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Encouraging Sustainable Food Choices
C H A P T E R
9 Encouraging Sustainable Food Choices Not too long ago, I was asking after the vegetarian option at one of the food places at Christchurch Airport. The display counter was filled with sandwiches and pizza slices, all laden with meat. Admittedly, airports are not necessarily known for catering to vegans and vegetraians, but I thought I would give it a try. The guy behind the counter gave me a bit of an odd look and quipped ‘oh, you’re one of those’. Many people will know that it is important to eat a healthy diet. Many people will also probably agree that food should be produced in ways that are not too harmful to the environment. But, when making decisions about what to eat, concerns about the environment or concerns about health are often at odds with other considerations such as taste, price, convenience or (in my case) public ridicule. In the fields of public health and nutrition, scholars have been grappling with the issue of how to change food-related behaviours for a long time. In her book Food Politics, Marion Nestle (2007), Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University outlines a set of public policies that can be employed to encourage people to make better food choices, encompassing education, food labelling, changes in the (urban) environment and pricing. Education includes national campaigns to promote better food choices, as well as various initiatives to promote healthy eating in schools for example teaching teachers about healthy eating and nutrition. Food labelling and advertising include measures such as introducing compulsory food labels in fast-food restaurants and prohibiting misleading health claims in advertising. Changes in the urban environment include the provision of incentives for communities
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TABLE 9.1 Overview of Interventions Applied to Encourage Sustainable Food Choices Covered in This Chapter Intervention
Example
Effectiveness
Sample studies
Information and education
Meatless Mondays
Raises knowledge and awareness, limited effect on food choices
Hanss and Bo¨hm (2013), Morris et al. (2014)
Message framing
Affects attitudes, awareness, intentions
Berndsen and van der Pligt (2005), Graham and Abrahamse (2017), Vermeir and Verbeke (2008)
Food labelling
Carbon labels
Consumers do not tend to use environmental labels in food purchasing decisions can be effective when combined with price signals
Grunert et al. (2014), Vanclay et al. (2011)
Nudging
Making vegetarian option the default
Increases choice of the default meal
Campbell-Arvai et al. (2014)
Pricing
Discount of organic produce
Effective, but effect tends to be short-lived
Bamberg (2002)
to create parks and green space that promote physical activity. Finally, pricing includes taxation of unhealthy foods and subsidising the cost of fruits and vegetables. In this chapter, I use Nestle’s outline to structure an investigation of how sustainable food choices might be encouraged. There is relatively little research on how to encourage people to eat sustainable diets (Garnett, Mathewson, Angelides, & Borthwick, 2015). In particular, there is little research exploring initiatives to encourage people to reduce meat consumption (Dagevos & Voordouw, 2013). Drawing on illustrative examples from social and environmental psychology and the health promotion field, I provide an overview of behaviour change interventions to encourage the uptake of local, organic, and plant-based diets (see also Box 9.1). I discuss the effect of four types of interventions, summarised in Table 9.1: (1) information and education, (2) food labelling, (3) changes in the food environment via choice architecture (‘nudging’) and (4) pricing. What can we learn from the health promotion literature about how to encourage people to eat more sustainably?
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BOX 9.1
GREEN CONSUMERISM For consumers, choosing foods with a low environmental impact can be a conundrum. A shift to more environmentally sustainable foods comes with certain trade-offs. More and more people are looking for an alternative to cow’s milk, for example. But, soymilk may contain genetically modified organisms, and large areas of forest land will have been converted into soy plantations. Almond milk is problematic, because growing almonds requires vast amounts of water it apparently takes an estimated 5 L (1.1 gallons) of water to grow one almond, and about 80% of almond production occurs in California, an area experiencing severe droughts (The Guardian, 2015). Because people have started shifting away from regular milk, niche products have been developed to meet the demand for non-dairy alternatives. In some coffee shops, you can now find coconut milk cappuccinos, hemp milk lattes, or oat milk flat whites (which probably taste a bit like porridge?). People’s preferences (or, consumer demand) can encourage producers to come up with alternatives that are more environmentally sustainable.
INFORMATION AND EDUCATION Results from the health promotion literature on the effectiveness of information in altering food choices is mixed. Some scholars argue that information provision increases knowledge, but that the effects on actual food purchases are minimal (Nestle et al., 1998). A review of the literature on nutritional information and dietary choices (Drichoutis, Lazaridis, & Nayga, 2006) concludes, however, that the provision of nutritional information can lead to a reduction in the consumption of unhealthy foods among certain (motivated) subgroups of consumers. Based on the existing research, the authors of this review conclude that people who are on specific diets, consumers who buy organic products and people who are more aware of the link between nutrition and health are more likely to use nutrition information to guide their food choices. This suggests that there are individual differences in how people use nutritional information and that information that is tailored to these individual differences might be a more effective approach than generic information. For an example of research from the health promotion field, using a more targeted approach, see Box 9.2. Psychological research has examined the effect of information provision in encouraging people to eat sustainable foods. A study from
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BOX 9.2
M E AT- F R E E V I A T E X T M E S S A G E A group of researchers (Carfora, Caso, & Conner, 2017) used an innovative way to encourage a reduction in meat consumption: the use of text messages (SMS). The intervention was aimed at reducing red meat consumption among Italian students. Before the intervention, 62.3% of participants in the study were eating more than the recommended (two) medium portions of red meat per week. Students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Students in the intervention group received a text message on seven consecutive days that reminded them of their goal which was to not eat more than two medium portions of red meat per week. The text messages were effective in reducing red meat consumption. After the 7-day intervention, 23.3% of participants in the text message group were eating above the recommended portions per week, compared with 56.6% of participants in the control group. The results also indicate that their identity as a meat eater was affected. Following the intervention, those in the text message group identified less strongly with being a meat eater, compared with before the intervention.
