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Can Climate Change Awareness Predict Pro-Environmental Practices in Restaurants? Comparing High and Low Dining Expenditure

Sustainability 2019, 11(23), 6777; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236777

by Myung Ja Kim^1,* and C. Michael Hall^2,3,4,*

Reviewer 1:

Nahanga Verter

Reviewer 2: Anonymous

Reviewer 3: Anonymous

Reviewer 4: Anonymous

Reviewer 5: Anonymous

Sustainability 2019, 11(23), 6777; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236777

Submission received: 19 October 2019 / Revised: 25 November 2019 / Accepted: 27 November 2019 / Published: 29 November 2019

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper is well written and presented, and climate change is among the global issues today. Both theoretical and practical aspects of the topic are addressed in the paper.

However, the authors should mathematically present all the methods used in the paper. The asterisks *,**, and *** in Figure 2 should be noted (explained) behind the Figure just as shown behind Table 4. Sources of Figures and Tables should be stated behind them.

Author Response

Summary of Revisions and Responses to Reviewers’ Comments

Title: Can climate change awareness predict waste reduction behavior in foodservices? Comparing high and low spending on dining

New title: Can climate change awareness predict pro-environmental practices in restaurants? Comparing high and low dining expenditure

Manuscript ID: sustainability-633233.R1

Journal name: Sustainability

Reviewers' Comments to Author:

Reviewer 1:

Open Review

( ) I would not like to sign my review report

(x) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required

( ) Moderate English changes required

(x) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

Yes Can be improved Must be improved Not applicable

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Is the research design appropriate?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Are the methods adequately described?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Are the results clearly presented?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is well written and presented, and climate change is among the global issues today. Both theoretical and practical aspects of the topic are addressed in the paper.

We greatly appreciate your highly encouraging feedback on our paper.

RESPONSE: Thank you so much for your keen observation on our manuscript. As you suggested, we have explained the asterisks in the note of Figure 2 as follows (please also refer to line 475):

Note: Figures in parentheses are t-value. ***p<0.001; **p<0.01; *p<0.05.

Sources of Figures and Tables should be stated behind them.

RESPONSE: We appreciate your thoughtful comment. In order to resolve your concern, all Figures and Tables were made by our authors, rather than derived from other sources. However, if you still think that you need to sate sources of Figures and Tables, then we will explain that authors developed them based on the research design, model, results, and findings.

Again, thank you very much for your valuable review on our research!

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review your submission. It is my pleasure to provide the following comments and suggestions on your work.

