Do carbon footprint labels promote climatarian diets? Evidence from a large-scale field experiment

Paul M. Lohmann, Elisabeth Gsottbauer, Anya Doherty and Andreas Kontoleon

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2022, vol. 114, issue C

Abstract: We estimate the causal effect of carbon footprint labels on individual food choices and quantify potential carbon emission reductions, using data from a large-scale field experiment at five university cafeterias with over 80,000 individual meal choices. Results show that carbon footprint labels led to a decrease in the probability of selecting a high-carbon footprint meal by approximately 2.7 percentage points with consumers substituting to mid-carbon impact meals. We find no change in the market share of low-carbon meals, on average. The reduction in high-carbon footprint meals is driven by decreases in sales of meat meals while sales of mid-ranged vegan, vegetarian and fish meals all increased. We estimate that the introduction of carbon footprint labels was associated with a 4.3% reduction in average carbon emissions per meal. We contrast our findings with those from nudge-style interventions and discuss the cost-effectiveness of carbon footprint labels. Our results suggest that carbon footprint labels present a viable and low-cost policy tool to address information failure and harness climatarian preferences to encourage more sustainable food choices.

Keywords: Carbon footprint labelling; Emissions mitigation; Food consumption; Food policy; Meal choices; Natural field experiment; Sustainable diets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D04 D90 Q18 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:114:y:2022:i:c:s0095069622000596

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2022.102693

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