2025-26 Survey Report FAQ

Your four- or five-digit entry key is an automatically generated random code you can use to retrieve your report at any time. Since your submitted data are fully anonymous, we cannot help you find your report if you lose this entry key!…write it down somewhere so you can remember it.

Your polarity score is the average of the absolute value of your twelve slider responses (which vary on the six-point slider scale between 0.2 and 1.0). Higher scores indicate that you expressed strong opinions (i.e., tended to lean strongly toward the left or right statement). There is no good or bad polarity score, but you may wish to compare yours with others and discuss similarities/differences.

There may be all sorts of reasons why you might display high or low polarity relative to someone else, or yourself over time. You may find, for instance, that your polarity score increases over time as your environmental opinions settle; you may, conversely, find that your polarity score decreases over time as you appreciate the full range of opinion.

An important but sometimes confusing feature of EcoTypes is that axes have opposing poles, and themes have opposing attractors. This may sound like a bad binary way of approaching axes and themes! In fact, our intent is quite different: read the EcoTypes FAQ (“What is the theory underlying EcoTypes?”) or the FAQ below on complementarity to appreciate how binaries might lead to something far deeper.

Axis poles derive primarily from difference. Each axis represents a fundamental consideration in how we approach environmental issues, for which there are genuine differences of opinion; the poles quickly summarize these differences, and operationalize them for the survey.

Some people may support one or the other pole; others may position themselves somewhere in between, which you do on the survey by moving each slider. There is no right or wrong position relative to these axis poles, but they do encourage you to think hard about your own opinions—this is also why there is no middle position on the sliders.

Yet the twelve EcoTypes axes do not necessarily represent twelve separate differences in how we approach environmental issues. This is where the three EcoTypes themes, and their respective attractors, come in. These themes, Place, Knowledge, and Action, are statistically derived from axes using a technique called factor analysis. Factor analysis results in factors (themes) that group variables (axes) based on their greatest common differences, statistically known as variance.

Theme attractors are derived from their contributing axis poles; attractors thus represent our most fundamental differences. As with axes, some people may score near one or the other theme attractor, or somewhere in between. These theme poles are called attractors for theoretical reasons: see the EcoTypes FAQ “What is the theory underlying EcoTypes?” for more details. For now, you can think of each as an attractive, common, yet only partial solution to the complex question posed by each theme.

There can be many potential EcoTypes axes; in past there have been as many as eighteen. The current twelve axes represent the top four related to each statistical theme, and offer a more manageable number of fundamental considerations, for instance in educational settings, while preserving the EcoTypes intent of broadening our scope of consideration. See the EcoTypes FAQ (“How does the EcoTypes approach compare with others?”) for further explanation.

As explained above, the three themes were derived statistically from factor analysis. There are several measures one may use in factor analysis to decide on the optimal number of underlying factors (themes); EcoTypes survey data have long suggested three themes, even when more than twelve axes were included.

The EcoTypes survey includes twelve sliders with contrasting statements for each axis, to allow for responses across the full range of potential difference. Your axis scores range from -1 to +1 (in equal increments including -0.6, -0.2, +0.2, and +0.6), depending on where you positioned the slider between the left and right poles. You will see the scores of axes associated with each theme underneath that theme, with a link to each axis for further clarification.

Your theme scores are the average for the four contributing axis scores, and thus also range from -1 to +1—the left to the right attractor

The Knowledge theme is special, as it has three subtypes: old, integral, and new Knowledge. The reason for this involves the close correlations between the Spirituality/Time and the Science/Technology axes. So, in addition to your overall Knowledge theme score, your survey report will include scores for these two axis pairs, and a corresponding subtype. Here is fuller background on the three Knowledge subtypes.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether you feel your EcoType is a good fit! Remember that it’s based on your responses to 12 axis sliders, and your derivative theme scores. Remember also that EcoTypes are based on some of the most important differences in how we approach environmental issues, so look at the other EcoTypes, and you may find that they are not as good a fit as yours.

