Climate change and disaster impact reduction

Based on papers presented at the 'UK - South Asia Young Scientists and Practitioners Seminar on Climate Change and Disaster Impact Reduction' held at Kathmandu, Nepal on 5-6 June, 2008

The use and usefulness of PAS 2050 carbon footprinting and labelling in the UK food supply chain

Accelerated climate change due to enhanced global warming, challenges sustainability efforts including those in the food industry. Since the introduction of the World’s first voluntary carbon footprinting standard in 2008, known as PAS 2050, there are significant gaps in the understanding of its uptake. This thesis examines the role of carbon footprint labelling of food products in helping to deal with the environmental problem of climate change. The research looks to the limitation of life cycle analysis/assessment, together with the imprecision of the assumed scientific base for action in the context of the food supply chain. It draws upon a series of theoretical lenses, particularly nudge economics, that underlie behavioural change in market economies as well as the parallel contexts of public health. The theoretical contribution of this thesis is that it demonstrates no single lens can fully capture the complexity of behavioural change for the environment. A case study approach was adopted to elucidate the drivers and barriers for uptake and use at the supply and demand elements of the UK food chain. Interrogation of the supply side was undertaken via detailed qualitative interviews, held at three key stages of the supply chain covering production, distribution and retail. While there was some evidence that those closer to production had higher environmental values, the power of the retail sector, particularly through pricing and quality control, dictated conditions of production. Such power worked against environmental considerations in the food industry. On the demand side, a consumer questionnaire survey of 428 respondents with some openended interrogation indicates that while consumers show willing to change consumption patterns to address environmental issues, they are confused by the current range of information that is available. Price and quality remain the dominant factors rather than broader environmental and social concerns. The results of this thesis suggest that the drive for carbon footprint labelling is towards omnilabelling, although voluntary measures do not provide a guarantee of good environmental performance. Consumers think about environmental issues but not a willingness to pay because environmental concerns are not embedded in the social psyche. The complexity of carbon equivalents cannot be captured in a single label, not least because of multiple processes and producers in the supply chain as voluntary carbon footprint standards and labels will not necessarily shape business motivations for ecological responsiveness

The use and usefulness of carbon labelling food: A policy perspective from a survey of UK supermarket shoppers

Both the process of carbon footprinting and carbon labelling of food products are currently voluntary in the UK. Both processes derive from the UK’s policy for sustainable development and in particular, the UK’s Framework for Environmental Behaviours that strongly advocates a social marketing approach towards behavioural change. This paper examines whether carbon footprinting and labelling food products, borne from an overarching policy imperative to decarbonise food systems, is a tool that will actively facilitate consumers to make ‘greener’ purchasing decisions and whether this is a sensible way of trying to achieve to a low carbon future. We do so by drawing from a survey exploring purchasing habits and perceptions in relation to various sustainability credentials of food products and particularly ‘carbon’, using a combination of descriptive and cluster analysis. The data, from 428 UK supermarket shoppers, reveals that whilst consumer demand is relatively strong for carbon labels with a stated preference rate of 72%, confusion in interpreting and understanding labels is correspondingly high at a total of 89%, primarily as a result of poor communication and market proliferation. Three statistically distinct clusters were produced from the cluster analysis, representing taxonomies of consumers with quite different attitudes to carbon and other wider sustainability issues. Whilst the majority of consumers are likely to react positively to further carbon labelling of food products, this in itself is unlikely to drive much change in food systems. As such, the data imply that a concerted policy drive to decarbonise food systems via voluntary carbon footprinting and labelling policy initiatives is limited by a fragmented and haphazard market approach where retailers are being careful not to disaffect certain products by labelling others within the same category. Consumers may want to make choices based on the carbon footprint of products but do not feel empowered to do so and relying on consumer guilt is inappropriate. The paper concludes that the establishment of effective linkages between food policy and food market actors to drive a targeted and coherent carbon labelling policy is needed. This would provide consumers with the opportunity to make informed choices, especially within food product categories and negate the need for retailers to depend on the demand side of the supply chain to achieve carbon reduction targets