How can environmental information align consumer behaviour with attitude? Evidence from a field experiment

Pieter Vlaeminck, Ting Jiang and Liesbet Vranken ()

No 162425, Working Papers from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics

Abstract: Using an incentive compatible field experiment, we investigate whether consumer attitudes translate into more corresponding environmentally friendly behaviour when one of the substantial barriers towards environmental food sustainability, i.e. low effectiveness of information provision, is removed. We develop multi-criteria environmental information cards and test their effectiveness in delivering and communicating information through an on-line choice experiment. The environmental information card that was found to be most effective in communicating information is then used in an experimental market and appears to have the potential to effectively steer consumers towards more environmentally friendly food purchases. When consumers shop in the experimental market with the most effective environmental information card installed, switching behaviour towards more environmentally friendly food products is observed. In addition, effective environmental information cards have the ability to increase the overall environmental friendliness of consumers’ food baskets. These findings highlight the potential for policy makers to enlarge the environmentally friendly consumer segment through the provision of easy-to-interpret and standardized environmental information.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Environmental Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-env, nep-exp and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/162425/files/BioeconWP_2014_1_updated.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:kucawp:162425

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.162425

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().