Food Ethics Council

The September meeting of the Food Ethics Council’s Business Forum explored the latest evidence on people’s attitudes and behaviour towards sustainable food consumption. A report of the meeting is available here.

Public concern about the environmental and social footprint of our food is rising. Consumers are acting on this concern too, with the market for ‘ethical’ food and drink in the UK worth around £4 billion. But there is a gap between what we say and what we do. After all, even £4 billion is only a small slice of the market.

The September meeting of the Food Ethics Council’s Business Forum, chaired by Helen Browning, explored the latest evidence on people’s attitudes and behaviour towards sustainable consumption.

We are very grateful to our speakers, Graham Brown and Hazel Seaman from research and communications company Opinion Leader. They reported on two projects that Opinion Leader have undertaken for the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra): the Citizens’ summit on climate change and research on the Public understanding of sustainable consumption of food. Opinion Leader also did the research behind I will if you will, a groundbreaking 2006 report on sustainable behaviour and public attitudes produced by the UK Sustainable Consumption Roundtable.

We have published a short report of the meeting. The key points we took from the discussion were that:

• Most people in the UK think human activity causes climate change and the number saying the environment is a major concern is rising steeply.
• Sustainability is not at the front of most people’s minds when they are shopping for food but it does mean something to ‘greener’ shoppers and those in rural areas.
• Consumers are willing to reduce their environmental footprint by cutting food waste and eating local food in season.
• They are less willing to make significant changes to the overall balance of their diet on sustainability grounds, though may consider doing so for health reasons.
• People see addressing climate change as a shared responsibility for themselves, government and business, but they want evidence that everyone else will keep their side of the bargain.
• People emphasise the responsibilities of business to make our food system more sustainable, demanding that businesses clean up their supply chains, create incentives for consumers to choose sustainable foods and take unsustainable products off the shelves. People believe government should force businesses to change if businesses do not do so voluntarily.

Click here to find out more about the Business Forum.