General comment1	The authors declare that they aim to explore how different attitudes, subjective norms, PBC, etc. predict behavioral intention to waste reduction, but they actually use very vague constructs to measure this intention. This raises another important question - which control, if any, does the individual consumer has on pro-environmental practices at restaurants? A more direct approach would have been better, such as measuring attitudes regarding particular practices. This should go into the research's limitation section. Did the researcher provide respondents with any examples of those practices? This point should be clarified within the text.
General comment2	The unique contribution of the study is unclear.
General comment3	The paper needs to go through a significant linguistic editing, focusing on improving syntax, shortening sentences, an improved connection between paragraphs, and improving overall readability.
Headline	In the headline and throughout the paper the authors refer to waste reduction behaviors. However according to line 114 waste reduction actually refer to a broad range of practices, which have nothing to do with waste, i.e. energy, water, plastic. Therefore, it is advised to use a more precise wording, such as - pro-environmental practices. Please change the headline and the paper accordingly.
Headline	Please be more specific and replace foodservices with restaurants
Keywords	Add PLS; dismiss foodservice industry; rephrase waste reduction; "high and low spending on dining" - rephrase here and through the text, e.g. dining expenses;
Introduction	This section needs to be reorganized and go through a significant editing. It will make more sense if you start by introducing the challenge of climate change in general, then add a short review of the relevant SDG's, continue with introducing the contribution of institutional consumption and/or the food sector to GHG emissions, introduce the challenge of restaurants in light of climate change in general and food waste in particular. If you don't have statistics regarding South Korea, you can provide global statistics from the FAO, the IPPC panel, etc.
Line 39	Please shorten and rephrase this sentence. I'm not sure that restaurants owners are really driven by concern over climate change as much as they worry about profitability
Line 44	Cumbersome wording. It is not clear whether KRW 800,000 refer to waste tax or simply to business expenses. Please clarify this issue within the text. If you refer to waste tax, please indicate the relevant units (weight, volume), for example X KRW per kg/ton of waste, etc.
Line 50	You need to better connect this paragraph with those above. Please refer to studies that implemented the TPB on food waste behaviors. Here you can find some relevant examples: · Diaz-Ruiz, R.; Costa-Font, M.; Gil, J.M. Moving ahead from food-related behaviors: an alternative approach to understand household food waste generation. J. Clean. Prod. 2018, 172, 1140–1151. · Abdelradi, F. Food waste behaviour at the household level: A conceptual framework. Waste Manag. 2018, 71, 485–493. · Stefan, V.; van Herpen, E.; Tudoran, A.A.; Lähteenmäki, L. Avoiding food waste by Romanian consumers: The importance of planning and shopping routines. Food Qual. Prefer. 2013, 28, 375–381. · Russell, S. V.; Young, C.W.; Unsworth, K.L.; Robinson, C. Bringing habits and emotions into food waste behaviour. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 2017, 125, 107–114. · Stancu, V.; Haugaard, P.; Lähteenmäki, L. Determinants of consumer food waste behaviour: Two routes to food waste. Appetite 2016, 96, 7–17.
Line 58	Cumbersome wording - please shorten and rephrase
Introduction	Please add at the end of this section a short paragraph that describe the unique contribution of the current study
2. Literature review	The following sections are actually an integral part of the introduction. Consider changing section numbering, so that 2.1.1 will become 1.1; 2.1.2 à 1.2; 2.1.3 à 1.3; dismiss "2 Literature review"
2.2. Hypothesis development	This section belongs to Material and Methods. Sections 2.2.1 - 2.2.5 should go under a new sub-section titled " The proposed research Model", which should follow current section 3.2
Line 74	Dismiss "a" before valuable; replace "valuable" with "essential"
Line 99	Cumbersome wording, please rephrase
Line 109	You use a number of terms interchangeably - "hospitality" or "foodservices sector". I would suggest you select one term for both and use consistently throughout the manuscript.
Line 112	energy, water, renewable energy sources cannot be considered as "waste reduction". Please use another phrase, such pro-environmental practices, etc.
Line 168	global heating? Should be global warming
Line 190	Cumbersome wording
Line 217	Cumbersome wording
Line 252	Hypothesis 10 should be braked into Hypothesis 10a, 10b and so on (as shown in Table 4). You should also integrate these sub hypotheses within Figure 1
Section 3.1	Please shorten this section and refer the readers to Table 2 for the exact wording of each construct
Line 293	You should clearly state that "experienced eating out at restaurants within the past month" was a main inclusion criterion. This sentence belongs to section 3.2.
line 304/Line 310/Line 324	Theses sentences should be integrated and appear at the beginning of section 3.2
Line 320	Should be moved to the beginning of section 3.2
Line 321-330	These paragraphs need to be significantly shortened. Please state the dropout percentage
Line 329	(3333, 4443, 5555) - not clear
Line 353-359	This whole part has to be moved to the previous section (i.e. 3.2). There is also a repetition here about the topic of randomization
Line 375	Belongs to "Methods" and not to the "Results"
Line 376 - 382	These paragraphs need to be significantly shortened.
Respondents’ profile	Move this section to Methods.
Table 1	Table 1 should be disassembled into two tables. The first should present only basic demographics (and presented in the Methods section). The second table should be moved to the appendix and shortened. Please redesign the table so it will include three columns instead of six (spreading over more pages in the appendix). Please present only the percent of participants agreeing with each statement (agree and strongly agree). In some characteristics, such as occupation, the categories can be united.
Table 2	Behavioral intention to waste reduction - please clarify whether respondents were given examples as to what account for pro- environmental practices
Line 445-452	Please indicate which hypothesis were rejected/confirmed
Figure 2	Please add hypothesis numbers
Line 475	Please improve syntax
Discussion	Your "take home message" needs improvements. The discussion opens with discussing the impact of food consumption and food waste, but theses issues are only part of the "pro-environmental" behaviors you refer to in your study. There is no need to repeat your results. Please be more explicit regarding the direct and indirect implications of your findings, and provide possible explanations to each one. Please compare (and discuss) your results with those of other relevant studies. You state that your study "extend prior literature" but don't explain or illustrate in what way.
Line 541-543	It is not clear to me how diners can be involved in waste reduction practices. Please be more explicit.
Limitations and future research directions	You jump very quickly to suggestions for future research and do not discuss limitations of current research. Please add conclusion remarks, highlighting your main insights.

