Laura O'Keefe, Carly McLachlan, Clair Gough, Sarah Mander and Alice Bows-Larkin
– The purpose of this paper is to describe research exploring consumer responses to potential changes in food-related practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe research exploring consumer responses to potential changes in food-related practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Design/methodology/approach
Six focus groups explored consumer responses to measures to intended to mitigate the emissions from, and adapt to the impacts of climate change. These included: meat reduction, greater reliance on seasonal British food, meal replacement tablets, laboratory grown meat, communal eating houses, genetically modified food and food waste. Practice theory provided the lens to interpret the changes to meanings, competences and materials associated with food consumption.
Findings
Changes that could be assimilated within existing competencies were viewed more positively, with lack of competence a key barrier to accommodating change. At present, climate change and sustainability do not influence purchasing decisions. Policy measures delivering multiple benefits (“win-wins”), of which environmental performance may be one, stand an improved chance of establishing more sustainable practices than those focusing exclusively on environmental drivers.
Originality/value
Awareness of the role of sustainable food systems in the context of anthropogenic climate change is growing. Whilst scientific and technological research explores methods for reducing emissions and building resilience in food supply chains to changes in climate, there is comparatively little study of how consumers perceive these proposed “solutions”. This research provides a comprehensive overview of consumer responses to potential changes in eating practices related to climate change mitigation and adaptation and is of value to policy makers, academics and practitioners across the food supply chain.
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Keywords
Alice Bows-Larkin and Kevin Anderson
Despite the high profile of climate change rhetoric and the carbon intensive nature of flying, policies for controlling CO2 from aviation remain at odds with global commitments on…
Abstract
Purpose/approach
Despite the high profile of climate change rhetoric and the carbon intensive nature of flying, policies for controlling CO2 from aviation remain at odds with global commitments on climate change. Taking a carbon budgeting approach to compare future aviation scenarios with the scale of necessary emission reductions demonstrates the extent of this contradiction. The significant potential for ongoing aviation growth contrasts with the need to curb substantially global CO2 emissions across all sectors. For even a 50:50 chance of staying within the 2°C threshold, emission pathways imply around a 75% cut in absolute emissions by 2050 (from 1990 levels). Set against this, aviation’s CO2 emissions are expected to grow by between 170% and 480% over the same period, and they could feasibly be higher still.
Originality/findings
For the international community to be serious about its climate change commitments, moral and ethical concerns need to be considered alongside technical and economic issues. It is timely to question whether expansion of an industry with few technological options for decarbonisation is a reasonable way to gamble with our future.
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Lucy Budd, Steven Griggs and David Howarth
This chapter examines the torsions and blind spots that structure the contemporary debate on the politics and policy of aviation. It also generates different scenarios for the…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter examines the torsions and blind spots that structure the contemporary debate on the politics and policy of aviation. It also generates different scenarios for the future of air travel, which can help to unblock the current impasse about the perceived costs and benefits of aviation and its attendant infrastructural needs.
Originality
This chapter characterises and evaluates the competing frames that organise the contested realities of air transport. By mapping out the current fault lines of aviation politics and policy, the chapter is also able to delineate four main scenarios regarding the future of aviation, which we name the ‘post-carbon’, ‘high-modernist’, ‘market regulation’ and ‘demand management’ projections respectively.
Methodology/approach
The chapter problematises and criticises the existing literature, policy reports and stakeholder briefings that inform the contemporary standoff in UK aviation policy. It uses the definition of sustainable development as a heuristic device to map and identify the fault lines structuring contemporary debates on aviation futures. It then builds upon this analysis to delimit four different scenarios for the future of flying.
Findings
The chapter analyses the contested realities of aviation politics. It re-affirms the political nature of such divisions, which in turn structure the rival understandings of aviation. The analysis suggests that the identified fault lines are constantly reiterated by competing appeals to ambiguous and contradictory evidence-bases or policy frames. Ultimately, the chapter claims that any significant reframing of aviation policy and politics rests on the outcome of political negotiations and persuasion. But it also depends on the broader views of citizens and stakeholders about the future challenges facing society, as well as the way in which governments and affected agents put in place and coordinate the multiple arenas in which a dialogue over the future of aviation can be held. Aviation futures cannot be reduced to the narrow confines of the technical merits or claims surrounding the feasibility of policy instruments.
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Alice Munz Fernandes, Lucas Teixeira Costa, Odilene de Souza Teixeira, Francisca Viviane dos Santos, Jean Philippe Palma Revillion and Ângela Rozane Leal de Souza
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the attitudes of meat consumers in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, concerning cultured meat. This State is characterized by its strong cultural…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the attitudes of meat consumers in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, concerning cultured meat. This State is characterized by its strong cultural identity and social practices, barbecue being its typical dish.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied a cross-sectional survey with meat consumers residing in Porto Alegre/RS, the sample of which, composed of 538 individuals, expressed the population heterogeneity. The data were analyzed using the Pearson chi-square, Cramer's V, and correspondence analysis.
Findings
The results demonstrate that although six of ten people were willing to try cultured meat, only four of them responded positively to the willingness to consume it over conventional meat. Young individuals demonstrated a favorable attitude towards the product, expressing a greater propensity both to try it and to include it in the diet regularly. However, the rejection of cultured meat gradually intensified after 40 years old. The previous knowledge and familiarity with the investigated subject are not predictive of the intention of experimentation so that almost two-thirds of the individuals who did not know the product were positively willing to try it.
Originality/value
Despite the recent intensification of studies about consumer behavior towards cultured meat, its analysis in a context in which meat historically plays a fundamental role in socioeconomic development is still little explored. The originality of our research is circumscribed by the understanding of the behavior of meat consumers, members of a culture where it plays a central role.