What Nudge Techniques Work for Food Waste Behaviour Change at the Consumer Level? A Systematic Review

Abstract

In European countries over 40% of food loss and waste occurs at the retail and consumer stages; this situation cannot be sustained and remediation is urgently needed; opportunities for change must be created. “Nudge” techniques have been shown to be effective in changing behaviour in areas related to food consumption (e.g., healthy diet), but the effectiveness of interventions using nudge techniques to change food waste behaviours remains unclear, despite a growing body of research. The aim of this review is to elucidate means to change household food waste behaviour using nudge approaches and identify priority needs for further research. Four databases, grey literature and reference lists were searched systematically to identify relevant research on nudges to change food waste behaviours. This search identified sixteen peer-reviewed research articles and two grey literature reports that were critically appraised using a critical appraisal checklist framework for descriptive/case series. Four studies deemed reliable show interventions using nudges of social norms, reminders or social norms with disclosure were effective in changing food waste behaviours at the household level, while disclosure alone, i.e., revealing environmental costs of food waste, was not. This review, unique in the application of a critical appraisal, suggests there is reliable information on the effectiveness of nudge for food waste recycling interventions when incorporating nudges of social norms, reminders or disclosure alongside use of social norms. If food waste recycling behaviour is considered an upstream measure to raise consumers’ consciousness on the amount of food waste they produce, this may have a positive impact on food waste reduction and therefore has important policy implications for food waste behaviour change at the household level.

Predicting the Intention to Sort Waste at Home in Rural Communities in Lebanon: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

“…In parallel, waste collection and treatment infrastructures must be in place so that citizens can see that sorting waste is the norm. The “social norms approach”, which has been shown effective in behavioural interventions using nudging techniques [ 36 ], can be effective only once a system is in place and people are using it.…”

“…Varotto and Spagnolli found that social modelling and environmental alterations were the most effective techniques used in behavioural interventions to promote the recycling of waste [ 34 ]. Similarly, a recent review focusing on using behavioural nudges to incentivise household recycling identified social norms and reminders of norms as the main predictor of behaviour [ 36 ].…”

Are You “Nudgeable”? Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthy Eating Nudges in a Cafeteria Setting

“…Similarly, a recent systematic review focusing on nudging in the food waste area only found four high-quality studies on social norm nudging to be effective. This review mentions that social norm should be applied with care as interventions, because they might reinforce negative behavior [ 14 ].…”

“…Other researchers considered the effect sizes of nudges promoting healthy eating to be small (Cohen’s d = 0.23) [ 11 ] or nudges to result in multi-directional effects [ 12 ]. Nudge effectiveness also depends on the type of nudge [ 13 , 14 ], suggesting that one-nudge-fits-all designs will fail to achieve population-broad objectives. For example, nudges applied in a cafeteria improved the eating behavior in employees but resulted in the opposite behavior in students.…”

Using Behavioral Interventions to Reduce Single-Use Produce Bags

“…An intervention targeting perception is showing a marine animal (e.g., a turtle) trapped in plastic debris which was found to reduce plastic waste (Luo et al, 2022). An intervention targeting memory is a reminder that highlights the environmental consequences which reduced food waste (Barker et al, 2021). An effort intervention is moving the recycling bins closer to people's doors which increased recycling rates by over 130% (DiGiacomo et al, 2018).…”