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

Astrid Kause,Henrik Olsson,Joel Millward-Hopkins,Wändi Bruine De Bruin

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab465d

Abstract

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.

Highlights

Food production and agriculture account for over 25% of annual anthropogenic global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Springmann et al 2016)
Our findings suggest that participants struggled to identify effective rules for reducing their food-related carbon footprints (Clune et al 2017, Hartmann and Siegrist 2017, Shi et al 2018)
The vast majority was unable to generate the most effective rules recommended by existing life cycle analyses from climate and environmental sciences

Summary

Introduction

Food production and agriculture account for over 25% of annual anthropogenic global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Springmann et al 2016). Due to a growing world population, global food-related GHG emissions are expected to increase substantially (Bajželj et al 2014, He et al 2018). Collective dietary changes among consumers could potentially reduce 29%–70% of food-related GHG emissions, while improving human health (Springmann et al 2016, Charles et al 2018). Life cycle analyses from climate and environmental sciences have quantified the GHG emissions or ‘carbon footprints’ associated with different food groups and their supply chains (Clune et al 2017; table S4 is available online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/14/114005/ mmedia). 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)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion