A Systematic Review of Digital Behaviour Change Interventions for More Sustainable Food Consumption

Björn Hedin, Cecilia Katzeff, Elina Eriksson and Daniel Pargman
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Björn Hedin: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Media Technology and Interaction Design, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Cecilia Katzeff: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Strategic Sustainability Studies, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Elina Eriksson: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Media Technology and Interaction Design, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Daniel Pargman: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Media Technology and Interaction Design, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-23

Abstract: Food production and consumption present major sustainability challenges, and finding ways to reduce the environmental impact of food, for example through behavioural changes by consumers, is becoming increasingly important. In recent years, digital interventions have become important tools to change behaviours in many areas. In this review, we evaluate the status of current scientific knowledge of digital behaviour change interventions for sustainable food consumption practices. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist for how to conduct systematic reviews, we searched multiple databases for papers containing terms related to food, sustainability and digital behaviour change interventions. Only studies where the digital interventions were actually implemented and evaluated from a behaviour change perspective were included, resulting in 15 primary studies in the final review. The quality of the studies was evaluated from a behaviour change perspective, and the approaches used were categorised using two intervention frameworks, the Behaviour Change Wheel and the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy v1. The results show that all of the included studies had major quality issues when evaluated from a behaviour change perspective. This means that we could not find any evidence regarding whether the digital behaviour change interventions examined worked or not. Most studies further lacked theoretical grounding or a clear approach to how or why they should be effective for behaviour change for more sustainable food consumption practices. Our main recommendation for future research in the field is to expand from the current exploratory phase to conducting scientifically rigorous studies of higher quality, more thoroughly grounded in behaviour change theory and methods. Furthermore, based on our study, we suggest changes to the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy v1.

Keywords: sustainability; food; behaviour change; digital intervention; digital behaviour change; sustainable HCI; human computer interaction; Behaviour Change Wheel; Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy; systematic review; consumer behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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