Climate impact labels could help people eat less red meat

Climate impact labels on foods like red meat are an effective way to get people to stop choosing options that negatively affect the planet, study finds.< /p>

Policymakers have debated how to get people to make lower-carbon food choices. In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report urged world leaders, especially those in developed countries, to support a transition to sustainable, healthy and low-emission diets.< /p>

In the UK, Henry Dimbleby, the government's food czar, recently said it was politically impossible for a government to tell people to stop eating. eat so much meat. Around 85% of farmland in England is used as pasture for animals such as cows or to grow food which is then fed to livestock. Dimbleby believes that a 30% reduction in meat over 10 years is needed for land to be used sustainably in England, while Greenpeace argues for a 70% reduction.

The clinical trial, published in the journal Jama Network Open, found that consumers respond well to climate labeling on their food.

Participants in the study, which used a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States, viewed a fast food menu and were asked to select an item they would like to order for dinner. Participants were randomized to view menus with one of three labels: a quick response code label on all items (control group); green label with low climate impact on chicken, fish or vegetarian dishes (positive guidance); or a red label with high climate impact on red meats (negative framing).

The menu for low climate impact conditions stated: "This item is environmentally sustainable. It has low greenhouse gas emissions and low contribution to climate change. The high climate impact conditions menu stated: "This item is not environmentally sustainable. It has high greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse and a strong contribution to climate change."

Compared to control group participants, 23.5% more participants selected a sustainable menu item when menus displayed high –climate impact labels and 9.9% more participants selected a sustainable menu item when menus displayed low climate impact labels.Across all experimental conditions, participants who selected a durable item rated their order as healthier than those who selected a non-durable item, based on an average perceived health score.

Some may disagree with that labeling; intensively produced chicken has been shown to be harmful to the environment, as have some farmed and trawled fish.

Study authors, Johns Universities Hopkins and Harvard, said: Beef-based food production, primarily driven by beef production, is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is a significant modifiable contributor to climate change. .

“In the United States, meat consumption, especially red meat consumption, consistently exceeds recommended levels based on national dietary guidelines. Changing current dietary habits towards more sustainable diets with less red meat consumption could reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions by up to 55%.

They found that telling people that a type of food had negative environmental impacts was more effective than informing them that a food was a more sustainable choice.

The authors stated, "We found that labeling red meat products with negative-framed high climate impact red labels was more effective in increasing sustainable selections than labeling non-meat products red with positive low climate impact green labels."

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