For a more quantitative answer to this question, look carefully at the image above (click to expand), in which two sample Action/Place EcoTypes, Earth Action and Small Green Steps, are charted as you’ll see on your report. The location of each dot represents the percentile of that Action and Place score in its sector, relative to over 3700 EcoTypes survey responses for 2024-25. These percentiles correspond to the grid on this chart: look at the Social Justice sector for details (0% is in the center of the chart). So, if your Action and Place percentiles are relatively high in your EcoTypes sector, this may mean that your EcoType is a better fit.

In the image above, the Small Green Steps EcoType has an Action score near the 100th percentile, and a Place score approaching the 60th percentile, whereas the Earth Action EcoType is in the 20th percentile for both Action and Place. This may mean that the Small Green Steps respondent feels that their EcoType is a better fit!…but, again, it’s ultimately up to you to reflect on how your EcoType applies to how you approach environmental issues.

Your complementary EcoType is the EcoType that differs from yours the most. It’s easy to identify your complementary EcoType phrase: just go to your EcoTypes chart and look for the sector opposite your dot. In the Place/Knowledge EcoTypes example at left, if Technoprogress is your EcoType, your complementary EcoType is Earth Spirit; as you can see, their Place and Knowledge signs are opposites.

Complementarity is a principle derived from physics, in which two opposing descriptions of reality are each true, yet a fuller truth arises from considering them both. The differences embedded in EcoTypes arise from our differing interactions with reality and can be a strength, if we are willing to engage with people whose EcoTypes differ from—indeed, may be the opposite of—ours.

You may want to explore your complementary EcoType by engaging with someone who has been assigned it. Complementarity isn’t about agreement!…but it’s not about simple disagreement either. Exploring your complementary EcoType is more like creative tension, whereby your EcoType is true to your experience of reality, the complementary EcoType is true to a differing experience of reality, and the both offer a fuller truth—even though they may contradict each other. This may sound impossible…but try it!

Here is more information, and an AI-assisted exercise you can try, to further explore complementarity.

If at least two of your Place, Knowledge, and/or Action theme scores were the same strength (i.e., absolute value) as your minimum theme score, you received a notification like the above. As you learned above, your EcoType is derived from your two strongest theme scores, but in this case you don’t have two that are strongest!

So, your report will give you one EcoType, then link to one or two other EcoType possibilities you may consider. Do look at all of your EcoTypes to decide which one you feel best represents you.

You may have received a notice on your report that, due to your survey resulting in at least two theme scores of 0, you weren’t assigned an EcoType nor a complementary EcoType. The reason is that you are situated right between several EcoTypes!

Let’s say your Place and Action theme scores ended up as 0. The example at left, from Knowledge/Action Ecotypes, shows one of the pairs of EcoTypes you are between. Here you scored toward old Knowledge, but on the boundary between small and big Action, thus on the boundary between Personal Wisdom and Radical Spirituality.

If this happened to you, feel free to take the EcoTypes survey again. Maybe next time your scores will place you into an EcoType—and then you will receive your complementary EcoType as well.

Most of us think a lot about the things immediately around us, but we also share this larger world, so EcoTypes is designed to prompt discussions around our respective global priorities.

And the possibility we consider in EcoTypes—many care, just differently—almost certainly applies to our global priorities. These differences may arise in part from our differing EcoTypes.

The EcoTypes survey includes a section on your global priorities, based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the same way that your EcoType is related to a wide range of dimensions (EcoTypes axes) including but not limited to what we think of as “environmental” ones, the SDGs include a wide range of global priorities, including but not limited to “environmental” ones. So, for instance, Climate Action is an SDG, but so are No Poverty, Gender Equality, and others.

If you’d like to directly connect an SDG to an EcoType, feel free to browse all twelve EcoTypes, each of which includes a sample persona—an idealized person representing that EcoType—and one SDG they support. You’ll notice a wide range of SDGs associated with our twelve EcoTypes!