Norway examined the effect of the provision of information to encourage the purchasing of sustainable groceries (Hanss & Bo¨hm, 2013). Participants were given a sum of money they could spend on groceries via an online platform and survey. People were then presented with pairs of products; one of these products was either an environmentally sustainable product (e.g., organic, or eco-label) or a socially sustainable product (e.g., Fair Trade), and the other was a conventional product. The price matched the average supermarket prices for each of these products; the sustainable alternatives were more expensive than the conventional ones. The researchers assigned people to either a treatment group or a control group. People in the treatment group were provided with information about how consumers can help mitigate environmental and social problems through sustainable consumption. People in the control group did not receive any information. The results of this study suggest that the provision of information about sustainable consumption strengthened people’s intentions to purchase sustainable groceries. The information also encouraged the purchasing of sustainable groceries (certified organic and fair trade products), which went up 23% in the intervention group and 3.5% in the control group during the 8-week intervention period. As this was a
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hypothetical situation, however, and people were given money to spend on groceries, it is not clear to what extent these changes in behaviour would manifest themselves in a real shopping situation. While there are several initiatives aimed at encouraging the consumption of local and organic foods, there are not that many educational campaigns that promote a reduction in meat consumption. Nongovernmental organisations are reluctant to mount campaigns that focus on a reduction of meat consumption through personal behaviour change, because it is seen as ‘an issue with limited social and political appeal’ (Laestadius, Neff, Barry, & Frattaroli, 2014, p. 32). One exception is the Meat Free (or Meatless) Monday campaign, an initiative that started in the United Kingdom in 2009, and now has an online presence in many countries, including Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain), the Americas (Canada, the United States, Brazil), Australasia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand) and Africa (South Africa). Marketed as an initiative to reduce meat consumption to help the planet and people’s health, it plays on Monday being the first day of people’s weekly routine making it more likely that people will act on their intentions. The Meatless Monday campaign includes education and information, recipe ideas, celebrity chef endorsements and pledges people can sign (publicly) to go meat free on Mondays. An analysis of the campaign (Morris, Kirwan, & Lally, 2014) offers that although the initiative has large global followings, ‘they are not translating the idea of eating less meat in any significant way into the mainstream, principally because their demands are too radical’ (p. 189).
Message Framing Information and education can also make use of message framing. The premise of message framing is that the same issue can be considered from different perspectives. Framing ‘refers to the process by which people develop a particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an issue’ (Chong & Druckman, 2007, p. 104). Information provision can be framed to make certain aspects more salient than others (this was discussed in more detail in Chapter 3: Behaviour Change Interventions). A Belgian study (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006) used message framing to systematically vary perceived availability across informational messages (other aspects were varied, but fall beyond the scope of this chapter). This was based on the premise that perceived lack of availability is one of the barriers for consumers to buy organic foods. In the study, students were shown a written advertisement promoting sustainable dairy
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products of a hypothetical brand called Le Fermier. The advert contained information about Le Fermier’s production methods and positive outcomes for sustainability; this was the message shown to the control group. Students in the experimental group were shown a message that was framed in such a way as to suggest that Le Fermier products were widely available and included a website and phone number. The results of the study found that students who had seen the message in which the availability of Le Fermier products had been emphasised reported higher levels of perceived availability of these products, compared with the control group. In turn, higher levels of perceived availability were associated with stronger intentions to buy Le Fermier products. While the findings are based on a hypothetical scenario, they do suggest that framing a message to focus on certain aspects (in this case the availability of organic products) could foster sustainable food choices. Another piece of research used different types of message frames to examine attitudes towards meat consumption and intentions to reduce it (Berndsen & van der Pligt, 2005). The researchers found that a newspaper article about meat consumption with an affective focus (i.e., ‘anxiety about heart disease’) was associated with less positive attitudes towards eating meat than a more cognitive focus (i.e., ‘prevalence of heart disease’). Further, a message outlining the moral issues associated with meat consumption (i.e., ‘many cattle that live solely for the purpose of consumption, live under miserable conditions’) was associated with less positive attitudes towards meat and stronger intentions to reduce meat consumption. The findings indicate that information that emphasises affective or moral motivations might lead to stronger intentions to reduce meat consumption.
Message Framing Based on Values: A Case Study Meat consumption and vegetarianism are related to people’s selfenhancement and self-transcendence values (see Chapter 8: Eating Sustainably: Values, Attitudes and Identity). Tom Graham, one of my former Master’s students, and I explored whether the provision of information would raise awareness of the climate impacts of eating meat (Graham & Abrahamse, 2017). Our study was based on two premises. The first was that people are not aware of the link between their meat consumption and climate change (Campbell-Arvai, 2015; De Boer et al., 2016). The second was that self-enhancement and self-transcendence values are related to meat consumption (Kalof, Dietz, Stern, & Guagnano, 1999); this could mean that people with different values respond differently to the same information about reducing meat consumption. To examine this, we used
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message framing, which directs the content of a message in a specific way (e.g., a focus on self-interest or altruism, but not both). Information that is aligned with people’s existing values and beliefs is believed to be more effective in changing attitudes and awareness (Chong & Druckman, 2007). Tom meticulously calculated the carbon emission savings associated with a reduction in meat consumption (based on prior research using life cycle assessment). He then developed two messages: one emphasised the emission savings for an individual (aimed to appeal to people with strong self-enhancement values) or for New Zealand as a whole (aimed to appeal to people with strong self-transcendence values; see Box 9.3). The first message was focused on the climate change impacts of meat consumption at an individual level and included the benefits of reducing one’s meat consumption for reducing an individual’s carbon footprint. The assumption was that people with stronger selfenhancement values would consider the impacts of their own actions. We also included a message that was focused on the collective benefits
BOX 9.3
EXCERPTS FROM THE VA L U E - C O N G R U E N T M E S S A G E S Self-enhancement message (excerpt)
Self-transcendence message (excerpt)
If as an individual, you reduce your meat intake to the WHO recommended 90 grams per day this will reduce your carbon emissions by about 561 kilograms a year (in carbon equivalent terms), which is the equivalent of driving your car 7837 kilometres. [. . .] Individually, you can make a difference
If as a country, we reduce our meat intake to the WHO recommended 90 grams per day this will reduce New Zealand’s carbon emissions by about 1.77 million tons a year (in carbon equivalent terms), which is the equivalent of all 4.5 million of us driving an average car for 7837 kilometres each. [. . .] Together we can make a difference
From Graham, T., & Abrahamse, W. (2017). Communicating the climate impacts of meat consumption: The effect of values and message framing. Global Environmental Change, 44, 98 108.
