A new study out of the U.S. has investigated if ‘climate impact labels’ on fast food could be a useful tool to make people eat more sustainably.
The food and produce industry takes a heavy toll on the environment. The meat industry, in particular, uses much more land and water to produce the food that feeds animals than the food that is produced from said animals, and that’s before issues like deforestation and emissions.
Even some produce isn’t free from heavy environmental impacts. Some nuts require huge amounts of water to grow.
So what might be a solution for all of this? Well, a study from the U.S. has had some interesting findings.
The study involved putting labels on the food being ordered by test participants, on a mock fast food menu. The labels indicated which foods had a higher or lower climate footprint.
‘High climate impact’ foods had the following label: “This item is not environmentally sustainable. It has high greenhouse gas emissions and a high contribution to climate change.”
‘Low climate impact’ foods had this label: “This item is environmentally sustainable. It has low greenhouse gas emissions and a low contribution to climate change.”
5,049 U.S. adults took part in the test. Of those adults that took part in the test, 23 per cent that were placed in the high climate impact control group decided to order more sustainable foods, as did 10 per cent of those that were placed in the low climate impact group.
“These findings suggest that climate impact menu labels may be an effective strategy to promote more sustainable restaurant food choices and that labels highlighting high–climate impact items may be most effective,” the paper reads.
It’s a good idea to make people more aware of the environmental impact their food is having on the world.
Having this awareness is the biggest part of why I, personally, went vegetarian, so I’d very much welcome climate-impact labels like this, as a similar label to nutritional value.
You can read the study in Jama Network Open.