Abstract Robust data on the state of relationships between people and nature is a critical component of the evidence base for environmental governance at local, national and global scales. Social surveys are a valuable method already used by some governmental and non‐governmental organisations to gather this evidence. However, a lack of coordination hampers efforts to harness the potential of people‐and‐nature surveys to better inform policy and practice. Specifically, designers and administrators of people‐and‐nature surveys should ensure that surveys are relevant to current policy challenges, robust in their use of socially and statistically validated questions, and the data produced are accessible to diverse communities for research, practice and advocacy. Integrating the experience of a group of UK survey researchers and practitioners, this Perspective identifies six actions to enhance the value of people‐and‐nature surveys for environmental governance: strengthen access to survey data; co‐define meaningful constructs and questions; invest in continuing datasets; mix methods appropriately; track the use and impact of survey insights; and foster partnerships and capacity sharing to enable these actions. Together, these actions could enable people‐and‐nature surveys to better serve user needs, build cross‐scale usability and contribute critical insights on progress towards national and global environmental goals. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.