Author Response

Reviewer 2:
Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report

( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

(x) Extensive editing of English language and style required

( ) Moderate English changes required

( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

Yes Can be improved Must be improved Not applicable

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Is the research design appropriate?

( ) ( ) (x) ( )

Are the methods adequately described?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Are the results clearly presented?

( ) ( ) (x) ( )

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

( ) ( ) (x) ( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review your submission. It is my pleasure to provide the following comments and suggestions on your work.

Your insightful comments are appreciated, and we have revised our manuscript based on the comments. We believe these comments have significantly improved the quality of our manuscript. Our revisions and responses to each of your comments are as follows (please also see all the blue text in our entire revised manuscript).

General comment1

The authors declare that they aim to explore how different attitudes, subjective norms, PBC, etc. predict behavioral intention to waste reduction, but they actually use very vague constructs to measure this intention. This raises another important question - which control, if any, does the individual consumer has on pro-environmental practices at restaurants? A more direct approach would have been better, such as measuring attitudes regarding particular practices. This should go into the research's limitation section.

RESPONSE: Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. As you suggested, we have provided an opportunity for future research on measuring attitudes regarding particular practices in the sub-section of “Limitations and future research directions” as follows (please also refer to lines 618-620):

Furthermore, future research on individual consumers’ pro-environmental practices at restaurants could directly measure attitudes towards specific waste-reduction practices in restaurants.

Did the researcher provide respondents with any examples of those practices? This point should be clarified within the text.

RESPONSE: We greatly appreciate your valuable question and we have clarified the examples on pro-environmental practices at restaurants in the questionnaire as follows (please also see Supplementary C at the beginning of the questionnaire on lines 867-871):

Note 1: In this survey, the term ‘waste reduction for sustainability at restaurants’ is defined as a practice reducing food waste, water use, energy consumption (e.g., electricity, oil, natural gas), use of disposable products, use of plastic products and/or a practice recycling and/or the use of renewable energy and resources at restaurants for mitigating climate change, protecting the environment, resolving fine dust.

General comment2

The unique contribution of the study is unclear.

RESPONSE: In order to resolve your concern, we have added unique contribution at the end section in the introduction as follows (please see the blue text in lines 78-83 of the revised manuscript):

As a result, this study contributes to the foodservice and sustainability literature by developing a new model and providing insights into waste reduction practices in the restaurant industry, which may reduce operational costs, and contribute to the environment and human health. Furthermore, the Korean context is also very significant since only limited research exists on Asian restaurant consumption behaviors in relation to sustainability.

General comment3

The paper needs to go through a significant linguistic editing, focusing on improving syntax, shortening sentences, an improved connection between paragraphs, and improving overall readability.

RESPONSE: Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. As you suggested, our manuscript has been revised extensively in order to resolve your concerns above. Furthermore, the entire manuscript has been thoroughly edited by an English native speaker and professor at internationally well-known university, who is one of the authors and has published numerous papers in highly reputed international journals.

Headline

In the headline and throughout the paper the authors refer to waste reduction behaviors. However according to line 114 waste reduction actually refer to a broad range of practices, which have nothing to do with waste, i.e. energy, water, plastic. Therefore, it is advised to use a more precise wording, such as - pro-environmental practices. Please change the headline and the paper accordingly.

RESPONSE: In line with your comment, we have revised the headline and problem sentence as follows (also refer to lines 2-4 and 134-137):

Can climate change awareness predict pro-environmental practices in restaurants? Comparing high and low dining expenditure

As pro-environmental practices, waste reduction behavior in foodservices for sustainability and climate change mitigation reasons refers to practices for reducing, recycling, or reusing resources (e.g., food, energy, water, plastic, disposable products) and using renewable energy sources during dining.

