Public perceptions of how to reduce carbon footprints of consumer food choices

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Astrid Kause
  • Wandi Bruine de Bruin
  • Joel Millward-Hopkins
  • Henrik Olsson

Carbon footprints - the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with consumer food choices - substantially contribute to climate change. Life cycle analyses from climate and environmental sciences have identified effective rules for reducing these food-related GHG emissions, including eating seasonal produce and replacing dairy and red meat with plant-based products. In a national UK survey, we studied how many and which rules our participants generated for reducing GHG emissions of produce, dairy, and protein-rich products. We also asked participants to estimate GHG emission reductions associated with pre-selected rules, expressed in either grams or percentages. We found that participants generated few and relatively less effective rules, including ambiguous ones like 'Buy local'. Furthermore, participants' numerical estimates of pre-selected rules were less accurate when they assessed GHG emission reductions in grams rather than in percentages. Findings suggest a need for communicating fewer rules in percentages, for informing consumers about reducing food-related GHG emissions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number114005
JournalEnvironmental Research Letters
Volume14
Issue number11
Number of pages9
ISSN1748-9318
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11.2019
Externally publishedYes

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Multiple import sourcing.
  2. Wasted compliance strategies? The policy-making styles of Hungary and Poland in the implementation of European environmental directives
  3. Investigation on the Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Mg–Gd–Nd Ternary Alloys
  4. Digital innovation and transformation
  5. The impact of key audit matter (KAM) disclosure in audit reports on stakeholders’ reactions
  6. Aktionsforschung
  7. ORCHIDEE-SOM
  8. Unseating Mastery: The University and the Promise of the New
  9. Dynamische Bestandsdimensionierung
  10. Konfiguration der PPS
  11. Differenzielle Effekte der Unterrichtsqualität auf die aktive Lernzeit.
  12. University students’ experience of the Beirut port explosion
  13. The Bigger Picture of Corruption
  14. Design, construction, and operation of tailored permeable reactive barriers
  15. Present knowledge and need for further research
  16. Reconciling food security and biodiversity conservation
  17. Archival research on carbon reporting quality. A review of determinants and consequences for firm value
  18. Kaianlagen deutscher Containerterminals
  19. Nicht erpressen lassen
  20. Wind
  21. Monitoring im Rahmen der Strategischen Umweltprüfung
  22. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly by Judith Butler . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
  23. We Strike, Therefore We Are?
  24. Defining value in sustainable business models
  25. Wird es morgen regnen?
  26. Arbeitnehmerfreizügigkeit
  27. Imagining organization through metaphor and metonymy
  28. Leistungsanalyse in der Closed Loop Supply Chain
  29. The role of intuition in vaccination attitudes
  30. The influence of sustainability knowledge and attitude on sustainable intention and behaviour of Malaysian and Indonesian undergraduate students
  31. A Note on Firm Age and the Margins of Exports
  32. Im Schatten des Vielfaltsdiskurses
  33. Open to Offers, but Resisting Requests
  34. Unternehmerpersönlichkeit
  35. Unobserved firm heterogeneity and the establishment size