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of every New Zealander reducing their carbon footprint, and emphasising the collective benefits for New Zealand as a country; we assumed this message would appeal more to those with high self-transcendence values. A sample of about 850 New Zealand residents took part in our study. New Zealand has a unique emissions profile because agriculture contributes a relatively high proportion (47%) to the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions (Ministry for the Environment, 2013). At the same time, many consider agriculture as the backbone of New Zealand’s economy and farming is a strong symbol of nationhood and New Zealand identity (Potts & White, 2008). New Zealand is ranked among countries with the highest consumption rates of meat per person; only 1% 2% of the population self-identify as vegetarian (Ruby, 2012). Survey participants first filled out the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ; see Chapter 2: Understanding the Drivers of Human Behaviour) to assess self-enhancement and self-transcendence values. The survey also included questions about a range of food choices, including meat and dairy consumption, and the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and nuts and cereals (an attempt to try and mask the purpose of the study). Then, participants were randomly assigned to a no-information control group, a message targeting self-enhancement values or a message targeting self-transcendence values. By framing the message in different ways, the aim was to appeal to the two different values. Our expectation was that the individually focused message would appeal more to those with stronger self-enhancement values and the society-focused message would appeal more to those with stronger self-transcendence values. The first premise of our study was that people are not aware of the climate impacts of eating meat, and that information provision can help raise awareness of this issue. We indeed found that the provision of information was associated with significantly higher levels of concern about the climate impacts of meat consumption, compared with the control group. We also found that people who had read the information about the climate impacts of eating meat expressed significantly lower intentions to eat meat, but attitudes towards meat consumption were not affected (see Fig. 9.1). The literature also outlines that people with different values and beliefs respond to the same information in a different way. We found some evidence in support of this. The information (regardless of how it was framed) was associated with higher levels of awareness of the climate impacts of meat consumption among people with relatively low levels of environmental concern. This suggests that the provision of information about the climate impacts of meat consumption can be particularly effective in raising awareness about this issue among people with low levels of environmental concern. The provision of the message
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FOOD LABELLING
7
Control
Information
6 5
5.1 4.6
4.2
4
4.2
3.9
4.2
3 2 1 Concern about GHGs from meat
Intentions to eat meat
Attitudes to meat
FIGURE 9.1 Effect of information provision on concern, intentions, and attitudes. The scale runs from 1 (low or negative) to 7 (high or positive).
was also associated with higher levels of concern about climate impacts of meat production for those with stronger self-transcendence values, presumably because the content of the information was in line with their value sets (i.e., people with stronger self-transcendence values were less likely to eat meat). The findings indicate that people with different values and levels of environmental concern may respond differently to the same information. The second premise of our study was that message framing could affect how people responded to the message. We expected that people with strong self-enhancement values would respond more favourably to the message that emphasised the individual benefits of reducing one’s meat consumption, and that people with strong self-transcendence values would respond more favourably to the message that emphasised the collective benefits for New Zealand. But, we did not find much evidence for this effect and our ‘message framing hypothesis’ was not supported. Perhaps our message framing was too subtle as both messages mentioned the environmental impacts of eating meat.
FOOD LABELLING Food labels provide information that can support sustainable food choices. Eco-labels indicate the environmental sustainability of a product, for example, whether a product is organic (e.g., USDA certified organic) or comes from environmentally certified forests (Rainforest Alliance). Social sustainability is highlighted via Fair Trade certification schemes (e.g., Max Havelaar coffee) and animal welfare labels (e.g., free range eggs). The industry often uses food labels to gain a competitive advantage.
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Recent additions include carbon and water footprint labels, which indicate the amount of carbon emissions and water required to make a product. Carbon labelling is ‘the practice of publicly communicating, via a label associated with a product or service, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the life cycle of that product or service’ (Upham, Dendler, & Bleda, 2011). One of the first carbon labelling schemes was launched in the United Kingdom in 2009 by the supermarket chain Tesco. The retailer introduced carbon labels on their products as ‘a revolution in green consumption’ (The Guardian, 2012). In 2012, Tesco discontinued the scheme partly because apparently other retailers were not following suit. To what extent do consumers take sustainability labels into account when they make decisions about what to buy? Various studies have examined the relationships between consumer motivations and use of sustainability labels, such as local, organic and Fair Trade labels. Some studies find that people with stronger self-transcendence values express a stronger preference for foods that have carbon labels (Grebitus, Steiner, & Veeman, 2015). Others have focused on the role of knowledge and prior experience and familiarity (Grunert, Hieke, & Wills, 2014; Peschel, Grebitus, Steiner, & Veeman, 2016). A cross-national study (Grunert et al., 2014) examined people’s familiarity and use of various sustainability labels. These included environmental labels (Carbon Footprint, Rainforest Alliance) and ethical labels (Fair Trade and Animal Welfare). The sample included over 4000 people from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Poland. The results indicate that while people generally seem to show concern about environmental issues, and know what the food labels represent (e.g., sustainability, ethical concerns), consumers did not seem to use the labels much in their purchasing decisions. People were more likely to use price and nutritional information instead. A study in Australia examined the effectiveness of eco-labels on actual food purchases in a convenience store (Vanclay et al., 2011). The authors used point-of-sale data to identify products that sold well and that had sufficient choice, such as milk, spreadable butter, canned tomatoes and bottled water. These products were classified according to their embodied emissions (e.g., transport, packaging) and were either labelled as average (yellow footprint), above average (black footprint) or below average emissions (green footprint). An analysis based on point-of-sale data of B3000 items during a 12-week period found that sales of greenlabelled items increased from 53% to 57%, while sales of black-labelled products declined from 32% to 26%. When green-labelled products were cheaper than the yellow- or black-labelled alternative, the increase in sales was 20%. The results of the study indicate that a combination of environmental labelling and price signals can encourage the uptake of environmentally sustainable food products. IV. FOOD
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CHOICE ARCHITECTURE (‘NUDGING’) Choice architecture involves making small changes to the design of the environment to influence people’s behaviours and decisions. Nudging simplifies decision making: ‘A nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. [. . .] Putting fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not’ (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). In the health promotion field, nudging is used to help people make healthier food choices. This is done via changing the placement or proximity of certain foods, for example, placing healthy snacks by the checkout counter instead of chocolate bars. Research suggests that nudging can positively influence healthy food choices, but that additional interventions are also needed (Bucher et al., 2016; Nestle, 2016). To illustrate, a study of snack shops at a train station in the Netherlands found that when healthy foods were repositioned near the cash register, sales of healthy foods increased, compared with when healthy foods were placed elsewhere in the shop. But, sales of unhealthy foods did not change (Kroese, Marchiori, & de Ridder, 2015). One study has examined the use of nudging to encourage the uptake of environmentally sustainable (i.e., vegetarian and vegan) meals in a campus cafeteria (Campbell-Arvai, Arvai, & Kalof, 2014). The study consisted of two phases. In the first phase, a small group of undergraduate students rated the appeal of various meat-free meal options. The most appealing (i.e., three-cheese lasagne) and unappealing meals (i.e., vegetarian sloppy joe sandwich), as rated by these students, were included in phase 2. In this second phase, students visiting a campus cafeteria were presented with various meal options and asked to make (a hypothetical) choice. The menus systematically varied in three aspects. The meat-free option was either made the default (‘meal of the day’) or not; it either had a vignette signalling its environmental impact (i.e., a food label) or not; and it was either appealing (i.e., lasagne) or unappealing (i.e., sloppy joe). Students were significantly more likely to choose the meatfree option was the default option on the menu compared with when it was not the default. Appeal of the meat-free option also significantly influenced meal choice: the lasagne was chosen more often than the sloppy joe. But, the food label did not affect meal choice (see Fig. 9.2). Because of the design of the study, the researchers were also able to examine the three aspects in combination. When meat-free meals were appealing and were made the default, students chose the meat-free meal in 95% of the cases. But without the nudge, students only chose
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FIGURE 9.2 Proportion of students who chose the appealing or unappealing vegetarian option as a function of nudging and information. Source: Campbell-Arvai, V., Arvai, J., & Kalof, L. (2014). Motivating sustainable food choices: The role of nudges, value orientation, and information provision. Environment and Behavior, 46(4), 453 475.
