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The overlooked importance of food disadoption for the environmental sustainability of new foods
Citation
Cottrell, RS and Maier, J and Ferraro, DM and Blasco, GD and Geyer, R and Froehlich, HE and Halpern, BS, The overlooked importance of food disadoption for the environmental sustainability of new foods, Environmental Research Letters, 16, (10) Article 104022. ISSN 1748-9326 (2021) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
DOI: doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac269c
Abstract
With human food production a major driver of global environmental change, there is increasing recognition of the importance of shifting towards more sustainable dietary patterns. With wholesale dietary change notoriously difficult to implement at scale, various new food analogues have emerged to serve as qualitatively similar (e.g. taste, texture) but lower environmental impact alternatives for existing foods, particularly animal protein. While new foods may have low environmental impacts, very little is known about how reliably new products drive the disadoption (permanently reduced or ceased consumption) of existing foods. Using simple models of the interplay between adoption levels, substitution ratios of new and existing foods, and different products targeted for replacement, we explore the role of food disadoption on the global warming potential of protein consumption by a theoretical human population. We show how counterintuitive changes to the total environmental impacts attributable to food consumption are plausible following widespread uptake of 'sustainable' new foods if they do not reliably drive the disadoption of existing high-impact alternatives. Greater empirical evidence of how effectively new foods drive the disadoption of their intended targets is needed to prevent mass development of alternatives that exacerbate the environmental impact of human diets.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | adoption, disadoption, environmental impacts, GHGs, substitution, environmental sustainability |
| Research Division: | Agricultural, Veterinary and Food Sciences |
| Research Group: | Food sciences |
| Research Field: | Food sustainability |
| Objective Division: | Animal Production and Animal Primary Products |
| Objective Group: | Environmentally sustainable animal production |
| Objective Field: | Environmentally sustainable animal production not elsewhere classified |
| UTAS Author: | Cottrell, RS (Dr Richard Cottrell) |
| ID Code: | 147787 |
| Year Published: | 2021 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 1 |
| Deposited By: | Ecology and Biodiversity |
| Deposited On: | 2021-11-15 |
| Last Modified: | 2021-12-22 |
| Downloads: | 17 View Download Statistics |
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