Abstract
As population growth continues, sustainable food behaviour is essential to help reduce the anthropogenic modification of natural systems, driven by food production and consumption, resulting in environmental and health burdens and impacts. Nudging, a behavioural concept, has potential implications for tackling these issues, encouraging change in individuals’ intentions and decision-making via indirect proposition and reinforcement; however, lack of empirical evidence for effectiveness and the controversial framework for ethical analysis create challenges. This systematic review evaluated the effectiveness of nudging interventions on sustainable food choices, searching five databases to identify the effectiveness of such interventions. Of the 742 identified articles, 14 articles met the eligibility criteria and were included in this review. Overall, the potential of certain nudging interventions for encouraging sustainable food choices were found in strategies that targeted ‘system 1’ thinking (automatic, intuitive and non-conscious, relying on heuristics, mental shortcuts and biases), producing outcomes which were more statistically significant compared to interventions requiring consumer deliberation. Gender, sensory influences, and attractiveness of target dishes were highlighted as pivotal factors in sustainable food choice, hence research that considers these factors in conjunction with nudging interventions is required.
Highlights
Population growth, increased per capita global affluence, urbanisation, increased food productivity and food diversity, decreased seasonal dependence, and food prices have caused major shifts in global dietary and consumption patterns (Lassalette et al, 2014; Tillman and Clark, 2014; Davis et al, 2016)
Vecchio and Cavallo (2019) suggested that, overall, nudge strategies successfully increased healthy nutritional choices by 15.3% (Vecchio and Cavallo, 2019). These results show that nudges are generally effective in promoting healthier food choices and sustainable practices and behaviours, none of the studies examined the effectiveness of nudging interventions on sustainable food consumption (SFC)
Overall effectiveness of nudging interventions on SFC The 14 articles included in this systematic reviews (SR) all focused on SFC in the form of food choice behaviour and were conducted in North America and Europe
Summary
Population growth, increased per capita global affluence, urbanisation, increased food productivity and food diversity, decreased seasonal dependence, and food prices have caused major shifts in global dietary and consumption patterns (Lassalette et al, 2014; Tillman and Clark, 2014; Davis et al, 2016). The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) suggest that food production will have to increase by 70% to feed an additional 2.3 billion people by 2050, with the majority of this population growth occurring in developing countries (FAO et al, 2020). Issues surrounding the allocation and utilisation of cereal grains has led to 43% being used for human food consumption, 36% for animal feed and 21% for other industrial uses such as biofuels. This utilisation can price the most vulnerable people out of the world grain market, limiting food choices, purchases, and human wellbeing (Cohen, 2017). The FAO estimate that 8.9% (690 million) of the global population are undernourished and 9.7% (750 million) are exposed to severe levels of food insecurity (FAO et al, 2020)
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