From Plate to Planet... what do you think?
At Warwick our researchers are making a real-world impact. Professor Thijs Van Rens (Department of Economics) is looking at how to get people to change the food they eat so it's better for their health and the planet.
He was curious to know what might make readers of inbox insite change their food shopping habits. Well, the results are in - over to you Thijs to tell us more!
When we asked, "What would help you to buy more sustainable groceries?", only 11 of you said that nothing would change your shopping habits. That's encouraging, because it shows that something has to happen, and we know it.
The results
The two most popular options in the poll were environmental labels on food products and small discounts for more sustainable foods, with 118 votes.
"Labels have an obvious appeal. They're informative, preserve consumer choice, and feel like a gentle way to encourage better decisions. They're also consistently the most popular policy whenever researchers ask members of the public what they would like to see implemented. The awkward truth, however, is that labels don't do very much to change what we buy.
A large body of research shows that environmental, and nutritional, labels have only modest effects on food choices. The reason is likely that information isn't the main barrier. Most of us already know, broadly speaking, which foods are better for the planet and which are healthier. The real barriers are habits, convenience, time pressure and, above all, price."
"We've seen the same pattern in our own research. In a large field trial on the website of a major UK supermarket, environmental labels by themselves had only a small effect on purchasing decisions. But they became much more powerful when combined with financial incentives. Labels helped people identify the better option, while discounts gave them a reason to choose it.
That's why it's particularly encouraging that you also showed strong support for fiscal measures. Together, discounts for sustainable foods and taxes on less sustainable products accounted for 191 responses, almost 60 per cent of the total. This reflects a strong evidence base: changing prices changes behaviour. If we're serious about reducing the environmental impact of our food system, these are the policies most likely to deliver meaningful change."
"As an economist, I feel compelled to make a slightly dismal point. Unsurprisingly, discounts were much more popular than taxes. But subsidies and taxes are really two sides of the same coin. Any subsidy has to be financed somehow, which inevitably means higher taxes eventually.
The advantage of subsidising sustainable food is that the money can come from income tax rather than higher food prices. That allows the costs to be shared progressively, with those most able to contribute - and who also tend to have the largest environmental footprints - paying more. In previous research, colleagues here at Warwick and I showed that a well-designed subsidy, funded in this way, could leave every household better off, provided families shift at least some of their spending towards more sustainable food.
Sometimes the policies that work best aren't the ones that sound most exciting. But if we want to make sustainable food the easy choice, the evidence suggests that getting the prices right may be one of the most powerful tools we have."
Thijs.
We'd love to know what you think below. If you're Interested in finding our more, you can read about Thijs’ research and how our diets could be costing the earth.
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