity is up to £30k plus VAT. We are also interested to see estimates against any alternative or supplementary methodologies you wish to suggest for either year one or future years.

Contract management

The contract will be formally let by the London Waste and Recycling Board (operating as ReLondon), and ReLondon's standard terms and conditions will apply (available on request).

Quality of service:

The Service Provider shall provide the services in a competent, timely manner in accordance with recognised industry quality standards. The Service Provider shall ensure an adequate supply of suitably qualified and competent personnel are available to fulfil the requirements of the Contract.

Acceptance of bids:

In issuing this invitation to bid, ReLondon is not bound to accept the lowest or any bid and reserves the right to accept the whole or any specified part of the bid unless the bidder expressly stipulates otherwise. ReLondon will not enter into discussion with non-selected potential suppliers or justify its decision. Potential suppliers are deemed to have accepted these conditions by the act of submitting their quote. The selected preferred supplier cannot assume they have been granted the contract until a formal contract is signed.

Period for which bids shall remain valid:

Unless otherwise stipulated by the bidder, bids shall remain valid for 30 days from the closing date for receipt of tenders.