The impact of climate change and the capacity to mitigate its negative impacts are unevenly distributed across and within societies; it is the poorer, marginalised and vulnerable groups who are the most acutely affected. ACCTING has collected 358 narratives via individual interviews in 13 European countries to capture some of the experiences of those vulnerable groups. These narratives on inequalities in enablers and hindrances for advancing behavioural change span eight thematic research lines – each addressing an EU Green Deal policy area. Read our dataset including all 358 narratives collected.
Mobility options for a single mother with three children
“I am Cindy, 39, a single mother with three children, one of which is in primary school, the two others in secondary. My career has been in human resources, and when my employer started to fire most of my colleagues and team, I decided to quit the job. My former manager and I decided to start a business. We are fully operational since 1 October 2022.
My second oldest is going to school in a boarding school. This school is in Flanders for her to learn to speak Dutch, some 80 km from home. In the weekends, I have an arrangement with 3 other parents and we each go one week out of four to pick-up and bring our children. My oldest son and youngest daughter go to school in our village some 2,5 km from home. My son always bikes even with bad weather. My youngest bikes only when the weather permits.
I bought a second hand car when I had to hand over back my company car. All our family trips are done by car. I will use the bike inside the village, including for shopping.
We have a bus stop nearby but never use the bus. We could use it to go to the nearby city, but never do. I made the choice that the children would go by bike to school as much as possible; I am lucky there are schools not too far and that the way going is going down, so the children arrive on time. When coming back, they have to bike uphill.
Many parents do not understand this choice and consider I take risks. On the way to school they have to cross a very busy national road. There is a traffic light and I have taught them to always get off their bike and cross walking. They are also well equipped (helmet, fluo jacket, lights; … ). I have biked intensively with the children over summer to train them, also on the road to school, showing all the risky spots.
My daughter never bikes alone to school. I will bike with her and then come back. Or she will go with her older brother. This means a small detour for him. As we have a car-sharing arrangement with two other children from her school, they would normally also bike all three together. Either me or my son will accompany the three on the trip. We have a bus stop in front of the house, but I never even checked the timetable. If one of the children had to go to school to the city, that would be different.
“I am really concerned about the future. I will try to go by bike as much as I can, also to exercise”
For daily shopping I use a local small supermarket that sells products they source in the neighbourhood. I am then using a backpack to carry the shopping. We have a car as I need it for my work, to go to clients. We also need it for all our trips as a family, including holidays. I used to have a company car but when I started as an independent, I bought a second-hand car. I envisaged to buy a smaller one and then to rent a large one when going on holidays, but finally did not do it. The same applies to an electric car. We could do most of our trips in an electric car, both professional and family, but buying electric is too expensive. I could simply not afford it. I know many people in the management of Decathlon. They have Tesla’s as company cars. But they cannot use that car to go to the south of France on holiday, so they go on holiday by plane.
“The whole benefit of driving an electric car during the year is given away when a whole family takes the plane for their holidays”
I am really concerned about the future. I now have good solutions, but the apartment is rented. I cannot afford to buy a house in this village. I would need to go further away from the city to find something affordable. Will I find good solutions there? Is it better to keep on renting and living here? Or to move further away where prices are lower and be able to buy instead of renting?”