the meat-free meal 48% of the time even when the meat-free meals were appealing and even when they had an environmental food label. The results indicate that the use of nudging may encourage the uptake of environmentally sustainable food choices. But, the study consisted of a hypothetical choice scenario; it is not clear whether the use of nudging would encourage the uptake of actual meat-free options from the cafeteria menu. Clearly more research is needed to examine whether nudging is an effective strategy to encourage sustainable food choices in realworld settings.
PRICING AND FOOD CHOICES Price incentives and disincentives are often used to change food choices and can be an effective strategy (for an overview, see Nestle et al., 1998). French (2003) reports the findings of two studies during which price incentives were used to increase the uptake of healthy foods. In study 1, vending machines were stocked with lower-fat snacks and the prices of low-fat options were reduced by 10%, 25% and 50% relative to the higher-fat snacks. Price reductions were associated with higher sales of low-fat snacks from these vending machines, by 9%, 39% and 93%, respectively. This result was replicated in a second study, where a lower price of fruit and vegetables in secondary school cafeterias resulted in significant increases in fruit and vegetable purchases. But when price levels went back to normal, fruit and vegetable purchases went back
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to normal too. The effectiveness of incentives is generally short-lived once the incentive is taken away (e.g., Horgen & Brownell, 2002; Jeffery, French, Raether, & Baxter, 1994). This could have something do to with the fact that price signals appeal to people’s extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, motivation. This means that when prices go back to normal, the motivation for doing the behaviour is taken away. A study by Bamberg (2002) is one of the few in the environmental field to experimentally test the effectiveness of price incentives on sustainable food choices. Participants in the study were 320 university students who were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Students in the control group were given a voucher (worth US$2.50 at the time), which they could redeem at a local eco store. Students in the first experimental group were given a higher financial incentive: a voucher worth about US$7.50. Students in the second experimental group received a voucher worth US$2.50 (same as the control group), and they were asked to write down when they would redeem the voucher in the next 7 days (an intervention known as ‘implementation intention’, discussed in Chapter 3: Behaviour Change Interventions). Students in the third experimental group were given a combination of the US$7.50 voucher and an implementation intention intervention. Students in the intervention groups were more likely to redeem the voucher at the eco store than students in the control group (34%), but there were no significant differences between the three experimental groups (50%, 54% and 61%, respectively). The results indicate that the incentive was effective in encouraging the purchase of organic products, but that implementation intentions did not have an additional effect. Taxation is an example of a financial disincentive to influence food choices. Making unhealthy or unsustainable food products more expensive provides a price signal for consumers to buy fewer of these products. Revenues of such a tax could then be used to help pay for price reductions of healthier or environmentally friendly food products. A number of European countries have experimented with some form of taxation on specific products, such as sugar (Norway) and sugary drinks (France) (European Public Health Alliance, 2012). In 2011, Denmark introduced a tax on saturated fat in food products (the so-called ‘fat tax’) and it included meat and dairy products. It was a supplement to existing taxes on sugar, chocolate and soft drinks. Research findings indicate that the Danish fat tax had a small effect on meat and dairy consumption. One of these studies (Jensen, Smed, Aarup, & Nielsen, 2016) used retail data for a period of 18 months and found that the introduction of the tax on saturated fats resulted in a 4% 6% decreased in intake of saturated fats from meat (beef), but there was no change in intake from dairy products such as sour cream. The Danish ‘fat tax’ was repealed not long after implementation. IV. FOOD
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NEXT STEPS How can sustainable diets be encouraged? The body of research in this area suggests that information provision might be effective, but that it only works for certain groups of people people with specific value sets, for example. The effectiveness of information provision seems to mainly manifest itself in increased levels of awareness, but not in commensurate changes in behaviour. Tailored information, or message framing, whereby people receive information that speaks to what they believe is important, may be a more effective approach. Food labelling does not always seem to encourage consumers to buy the environmentally or socially sustainable food option. But some research suggests that food labels that display the environmental impact of a food product can affect food choices, in particular when the environmentally friendly product is also cheaper than the conventional version. Nudging is an appealing (and increasingly popular) intervention to encourage changes in food choices, and there is some evidence that this encourages sustainable food choices. Several studies from the health promotion field have observed change in behaviour as a result of changing the default (e.g., placing healthy snacks close to the checkout counter). Scholars also caution that while nudging has great appeal (i.e., all one has to do is change the default), nudging on its own may not yield long-term changes in food choices. Incentives and disincentives do have effects on food choices, but these effects are mostly short-lived. And disincentives, such as taxation, can run into opposition from the public and the food industry. Perhaps incentives can yield more durable effects when they are combined with other interventions, such as education campaigns or food labelling. More intervention research is needed in the area of encouraging sustainable food choices and meat consumption in particular. Several of the studies I included in this chapter involved some type of hypothetical (choice) scenario, which means it is not known whether any changes in behaviour would occur in ‘real life’ as well. The complexity of encouraging sustainable food consumption also calls for more interdisciplinary research. Collaborations between for example consumer psychology (food labelling, product familiarity), health and nutrition sciences (cooking skills, dietary changes), environmental sciences (environmental impact assessments of foods) and sociology (how our food choices are socially organised) can provide useful insights into how to encourage sustainable diets. This research would also require input from stakeholders such as the food industry, farmers, retailers and (airport) restaurants.
