Consumers underestimate the emissions associated with food but are aided by labels

Camilleri, Adrian R.; Larrick, Richard P.; Hossain, Shajuti; Patiño‐Echeverri, Dalia

doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0354-z

Cited by 219 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…First, consumers who seek to reduce their carbon footprint may benefit from food labels and associated information campaigns (Upham et al 2011, Vandenbergh et al 2011, Camilleri et al 2019 that communicate effective rules such as 'Buy seasonal' or 'Buy white instead of red meat'. At present, consumers may be influenced by food labels prevalent around them that encourage them e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While experts from climate and environmental sciences may prefer to communicate GHG emission reductions in grams, others may find numerical format to be abstract, complex, and unfamiliar. Such communications may be further simplified by providing consumers with a single GHG emission value that they can use for comparison (Galesic et al 2016, McDowell andJacobs 2017), such as the GHG emissions associated with a medium-sized tomato (Camilleri et al 2019). Also, numerical formats like GHG emissions per calorie or average portion size (Camilleri et al 2019) might make communications about food-related GHG emissions easier to understand.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such communications may be further simplified by providing consumers with a single GHG emission value that they can use for comparison (Galesic et al 2016, McDowell andJacobs 2017), such as the GHG emissions associated with a medium-sized tomato (Camilleri et al 2019). Also, numerical formats like GHG emissions per calorie or average portion size (Camilleri et al 2019) might make communications about food-related GHG emissions easier to understand. Health communications use simple visualizations for communicating risks that may also be helpful in the climate domain (McDowell et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the second task, participants estimated how much GHG emissions could be reduced by implementing four pre-selected rules for their assigned food group (produce, dairy, or protein-rich products), following procedures from previous research (Attari et al 2010, Camilleri et al 2019. Participants who were assigned to evaluating pre-selected rules in grams were asked 'How many grams of GHGs such as CO2 do you think are SAVED by the following changes?'…”

Section: Pre-selected Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…GHG emissions associated with protein-rich products can be reduced by replacing meat with plant-based products (Clune et al 2017). However, for non-expert consumers, understanding the various steps of food supply chains and how they influence food-related GHG emissions may be rather daunting (Camilleri et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

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

Kause

Bruin

Millward-Hopkins

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Carbon footprints-the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with consumer food choicessubstantially 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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pre-selected Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

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

Kause

Bruin

Millward-Hopkins

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Improving carbon footprint estimates of food items with a simple seeding procedure

Bröder

Dülz

Heidecke

et al. 2023

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Laypeople's estimates of carbon footprints have repeatedly shown to be deficient, which may hinder targeted behavior change to reduce CO 2 emissions. In an online study (N = 127), a vast underestimation of carbon footprints for 60 food items was observed in an on average highly educated convenience sample, confirming a lack of carbon footprints knowledge. Then, target carbon footprint values for a small subset of 15 "seeding" items were provided, which led to a large improvement in a second estimate for both the seeding as well as the remaining transfer items. A lens model analysis showed that participants adjusted the weighting of several predictors in the correct direction due to this simple intervention. It is argued that although almost 30 years old, "seeding the knowledge base" has probably been neglected as an effective low-cost intervention for improving quantitative knowledge of the public. This is especially important concerning societal problems that rely on adequate numerical knowledge for behavior regulation.

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The power of climate labels the search for an optimal label design

Stephansen,

Lane

2023

Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing

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The importance of finding new, innovative ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions has received increased attention. Climate labels are a means for this, where the life cycle emissions of a product are often given in combination with an icon. This article surveys the phenomenon of climate labels while varying their design to prompt more sustainable food consumption. Recipe boxes were selected as an example emphasizing the increasing popularity of shopping for groceries online. An online choice experiment was conducted where Danish respondents selected recipe boxes in two different scenarios: (a) the ‘all‐or‐nothing’ (binary) approach with a binary label on low‐emitting choices only and (b) the three‐tier rank‐order approach, where all meals are assigned a graphical rating. By assigning recipe boxes scores ranking from 0 to 2 based on the level of climate pollution, a measurement of the total score from a choice of recipe boxes made it possible to compare the effect of the two different approaches for climate labelling. Statistical tests indicated a significant difference between the two types of climate labels and their persuasive effect on consumer choice. They revealed that the three‐tier rank‐order approach results in more sustainable consumption than the binary approach. In demographics, younger individuals and females proved to be the most conscious in their choices.

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Consumers underestimate the emissions associated with food but are aided by labels

Cited by 219 publications

References 52 publications

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

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

Improving carbon footprint estimates of food items with a simple seeding procedure

The power of climate labels the search for an optimal label design

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