Speaker
Description
Current food choices have a high environmental footprint, rendering them incompatible with both climate objectives and broader sustainable development goals. Transitioning to “planetary health diets” is important and demand-side meat reduction policies are required at scale urgently. However, existing food policy has predominantly favoured softer approaches, such as behavioural "nudges," which subtly alter choice environments without imposing bans or raising costs. While nudges can be effective, scaling them up has presented challenges, often raising ethical concerns regarding their implementation. This keynote introduces three innovative alternatives to traditional nudges, proposing new strategies to tackle the pressing challenge of dietary transitions. First, it introduces a novel behavioral toolkit —nudge+— which emphasises designing more autonomous food policies that empower individuals to act sustainably. Nudge+ accommodates individual diversity and heterogeneity by encouraging reflection alongside nudges. Drawing on a series of behavioral economics experiments related to food choices, the keynote outlines evidence that suggests nudge+ can improve both the efficacy and legitimacy of standalone nudges in promoting sustainable dietary behaviors. Second, the talk will advocate for the introduction of economic policies, particularly meat taxes and voluntary carbon offsets, addressing and dispelling common myths surrounding these underexplored, yet crucial, policy measures. Lastly, the keynote will stress the importance of adopting a more open-minded approach to policy combinations and sequences, underscoring the value of leveraging policy complementarities and synergies. If we are to seriously address the climate crisis and mitigate the emissions associated with livestock, urgent action is required. The time to act is now.