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9 Encouraging Sustainable Food Choices Not too long ago, I was asking after the vegetarian option at one of the food places at Christchurch Airport. The display counter was filled with sandwiches and pizza slices, all laden with meat. Admittedly, airports are not necessarily known for catering to vegans and vegetraians, but I thought I would give it a try. The guy behind the counter gave me a bit of an odd look and quipped ‘oh, you’re one of those’. Many people will know that it is important to eat a healthy diet. Many people will also probably agree that food should be produced in ways that are not too harmful to the environment. But, when making decisions about what to eat, concerns about the environment or concerns about health are often at odds with other considerations such as taste, price, convenience or (in my case) public ridicule. In the fields of public health and nutrition, scholars have been grappling with the issue of how to change food-related behaviours for a long time. In her book Food Politics, Marion Nestle (2007), Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University outlines a set of public policies that can be employed to encourage people to make better food choices, encompassing education, food labelling, changes in the (urban) environment and pricing. Education includes national campaigns to promote better food choices, as well as various initiatives to promote healthy eating in schools for example teaching teachers about healthy eating and nutrition. Food labelling and advertising include measures such as introducing compulsory food labels in fast-food restaurants and prohibiting misleading health claims in advertising. Changes in the urban environment include the provision of incentives for communities
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TABLE 9.1 Overview of Interventions Applied to Encourage Sustainable Food Choices Covered in This Chapter Intervention
Example
Effectiveness
Sample studies
Information and education
Meatless Mondays
Raises knowledge and awareness, limited effect on food choices
Hanss and Bo¨hm (2013), Morris et al. (2014)
Message framing
Affects attitudes, awareness, intentions
Berndsen and van der Pligt (2005), Graham and Abrahamse (2017), Vermeir and Verbeke (2008)
Food labelling
Carbon labels
Consumers do not tend to use environmental labels in food purchasing decisions can be effective when combined with price signals
Grunert et al. (2014), Vanclay et al. (2011)
Nudging
Making vegetarian option the default
Increases choice of the default meal
Campbell-Arvai et al. (2014)
Pricing
Discount of organic produce
Effective, but effect tends to be short-lived
Bamberg (2002)
to create parks and green space that promote physical activity. Finally, pricing includes taxation of unhealthy foods and subsidising the cost of fruits and vegetables. In this chapter, I use Nestle’s outline to structure an investigation of how sustainable food choices might be encouraged. There is relatively little research on how to encourage people to eat sustainable diets (Garnett, Mathewson, Angelides, & Borthwick, 2015). In particular, there is little research exploring initiatives to encourage people to reduce meat consumption (Dagevos & Voordouw, 2013). Drawing on illustrative examples from social and environmental psychology and the health promotion field, I provide an overview of behaviour change interventions to encourage the uptake of local, organic, and plant-based diets (see also Box 9.1). I discuss the effect of four types of interventions, summarised in Table 9.1: (1) information and education, (2) food labelling, (3) changes in the food environment via choice architecture (‘nudging’) and (4) pricing. What can we learn from the health promotion literature about how to encourage people to eat more sustainably?
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BOX 9.1
GREEN CONSUMERISM For consumers, choosing foods with a low environmental impact can be a conundrum. A shift to more environmentally sustainable foods comes with certain trade-offs. More and more people are looking for an alternative to cow’s milk, for example. But, soymilk may contain genetically modified organisms, and large areas of forest land will have been converted into soy plantations. Almond milk is problematic, because growing almonds requires vast amounts of water it apparently takes an estimated 5 L (1.1 gallons) of water to grow one almond, and about 80% of almond production occurs in California, an area experiencing severe droughts (The Guardian, 2015). Because people have started shifting away from regular milk, niche products have been developed to meet the demand for non-dairy alternatives. In some coffee shops, you can now find coconut milk cappuccinos, hemp milk lattes, or oat milk flat whites (which probably taste a bit like porridge?). People’s preferences (or, consumer demand) can encourage producers to come up with alternatives that are more environmentally sustainable.
INFORMATION AND EDUCATION Results from the health promotion literature on the effectiveness of information in altering food choices is mixed. Some scholars argue that information provision increases knowledge, but that the effects on actual food purchases are minimal (Nestle et al., 1998). A review of the literature on nutritional information and dietary choices (Drichoutis, Lazaridis, & Nayga, 2006) concludes, however, that the provision of nutritional information can lead to a reduction in the consumption of unhealthy foods among certain (motivated) subgroups of consumers. Based on the existing research, the authors of this review conclude that people who are on specific diets, consumers who buy organic products and people who are more aware of the link between nutrition and health are more likely to use nutrition information to guide their food choices. This suggests that there are individual differences in how people use nutritional information and that information that is tailored to these individual differences might be a more effective approach than generic information. For an example of research from the health promotion field, using a more targeted approach, see Box 9.2. Psychological research has examined the effect of information provision in encouraging people to eat sustainable foods. A study from
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BOX 9.2
M E AT- F R E E V I A T E X T M E S S A G E A group of researchers (Carfora, Caso, & Conner, 2017) used an innovative way to encourage a reduction in meat consumption: the use of text messages (SMS). The intervention was aimed at reducing red meat consumption among Italian students. Before the intervention, 62.3% of participants in the study were eating more than the recommended (two) medium portions of red meat per week. Students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Students in the intervention group received a text message on seven consecutive days that reminded them of their goal which was to not eat more than two medium portions of red meat per week. The text messages were effective in reducing red meat consumption. After the 7-day intervention, 23.3% of participants in the text message group were eating above the recommended portions per week, compared with 56.6% of participants in the control group. The results also indicate that their identity as a meat eater was affected. Following the intervention, those in the text message group identified less strongly with being a meat eater, compared with before the intervention.
