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Consumers underestimate the emissions associated with food but are aided by labels

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 53–58 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Food production is a major cause of energy use and GHG emissions, and therefore diet change is an important behavioural strategy for reducing associated environmental impacts. However, a severe obstacle to diet change may be consumers’ underestimation of the environmental impacts of different types of food. Here we show that energy consumption and GHG emission estimates are significantly underestimated for foods, suggesting a possible blind spot suitable for intervention. In a second study, we find that providing consumers with information regarding the GHG emissions associated with the life cycle of food, presented in terms of a familiar reference unit (light-bulb minutes), shifts their actual purchase choices away from higher-emission options. Thus, although consumers’ poor understanding of the food system is a barrier to reducing energy use and GHG emissions, it also represents a promising area for simple interventions such as a well-designed carbon label.

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Fig. 1: Mean estimates of energy used relative to actual energy used.
Fig. 2: Mean estimates of GHG emitted relative to actual GHG emitted.
Fig. 3: Results of a mediation analysis in Study 2.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings are available at https://osf.io/smj67.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from Duke University’s Bass Connections initiative. A.R.C. was supported by a fellowship from the American Australian Association. D.P.-E. received financial support from the Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (SES-0949710) funded by the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to thank M. Seigerman for research assistance. The authors would also like to thank CleanMetrics for granting them access to FoodCarbonScope.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia

    Adrian R. Camilleri

  2. Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Richard P. Larrick

  3. Duke University School of Law, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Shajuti Hossain

  4. Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Dalia Patino-Echeverri

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  1. Adrian R. Camilleri
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  4. Dalia Patino-Echeverri
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Contributions

A.R.C., R.P.L., S.H. and D.P.-E. designed the research. A.R.C. and S.H. performed the research. A.R.C. and S.H. analysed the data. A.R.C., R.P.L. and D.P.-E. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Adrian R. Camilleri.

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Supplementary Notes 1–7, Supplementary Figures 1–4, Supplementary Tables 1–6, Supplementary references

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Camilleri, A.R., Larrick, R.P., Hossain, S. et al. Consumers underestimate the emissions associated with food but are aided by labels. Nature Clim Change 9, 53–58 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0354-z

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