Climate change and species decline: Distinct sources of European consumer concern supporting more sustainable diets

Abstract

This study explored whether EU's new Farm to Fork strategy (F2F) - which aims to tackle climate change, protect the environment and preserve biodiversity in the pursuit of more sustainable food practices - moves in a direction that matches consumer concerns about global issues. A key point is that the traditional differences between the policy approaches related to climate change mitigation and to biodiversity protection, respectively, correspond to differences between environment-based and nature-based attitudes at an individual level. Data from Eurobarometer 92.4 (2019) provided a set of environmental concerns and two food-related pro-environmental actions (buying local products and making a diet change to more sustainable food). Consumer responses to the latter option were assumed to indicate steps in parallel with F2F. Two multinomial regression analyses were carried out separately in Northwestern European countries, and in Eastern and Southern European countries. In both analyses, climate change and species decline were distinct sources of consumer concern, which were - independent of one another - more strongly related to reporting both options than to one option only. It was concluded that the F2F policy is in line with consumer concerns about environment and nature and that this may create important new perspectives for policymakers, businesses and consumers.