Supporting sustainable food shopping

Food contributes a surprisingly large portion of personal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Could pervasive technologies help influence diet choices to reduce this? The authors offer insights for designers of pervasive technologies addressing food and the GHG impacts of diet

BALANCING FOOD VALUES: MAKING SUSTAINABLE CHOICES WITHIN COOKING PRACTICES

Within user-centred design and topics such as persuasive design, pleasurable products, and design for sustainable behaviour, there is a danger of over-determining, pacifying or reducing people’s diversity. Taking the case of sustainable food, we have looked into the social aspects of cooking at home, in specific related to the type of food that is purchased. This paper describes what it means for people to make more sustainable choices in food shopping and how that can be mediated while taking different ‘food values’ that household members have into account. In a design experiment, we developed a service for selecting daily dinner meals while supporting choices of sustainable food which reported on environmental impact, health and nutrition values, and purchase data. Through visualizations of alternative food choices, the experiment provided a space for households to negotiate food values, while opening up possibilities for changing cooking practices

Understanding barriers to purchasing healthier, more sustainable food for people living with obesity and food insecurity.

In westernised countries, food insecurity (FI), poorer diet quality, and obesity are disproportionately represented in groups experiencing socio-economic disadvantage. Grocery stores are one promising arena for intervention; however how these settings can facilitate purchasing of healthier, more sustainable food in people living with obesity (PLWO) and FI remains unclear. Using an online survey (N=583), adults residing in England or Scotland with a body mass index of ≥30kg/m2 self-reported on FI, diet quality, and their experiences of shopping in a grocery store for healthy and sustainable food. Using structural equation modelling, greater FI was directly associated with barriers from the food environment (e.g., price), food preparation practices, lower healthy diet knowledge and physical ill-health. Moreover, greater FI was indirectly associated with poorer diet quality via poorer mental health and greater experiences of self-stigma associated with being food insecure. Grocery store interventions based on price or incentivisation were ranked most helpful in supporting healthier, more sustainable purchasing. These findings highlight the challenges faced by this group when shopping and underscore the need for policy development relating to price and affordability at a population-level, and for clinicians to offer tailored, holistic approaches to obesity treatment that acknowledges and minimises stigma and mental health

Avoiding Asda? Exploring consumer motivations in local organic good networks

Supermarkets such as Asda (owned by Wal-Mart) have responded to the growth in direct marketing and alternative agri-food networks by promoting local produce ranges, and increasingly sourcing organic produce from the UK. Thus consumers now have a choice of outlets for local and organic produce. This paper examines the implications of that choice for direct marketing in particular, and sustainable consumption in general. The paper tests the hypothesis that consumers make a conscious choice to engage in an alternative food network when they purchase through direct marketing channels, and that they are deliberately avoiding mainstream supermarkets. Research findings are presented from a survey of customers of a local organic food cooperative in Norfolk, UK which examines consumer motivations and perceptions of alternative and mainstream food provisioning. The hypothesis is confirmed: consumers expressed wide-ranging preferences for participation in the alternative food system, though there is some concern that the convenience and accessibility of supermarket provision of local and organic food threaten to erode the wider social and community benefits achieved by direct marketing initiatives

“Putting Money Where My Mouth Is”: Motivations and Experiences among Food Co-op Members

Of the variety of alternative grocery stores that offer natural, organic, local, and health foods in the United States, food co-ops are one of the more unique business models for alternative foods. Unlike traditional retailers, they are collectively owned and democratically operated. Prices tend to be higher in co-ops because they carry high-quality foods that are generally fresh, locally sourced, or artisanal in nature. What motivates people to join co-ops and spend more money for their membership and foods compared to other stores? This article provides ethnographic and interview data with member-owners at a relatively new co-op in South Bend, Indiana. Eighteen students enrolled in an Undergraduate Qualitative Research Methods class in the spring semester of 2017 spent two months as participant observers at a co-op and collaboratively conducted 45 semistructured interviews with its member-owners. Several noneconomic issues factored prominently in the member-owners’ decisions to invest in the co-op. The majority viewed their decision to join the co-op and shop there out of a sense of responsibility for the economy and environment in their region, and to participate in and strengthen the community

Consumption of Organic Foods from a Life History Perspective: An Exploratory Study of British Consumers

This report provides an account of the analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews which explored the concepts, stories and theories mentioned by respondents in their discourses about organic food. It employs a biographical narrative approach in order to understand behaviour (using observation of shopping trips) and derives some conclusions regarding future development of the organic market in the UK

Environmental actions to reduce household ecological footprints

This paper presents the ideas of UK householders on how to reduce their Ecological Footprint (EF) after applying a tool called 'EcoCal', which assesses the environmental impacts of households by measuring footprints arising from Transport, Energy, Shopping, House and Garden, Water and Waste. Analysis of the EcoCal results of nearly 700 adult Open University (OU) student households showed that transport and energy impacts are the biggest contributors to the household footprint. Reducing these impacts poses the greatest challenge to achieving a globally sustainable household EF of approximately 0.5 hectares per person. Analysis of the ideas that the OU students were prepared to consider to reduce their household EF revealed a variety of technical and behavioural changes. However, in the context of their own household, the OU students identified several constraints on the implementation of their environmental action plans. Despite such constraints, many of the students instigated changes that helped to make their households more sustainable

Understanding Consumer Behaviour to Reduce Environmental Impacts through Sustainable Product Design

The use phase of the lifecycle of electrical products has a significant environmental impact, mainly determined by the consumer’s behaviour. Many consumers do not make the link between their daily consumption behaviour in the household and environmental problems such as climate change. In the 21st century, the residential sector, together with transport and industry, is one of the largest man-made contributors in the UK to climate change. It is argued that technological innovations, current eco-efficient products and consumer education have been ineffective in creating the long term radical behavioural change needed to reduce the impact of product use. Products, as the interface between consumers and consumption activities, have the potential to influence the way in which consumption occurs. In the sustainable design field however, designer responsibility traditionally considers raw material selection and product disposal. There is limited work that addresses the environmental impacts relating directly to use behaviour of the product. This paper illustrates that user behaviour studies can be the preliminary step for designers to improve energy efficiency of products. A single product type, household cold appliance, was chosen as a case to explore the capacity of designer-conducted user study to identify unsustainable aspects of product use. Adopting a user-centred approach, two pilot studies were used to gain an insight into domestic fridge and freezer use in the UK. Qualitative ethnographical research methods were employed to investigate the daily practices and “real” needs of user as well as the connection between the knowledge, attitudes, intention and actual action. The design suggestions drawn from the user behaviour analysis provide examples of how energy impact level of the interaction with the product can be reduced through design. Keywords: User-Centred Research; Sustainable Product Design; Changing Consumer Behaviour; Design Research; Household Energy Consumption; Household Cold Appliance.</p