Sustainable food consumption: an overview of contemporary issues and policies

By L. Reisch, U. Eberle, S. Lorek. 2013

664 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Contemporary food production and consumption cannot be regarded as sustainable and raises problems with its wide scope involving diverse actors. Moreover, in the face of demographic change and a growing global population, sustainability problems arising from food systems will likely become more serious in the future. For example, agricultural production must deal with the impacts of climate change, increasingly challenging land-use conflicts, and rising health and social costs on both individual and societal levels. The unsustainability of current arrangements arises from the industrialization and globalization of agriculture and food processing, the shift of consumption patterns toward more dietary animal protein, the emergence of modern food styles that entail heavily processed products, the growing gap on a global scale between rich and poor, and the paradoxical lack of food security amid an abundance of food. These factors are attributable to national and international policies and regulations, as well as to prevalent business practices and, in particular, consumers’ values and habits. The most effective ways for affluent societies to reduce the environmental impact of their diets are to reduce consumption of meat and dairy products (especially beef), to favor organic fruits and vegetables, and to avoid goods that have been transported by air on both individual and institutional levels (e.g., public procurement, public catering). In examining the unsustainability of the current food system this article reviews the pertinent literature to derive a working definition of sustainable food consumption, outlines the major issues and impacts of current food-consumption practices, and discusses various policy interventions, including information-based instruments, market-based initiatives, direct regulations, and “nudges.” It concludes with a call for integrative, cross-sectoral, and population-wide policies that address the full range of drivers of unsustainable food production and consumption.

Subfields: Food Science, Pollution, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/949f7c6afed2b3457726dd854f3b010317e7f91e

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Citations in the corpus

How the interplay between consumer motivations and values influences organic food identity and behavior (2018, background): “…package of instruments, which may also include more behavioral-oriented initiatives such as nudging consumers toward more organic choices, exposing school children to various sensory and taste experiences, and improving the affordability of organic food products, among others (Reisch et al., 2013).”
Drivers of changes in agricultural intensity in Europe (2016, background): “Future growth in population and consumption (Godfray 2014; Reisch et al., 2013) and the rising role of bioenergy crops (Beringer et al.”
Convenience or price orientation? Consumer characteristics influencing food waste behaviour in the context of an emerging country and the impact on future sustainability of the global food sector (2018, background): “The complexities of consumer lifestyle and the consumption trends in affluent societies determine the potential to sustainably transform the food sector, which calls for market and policy action (Beverland, 2014; Prothero et al., 2011; Reisch et al., 2013; Thøgersen, 2014).”
Organic Food Consumption: The Relevance of the Health Attribute (2020, background): “It is recognized that food is one of the three consumption domains responsible for the largest share of environmental impact [48] and that, at the same time, environmental sustainability is a fundamental determinant of human health [49,50].”
COVID-19 Drives Consumer Behaviour and Agro-Food Markets towards Healthier and More Sustainable Patterns (2020, background): “However, van Dooren and colleagues [56] have concluded that, in addition to meat and dairy products, snacks and drinks can also contribute significantly to the GHGEs of common diets.”
Food waste matters - A systematic review of household food waste practices and their policy implications (2018, background): “Financial instruments are considered a powerful tool to shift consumption patterns towards more sustainable food practices (Reisch et al., 2013).”