Norway examined the effect of the provision of information to encourage the purchasing of sustainable groceries (Hanss & Bo¨hm, 2013). Participants were given a sum of money they could spend on groceries via an online platform and survey. People were then presented with pairs of products; one of these products was either an environmentally sustainable product (e.g., organic, or eco-label) or a socially sustainable product (e.g., Fair Trade), and the other was a conventional product. The price matched the average supermarket prices for each of these products; the sustainable alternatives were more expensive than the conventional ones. The researchers assigned people to either a treatment group or a control group. People in the treatment group were provided with information about how consumers can help mitigate environmental and social problems through sustainable consumption. People in the control group did not receive any information. The results of this study suggest that the provision of information about sustainable consumption strengthened people’s intentions to purchase sustainable groceries. The information also encouraged the purchasing of sustainable groceries (certified organic and fair trade products), which went up 23% in the intervention group and 3.5% in the control group during the 8-week intervention period. As this was a
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hypothetical situation, however, and people were given money to spend on groceries, it is not clear to what extent these changes in behaviour would manifest themselves in a real shopping situation. While there are several initiatives aimed at encouraging the consumption of local and organic foods, there are not that many educational campaigns that promote a reduction in meat consumption. Nongovernmental organisations are reluctant to mount campaigns that focus on a reduction of meat consumption through personal behaviour change, because it is seen as ‘an issue with limited social and political appeal’ (Laestadius, Neff, Barry, & Frattaroli, 2014, p. 32). One exception is the Meat Free (or Meatless) Monday campaign, an initiative that started in the United Kingdom in 2009, and now has an online presence in many countries, including Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain), the Americas (Canada, the United States, Brazil), Australasia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand) and Africa (South Africa). Marketed as an initiative to reduce meat consumption to help the planet and people’s health, it plays on Monday being the first day of people’s weekly routine making it more likely that people will act on their intentions. The Meatless Monday campaign includes education and information, recipe ideas, celebrity chef endorsements and pledges people can sign (publicly) to go meat free on Mondays. An analysis of the campaign (Morris, Kirwan, & Lally, 2014) offers that although the initiative has large global followings, ‘they are not translating the idea of eating less meat in any significant way into the mainstream, principally because their demands are too radical’ (p. 189).
Message Framing Information and education can also make use of message framing. The premise of message framing is that the same issue can be considered from different perspectives. Framing ‘refers to the process by which people develop a particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an issue’ (Chong & Druckman, 2007, p. 104). Information provision can be framed to make certain aspects more salient than others (this was discussed in more detail in Chapter 3: Behaviour Change Interventions). A Belgian study (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006) used message framing to systematically vary perceived availability across informational messages (other aspects were varied, but fall beyond the scope of this chapter). This was based on the premise that perceived lack of availability is one of the barriers for consumers to buy organic foods. In the study, students were shown a written advertisement promoting sustainable dairy
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products of a hypothetical brand called Le Fermier. The advert contained information about Le Fermier’s production methods and positive outcomes for sustainability; this was the message shown to the control group. Students in the experimental group were shown a message that was framed in such a way as to suggest that Le Fermier products were widely available and included a website and phone number. The results of the study found that students who had seen the message in which the availability of Le Fermier products had been emphasised reported higher levels of perceived availability of these products, compared with the control group. In turn, higher levels of perceived availability were associated with stronger intentions to buy Le Fermier products. While the findings are based on a hypothetical scenario, they do suggest that framing a message to focus on certain aspects (in this case the availability of organic products) could foster sustainable food choices. Another piece of research used different types of message frames to examine attitudes towards meat consumption and intentions to reduce it (Berndsen & van der Pligt, 2005). The researchers found that a newspaper article about meat consumption with an affective focus (i.e., ‘anxiety about heart disease’) was associated with less positive attitudes towards eating meat than a more cognitive focus (i.e., ‘prevalence of heart disease’). Further, a message outlining the moral issues associated with meat consumption (i.e., ‘many cattle that live solely for the purpose of consumption, live under miserable conditions’) was associated with less positive attitudes towards meat and stronger intentions to reduce meat consumption. The findings indicate that information that emphasises affective or moral motivations might lead to stronger intentions to reduce meat consumption.
Message Framing Based on Values: A Case Study Meat consumption and vegetarianism are related to people’s selfenhancement and self-transcendence values (see Chapter 8: Eating Sustainably: Values, Attitudes and Identity). Tom Graham, one of my former Master’s students, and I explored whether the provision of information would raise awareness of the climate impacts of eating meat (Graham & Abrahamse, 2017). Our study was based on two premises. The first was that people are not aware of the link between their meat consumption and climate change (Campbell-Arvai, 2015; De Boer et al., 2016). The second was that self-enhancement and self-transcendence values are related to meat consumption (Kalof, Dietz, Stern, & Guagnano, 1999); this could mean that people with different values respond differently to the same information about reducing meat consumption. To examine this, we used
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message framing, which directs the content of a message in a specific way (e.g., a focus on self-interest or altruism, but not both). Information that is aligned with people’s existing values and beliefs is believed to be more effective in changing attitudes and awareness (Chong & Druckman, 2007). Tom meticulously calculated the carbon emission savings associated with a reduction in meat consumption (based on prior research using life cycle assessment). He then developed two messages: one emphasised the emission savings for an individual (aimed to appeal to people with strong self-enhancement values) or for New Zealand as a whole (aimed to appeal to people with strong self-transcendence values; see Box 9.3). The first message was focused on the climate change impacts of meat consumption at an individual level and included the benefits of reducing one’s meat consumption for reducing an individual’s carbon footprint. The assumption was that people with stronger selfenhancement values would consider the impacts of their own actions. We also included a message that was focused on the collective benefits
BOX 9.3
EXCERPTS FROM THE VA L U E - C O N G R U E N T M E S S A G E S Self-enhancement message (excerpt)
Self-transcendence message (excerpt)
If as an individual, you reduce your meat intake to the WHO recommended 90 grams per day this will reduce your carbon emissions by about 561 kilograms a year (in carbon equivalent terms), which is the equivalent of driving your car 7837 kilometres. [. . .] Individually, you can make a difference
If as a country, we reduce our meat intake to the WHO recommended 90 grams per day this will reduce New Zealand’s carbon emissions by about 1.77 million tons a year (in carbon equivalent terms), which is the equivalent of all 4.5 million of us driving an average car for 7837 kilometres each. [. . .] Together we can make a difference
From Graham, T., & Abrahamse, W. (2017). Communicating the climate impacts of meat consumption: The effect of values and message framing. Global Environmental Change, 44, 98 108.
