Abstract
This paper reports on a landmark study to field-test the influence of a large retailer to change the behaviour of its millions of customers. Previous studies have suggested that social media interaction can influence behaviour. This study implemented three interventions with messages to encourage reductions in food waste. The first was a social influence intervention that used the retailer’s Facebook pages to encourage its customers to interact. Two additional information interventions were used as a comparison through the retailer’s print/digital magazine and e-newsletter. Three national surveys tracked customers’ self-reported food waste one month before as well as two weeks after and five months after the interventions. The control group included those who said they had not seen any of the interventions. The results were surprising and significant in that the social media and e-newsletter interventions as well as the control group all showed significant reductions in self-reported food waste by customers over the study period. Hence in this field study, social media does not seem to replicate enough of the effect of ‘face-to-face’ interaction shown in previous studies to change behaviour above other factors in the shopping setting. This may indicate that results from laboratory-based studies may over-emphasise the effect of social media interventions.
Highlights
This study explores whether social media can be used to influence the behaviour of a large retailer’s customers on food waste reduction in the household
We report on a field experiment with the UK supermarket Asda to reduce food waste generated by its customers through a number of behaviour change interventions
This paper focuses on ‘avoidable’ household food waste as Lebersorger and Schneider (2011) state the greatest potential for reduction of food waste in the developed world is with retailers, food services and in particular, consumers
Summary
This study explores whether social media can be used to influence the behaviour of a large retailer’s customers on food waste reduction in the household. Typical activities include the provision of infrastructure (e.g., household recycling bins), legal structures (e.g., vehicle emission related taxes), incentives (e.g., such as renewable energy technology subsidies) and related information campaigns to change attitudes and behaviour (Auld et al, 2014). These all try to shift consumers to more sustainable lifestyles. In the United Kingdom alone 15 million tonnes of food and drink are thrown away annually (WRAP, 2013a) It is not solely the amount of food wasted that has increased interest in this waste stream but the impact it has economically, socially and environmentally. It has become clear recently that minimising food waste is crucial for obtaining a sustainable food system as it has serious economic, social and environmental repercussions (Goebel et al, 2015)
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