Towards reduced meat consumption: A systematic literature review of intervention effectiveness, 2001-2019.

Mitigating Climate Change via Food Consumption and Food Waste: A Systematic Map of Behavioral Interventions

Towards reduced meat consumption: A systematic literature review of intervention effectiveness, 2001–2019

Reviewer Adam Oliver finds that Richard Thaler’s new book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics, covers the core concepts of behavioural economics, but finds that this book is more a ‘personal intellectual history, supplemented by stories, anecdotes and occasional reposts to past combatants’ that misses two important issues ‘relating to suggestions for the future development of behavioural economics’.

Book review: misbehaving: the making of behavioural economics

How and when higher climate change risk perception promotes less climate change inaction

Meat consumption and production cause a significant share of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the food sector. Behavioural food policy suggests the use of defaults – i.e., pre-setting a specific choice option – as an effective demand-side instrument to reduce meat consumption. This preregistered systematic review compiles, critically appraises, and synthesizes existing empirical evidence on such food defaults. Beyond that, potential effect moderators are explored. The systematic search yields twelve individual studies comprising sixteen different default interventions. We find that defaults are generally effective in nudging consumers to eat less meat. The studies’ risk of bias is assessed to be moderate. Yet, the effect size appears to be influenced by a range of moderators. In particular, the invasiveness of the default, the presentation of alternatives to choose from, and consumers’ gender and setting experience appear to moderate the effect. Overall, evidence is still limited, and heterogeneity in the design and implementation of interventions is large. Further research is needed to understand the impact of effect moderators and to assess the long-term and large-scale effectiveness. We conclude that defaults are a promising tool for climate-sensitive food policy, with more knowledge needed to profoundly inform policymakers and implementing actors.

Can green defaults reduce meat consumption

Systematic Map Protocol

• Green defaults are effective in reducing meat consumption. • Defaults that aim to reduce meat consumption operate mainly through the mechanisms of endorsement and effort, whereby the former seems to be stronger. • Contextual moderators such as the default’s invasiveness, the recognisability and presentation of the alternative, and the objective of the study setting further affect the default impact. • Future research to verify and quantify the impact of mechanisms and moderators, and to assess the long-term and large-scale effectiveness of defaults is needed. Meat consumption and production cause a significant share of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the food sector. Behavioural food policy suggests using defaults – i.e., pre-setting a specific choice option – as an effective demand-side instrument to reduce meat consumption. This systematic review compiles, critically appraises, and synthesises existing empirical evidence on defaults that aim to reduce meat consumption. Beyond that, the underlying mechanisms and potential effect moderators in this context are explored. Our synthesis includes twelve individual studies comprising sixteen different default interventions. Although the extent of evidence is limited, we assess the quality to be relatively good. We find that defaults are effective in nudging consumers to eat less meat; despite heterogeneity in the design and implementation of interventions, virtually all studies find the default to reduce meat consumption. Moreover, our explorative analysis provides insights into how the default works in this context. First, we suppose the default primarily operates through the underlying mechanisms of endorsement and effort. Second, we identify four contextual moderators – namely the default’s invasiveness, the recognisability and presentation of the alternative, and the objective of the study setting – that appear to influence the impact. We conclude that defaults are a promising tool for climate-sensitive food policy. Future research could verify and quantify the causal impact of mechanisms and moderators, and assess defaults’ long-term and large-scale effectiveness. 

Johanna Meier

Papers

Mitigating Climate Change via Food Consumption and Food Waste: A Systematic Map of Behavioral Interventions

Can green defaults reduce meat consumption

Systematic Map Protocol

Review: Do green defaults reduce meat consumption?

An Augmented Environmental Kuznets Curve (Ekc) and a New Measure for Water Pollution – Evidence from Africa