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of every New Zealander reducing their carbon footprint, and emphasising the collective benefits for New Zealand as a country; we assumed this message would appeal more to those with high self-transcendence values. A sample of about 850 New Zealand residents took part in our study. New Zealand has a unique emissions profile because agriculture contributes a relatively high proportion (47%) to the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions (Ministry for the Environment, 2013). At the same time, many consider agriculture as the backbone of New Zealand’s economy and farming is a strong symbol of nationhood and New Zealand identity (Potts & White, 2008). New Zealand is ranked among countries with the highest consumption rates of meat per person; only 1% 2% of the population self-identify as vegetarian (Ruby, 2012). Survey participants first filled out the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ; see Chapter 2: Understanding the Drivers of Human Behaviour) to assess self-enhancement and self-transcendence values. The survey also included questions about a range of food choices, including meat and dairy consumption, and the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and nuts and cereals (an attempt to try and mask the purpose of the study). Then, participants were randomly assigned to a no-information control group, a message targeting self-enhancement values or a message targeting self-transcendence values. By framing the message in different ways, the aim was to appeal to the two different values. Our expectation was that the individually focused message would appeal more to those with stronger self-enhancement values and the society-focused message would appeal more to those with stronger self-transcendence values. The first premise of our study was that people are not aware of the climate impacts of eating meat, and that information provision can help raise awareness of this issue. We indeed found that the provision of information was associated with significantly higher levels of concern about the climate impacts of meat consumption, compared with the control group. We also found that people who had read the information about the climate impacts of eating meat expressed significantly lower intentions to eat meat, but attitudes towards meat consumption were not affected (see Fig. 9.1). The literature also outlines that people with different values and beliefs respond to the same information in a different way. We found some evidence in support of this. The information (regardless of how it was framed) was associated with higher levels of awareness of the climate impacts of meat consumption among people with relatively low levels of environmental concern. This suggests that the provision of information about the climate impacts of meat consumption can be particularly effective in raising awareness about this issue among people with low levels of environmental concern. The provision of the message
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Intentions to eat meat
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FIGURE 9.1 Effect of information provision on concern, intentions, and attitudes. The scale runs from 1 (low or negative) to 7 (high or positive).
was also associated with higher levels of concern about climate impacts of meat production for those with stronger self-transcendence values, presumably because the content of the information was in line with their value sets (i.e., people with stronger self-transcendence values were less likely to eat meat). The findings indicate that people with different values and levels of environmental concern may respond differently to the same information. The second premise of our study was that message framing could affect how people responded to the message. We expected that people with strong self-enhancement values would respond more favourably to the message that emphasised the individual benefits of reducing one’s meat consumption, and that people with strong self-transcendence values would respond more favourably to the message that emphasised the collective benefits for New Zealand. But, we did not find much evidence for this effect and our ‘message framing hypothesis’ was not supported. Perhaps our message framing was too subtle as both messages mentioned the environmental impacts of eating meat.
FOOD LABELLING Food labels provide information that can support sustainable food choices. Eco-labels indicate the environmental sustainability of a product, for example, whether a product is organic (e.g., USDA certified organic) or comes from environmentally certified forests (Rainforest Alliance). Social sustainability is highlighted via Fair Trade certification schemes (e.g., Max Havelaar coffee) and animal welfare labels (e.g., free range eggs). The industry often uses food labels to gain a competitive advantage.
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Recent additions include carbon and water footprint labels, which indicate the amount of carbon emissions and water required to make a product. Carbon labelling is ‘the practice of publicly communicating, via a label associated with a product or service, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the life cycle of that product or service’ (Upham, Dendler, & Bleda, 2011). One of the first carbon labelling schemes was launched in the United Kingdom in 2009 by the supermarket chain Tesco. The retailer introduced carbon labels on their products as ‘a revolution in green consumption’ (The Guardian, 2012). In 2012, Tesco discontinued the scheme partly because apparently other retailers were not following suit. To what extent do consumers take sustainability labels into account when they make decisions about what to buy? Various studies have examined the relationships between consumer motivations and use of sustainability labels, such as local, organic and Fair Trade labels. Some studies find that people with stronger self-transcendence values express a stronger preference for foods that have carbon labels (Grebitus, Steiner, & Veeman, 2015). Others have focused on the role of knowledge and prior experience and familiarity (Grunert, Hieke, & Wills, 2014; Peschel, Grebitus, Steiner, & Veeman, 2016). A cross-national study (Grunert et al., 2014) examined people’s familiarity and use of various sustainability labels. These included environmental labels (Carbon Footprint, Rainforest Alliance) and ethical labels (Fair Trade and Animal Welfare). The sample included over 4000 people from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Poland. The results indicate that while people generally seem to show concern about environmental issues, and know what the food labels represent (e.g., sustainability, ethical concerns), consumers did not seem to use the labels much in their purchasing decisions. People were more likely to use price and nutritional information instead. A study in Australia examined the effectiveness of eco-labels on actual food purchases in a convenience store (Vanclay et al., 2011). The authors used point-of-sale data to identify products that sold well and that had sufficient choice, such as milk, spreadable butter, canned tomatoes and bottled water. These products were classified according to their embodied emissions (e.g., transport, packaging) and were either labelled as average (yellow footprint), above average (black footprint) or below average emissions (green footprint). An analysis based on point-of-sale data of B3000 items during a 12-week period found that sales of greenlabelled items increased from 53% to 57%, while sales of black-labelled products declined from 32% to 26%. When green-labelled products were cheaper than the yellow- or black-labelled alternative, the increase in sales was 20%. The results of the study indicate that a combination of environmental labelling and price signals can encourage the uptake of environmentally sustainable food products. IV. FOOD
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CHOICE ARCHITECTURE (‘NUDGING’) Choice architecture involves making small changes to the design of the environment to influence people’s behaviours and decisions. Nudging simplifies decision making: ‘A nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. [. . .] Putting fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not’ (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). In the health promotion field, nudging is used to help people make healthier food choices. This is done via changing the placement or proximity of certain foods, for example, placing healthy snacks by the checkout counter instead of chocolate bars. Research suggests that nudging can positively influence healthy food choices, but that additional interventions are also needed (Bucher et al., 2016; Nestle, 2016). To illustrate, a study of snack shops at a train station in the Netherlands found that when healthy foods were repositioned near the cash register, sales of healthy foods increased, compared with when healthy foods were placed elsewhere in the shop. But, sales of unhealthy foods did not change (Kroese, Marchiori, & de Ridder, 2015). One study has examined the use of nudging to encourage the uptake of environmentally sustainable (i.e., vegetarian and vegan) meals in a campus cafeteria (Campbell-Arvai, Arvai, & Kalof, 2014). The study consisted of two phases. In the first phase, a small group of undergraduate students rated the appeal of various meat-free meal options. The most appealing (i.e., three-cheese lasagne) and unappealing meals (i.e., vegetarian sloppy joe sandwich), as rated by these students, were included in phase 2. In this second phase, students visiting a campus cafeteria were presented with various meal options and asked to make (a hypothetical) choice. The menus systematically varied in three aspects. The meat-free option was either made the default (‘meal of the day’) or not; it either had a vignette signalling its environmental impact (i.e., a food label) or not; and it was either appealing (i.e., lasagne) or unappealing (i.e., sloppy joe). Students were significantly more likely to choose the meatfree option was the default option on the menu compared with when it was not the default. Appeal of the meat-free option also significantly influenced meal choice: the lasagne was chosen more often than the sloppy joe. But, the food label did not affect meal choice (see Fig. 9.2). Because of the design of the study, the researchers were also able to examine the three aspects in combination. When meat-free meals were appealing and were made the default, students chose the meat-free meal in 95% of the cases. But without the nudge, students only chose
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FIGURE 9.2 Proportion of students who chose the appealing or unappealing vegetarian option as a function of nudging and information. Source: Campbell-Arvai, V., Arvai, J., & Kalof, L. (2014). Motivating sustainable food choices: The role of nudges, value orientation, and information provision. Environment and Behavior, 46(4), 453 475.