Headline

Please be more specific and replace foodservices with restaurants

RESPONSE: Thank you for your valuable suggestion and we have revised the title. Please see the right above (i.e., “5. RESPONSE”) and revised manuscript in the blue text.

Keywords

Add PLS; dismiss foodservice industry; rephrase waste reduction;

RESPONSE: In line with your useful suggestion, we have revised keywords as follows (also refer to lines 33-35 in the blue text):

Keywords: climate change; anticipated emotion; pro-environmental practices; waste reduction behavior; cost of dining; theory of planned behavior; restaurant consumers; restaurant waste; South Korea

PLS has now been added to the abstract

"high and low spending on dining" - rephrase here and through the text, e.g. dining expenses;

RESPONSE: With regard to your helpful comment, we have replaced “spending on dining” with “dining expenses” via the entire manuscript (please also see the blue text of the revised manuscript).

Introduction

This section needs to be reorganized and go through a significant editing. It will make more sense if you start by introducing the challenge of climate change in general, then add a short review of the relevant SDG's, continue with introducing the contribution of institutional consumption and/or the food sector to GHG emissions, introduce the challenge of restaurants in light of climate change in general and food waste in particular. If you don't have statistics regarding South Korea, you can provide global statistics from the FAO, the IPPC panel, etc.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your insightful comments. As you suggested, we have revised the whole introduction section as follows (also refer to the blue text in lines 37- 83 of the revised manuscript): Introduction

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the individual measures they can take to mitigate climate change, including waste reduction [1], dietary change [2,3], energy and resource conservation [4,5] and adopting a low-carbon lifestyle [6]. Climate change awareness overall positively encourages consumers’ attitudes toward climate change mitigation and associated behaviors [7,8]. Individuals’ climate change beliefs and concerns also influences their attitudes toward climate change mitigation actions [9,10].

Climate change mitigation is a significant challenge for the restaurant and foodservices sector given its relatively high energy and water use, often significant amounts of food waste, and supply chains that often carry a substantial carbon footprint [11]. To promote climate-friendly practices, long- and short-term behavioral and system interventions are needed, which can complement interest among consumers and restaurants for information on food carbon footprints and sustainability [12]. In South Korea (hereafter Korea) such a situation creates some substantial issues as restaurants traditionally serve various side dishes without extra charge per each meal, resulting in substantial food waste [13]. Food waste is expensive for restaurants as it is calculated by weight and even small restaurants pay upwards of Korean Won (KRW) 800,000 a month (e.g., under a food waste tax of KRW 160 per liter) [14] (US$ 1 was equivalent to KRW 1,147). Although waste reduction in foodservices is critical for climate change mitigation as well as reducing environmental impacts in general, research has largely neglected examining consumers’ attitude and behavior to waste reduction for climate change mitigation reasons in the foodservice industry, particularly in Asian contexts like Korea.

In studies of consumer behavior, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) has the demonstrated capacity to assess the causes, effects, and consequences of individuals’ thoughts and attitudes on behaviors [15,16]. In the foodservice and tourism domain, the TPB has proven substantial explanatory power with respect to green consumerism [17-20]. In particular, the extended TPB has been widely adapted to predict consumers’ eco-friendly behavior in the restaurant and food delivery industry [21-23]. The TPB has successfully assessed the implications of a number of factors that affect consumer attitudes and behaviors in relation to sustainability including anticipated pride and guilt [24,19,20] and expenditure levels [25]. Furthermore, studies on food waste behavior have also been widely applied using TPB, revealing that individuals’ non-voluntary and voluntary aspects are important for their food waste reduction behavior [26-30].