the meat-free meal 48% of the time even when the meat-free meals were appealing and even when they had an environmental food label. The results indicate that the use of nudging may encourage the uptake of environmentally sustainable food choices. But, the study consisted of a hypothetical choice scenario; it is not clear whether the use of nudging would encourage the uptake of actual meat-free options from the cafeteria menu. Clearly more research is needed to examine whether nudging is an effective strategy to encourage sustainable food choices in realworld settings.
PRICING AND FOOD CHOICES Price incentives and disincentives are often used to change food choices and can be an effective strategy (for an overview, see Nestle et al., 1998). French (2003) reports the findings of two studies during which price incentives were used to increase the uptake of healthy foods. In study 1, vending machines were stocked with lower-fat snacks and the prices of low-fat options were reduced by 10%, 25% and 50% relative to the higher-fat snacks. Price reductions were associated with higher sales of low-fat snacks from these vending machines, by 9%, 39% and 93%, respectively. This result was replicated in a second study, where a lower price of fruit and vegetables in secondary school cafeterias resulted in significant increases in fruit and vegetable purchases. But when price levels went back to normal, fruit and vegetable purchases went back
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to normal too. The effectiveness of incentives is generally short-lived once the incentive is taken away (e.g., Horgen & Brownell, 2002; Jeffery, French, Raether, & Baxter, 1994). This could have something do to with the fact that price signals appeal to people’s extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, motivation. This means that when prices go back to normal, the motivation for doing the behaviour is taken away. A study by Bamberg (2002) is one of the few in the environmental field to experimentally test the effectiveness of price incentives on sustainable food choices. Participants in the study were 320 university students who were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Students in the control group were given a voucher (worth US$2.50 at the time), which they could redeem at a local eco store. Students in the first experimental group were given a higher financial incentive: a voucher worth about US$7.50. Students in the second experimental group received a voucher worth US$2.50 (same as the control group), and they were asked to write down when they would redeem the voucher in the next 7 days (an intervention known as ‘implementation intention’, discussed in Chapter 3: Behaviour Change Interventions). Students in the third experimental group were given a combination of the US$7.50 voucher and an implementation intention intervention. Students in the intervention groups were more likely to redeem the voucher at the eco store than students in the control group (34%), but there were no significant differences between the three experimental groups (50%, 54% and 61%, respectively). The results indicate that the incentive was effective in encouraging the purchase of organic products, but that implementation intentions did not have an additional effect. Taxation is an example of a financial disincentive to influence food choices. Making unhealthy or unsustainable food products more expensive provides a price signal for consumers to buy fewer of these products. Revenues of such a tax could then be used to help pay for price reductions of healthier or environmentally friendly food products. A number of European countries have experimented with some form of taxation on specific products, such as sugar (Norway) and sugary drinks (France) (European Public Health Alliance, 2012). In 2011, Denmark introduced a tax on saturated fat in food products (the so-called ‘fat tax’) and it included meat and dairy products. It was a supplement to existing taxes on sugar, chocolate and soft drinks. Research findings indicate that the Danish fat tax had a small effect on meat and dairy consumption. One of these studies (Jensen, Smed, Aarup, & Nielsen, 2016) used retail data for a period of 18 months and found that the introduction of the tax on saturated fats resulted in a 4% 6% decreased in intake of saturated fats from meat (beef), but there was no change in intake from dairy products such as sour cream. The Danish ‘fat tax’ was repealed not long after implementation. IV. FOOD
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NEXT STEPS How can sustainable diets be encouraged? The body of research in this area suggests that information provision might be effective, but that it only works for certain groups of people people with specific value sets, for example. The effectiveness of information provision seems to mainly manifest itself in increased levels of awareness, but not in commensurate changes in behaviour. Tailored information, or message framing, whereby people receive information that speaks to what they believe is important, may be a more effective approach. Food labelling does not always seem to encourage consumers to buy the environmentally or socially sustainable food option. But some research suggests that food labels that display the environmental impact of a food product can affect food choices, in particular when the environmentally friendly product is also cheaper than the conventional version. Nudging is an appealing (and increasingly popular) intervention to encourage changes in food choices, and there is some evidence that this encourages sustainable food choices. Several studies from the health promotion field have observed change in behaviour as a result of changing the default (e.g., placing healthy snacks close to the checkout counter). Scholars also caution that while nudging has great appeal (i.e., all one has to do is change the default), nudging on its own may not yield long-term changes in food choices. Incentives and disincentives do have effects on food choices, but these effects are mostly short-lived. And disincentives, such as taxation, can run into opposition from the public and the food industry. Perhaps incentives can yield more durable effects when they are combined with other interventions, such as education campaigns or food labelling. More intervention research is needed in the area of encouraging sustainable food choices and meat consumption in particular. Several of the studies I included in this chapter involved some type of hypothetical (choice) scenario, which means it is not known whether any changes in behaviour would occur in ‘real life’ as well. The complexity of encouraging sustainable food consumption also calls for more interdisciplinary research. Collaborations between for example consumer psychology (food labelling, product familiarity), health and nutrition sciences (cooking skills, dietary changes), environmental sciences (environmental impact assessments of foods) and sociology (how our food choices are socially organised) can provide useful insights into how to encourage sustainable diets. This research would also require input from stakeholders such as the food industry, farmers, retailers and (airport) restaurants.
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