A significant portion of food waste ends up in landfills or is incinerated, leading to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which contribute to global heating and climate change [31]. Climate-friendly consumer behavior in restaurants is therefore of interest to the food and beverage sector as they seek to understand the implications of carbon footprints associated with food [13]. Due to the significances of consumer climate change mitigation behavior, this work attempt to construct and validate an extended TPB framework to predict consumer behavior on waste reduction for climate change mitigation in the Korean restaurant industry. Specifically, the extended TPB model tests the relationships among climate change awareness and mitigation actions, anticipated pride and guilt, four constructs of TPB, and high/low dining expense groups. This research therefore seeks to both improve theoretically informed understanding of the environmental practices of restaurants and diners as well as the very practical issue of restaurant waste reduction. As a result, this study contributes to the foodservice and sustainability literature by developing a new model and providing insights into waste reduction practices in the restaurant industry, which may reduce operational costs, and contribute to the environment and human health. Furthermore, the Korean context is also very significant since only limited research exists on Asian restaurant consumption behaviors in relation to sustainability.

Line 39

Please shorten and rephrase this sentence. I'm not sure that restaurants owners are really driven by concern over climate change as much as they worry about profitability

RESPONSE: In association with your suggestion, we have shortened and rephrased the problem sentence in order to resolve your concern as follows (refer to lines 44-49 of the revised manuscript):

Line 44

Cumbersome wording. It is not clear whether KRW 800,000 refer to waste tax or simply to business expenses. Please clarify this issue within the text. If you refer to waste tax, please indicate the relevant units (weight, volume), for example X KRW per kg/ton of waste, etc.

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue and we have provided the rate of food waste charge in the text (see lines 51-53 of the revised manuscript)

Food waste is expensive for restaurants as it is calculated by weight and even small restaurants pay upwards of Korean Won (KRW) 800,000 a month (e.g., under a food waste tax of KRW 160 per liter) [14] (US$ 1 was equivalent to KRW 1,147).

Line 50

You need to better connect this paragraph with those above. Please refer to studies that implemented the TPB on food waste behaviors. Here you can find some relevant examples:

Diaz-Ruiz, R.; Costa-Font, M.; Gil, J.M. Moving ahead from food-related behaviors: an alternative approach to understand household food waste generation. J. Clean. Prod. 2018, 172, 1140–1151. Abdelradi, F. Food waste behaviour at the household level: A conceptual framework. Waste Manag. 2018, 71, 485–493. Stefan, V.; van Herpen, E.; Tudoran, A.A.; Lähteenmäki, L. Avoiding food waste by Romanian consumers: The importance of planning and shopping routines. Food Qual. Prefer. 2013, 28, 375–381. Russell, S. V.; Young, C.W.; Unsworth, K.L.; Robinson, C. Bringing habits and emotions into food waste behaviour. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 2017, 125, 107–114. Stancu, V.; Haugaard, P.; Lähteenmäki, L. Determinants of consumer food waste behaviour: Two routes to food waste. Appetite 2016, 96, 7–17. RESPONSE: We greatly appreciate your useful comments and references. We have carefully read the articles and included them in the revised manuscript to improve the paragraph as follows (also see lines 58-67 of the revised manuscript):

Line 58

Cumbersome wording - please shorten and rephrase

RESPONSE: As per your suggestion, we have shortened and rephrased the paragraph as follows (please also see lines 71-78 of the revised manuscript):

Due to the significances of consumer climate change mitigation behavior, this work attempt to construct and validate an extended TPB framework to predict consumer behavior on waste reduction for climate change mitigation in the Korean restaurant industry. Specifically, the extended TPB model tests the relationships among climate change awareness and mitigation actions, anticipated pride and guilt, four constructs of TPB, and high/low dining expense groups. This research therefore seeks to both improve theoretically informed understanding of the environmental practices of restaurants and diners as well as the very practical issue of restaurant waste reduction.

Introduction

Please add at the end of this section a short paragraph that describe the unique contribution of the current study

RESPONSE: In line with your suggestion, we have added unique contribution at the end section in the introduction as follows (please see lines 78-83):

Literature review

The following sections are actually an integral part of the introduction. Consider changing section numbering, so that 2.1.1 will become 1.1; 2.1.2 à 1.2; 2.1.3 à 1.3; dismiss "2 Literature review"

RESPONSE: Regarding your suggestion on the numbering, we have integrated the sub-sections of 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 into the introduction section. Please see lines 85-162 of the revised manuscript.

2.2. Hypothesis development

This section belongs to Material and Methods.

Sections 2.2.1 - 2.2.5 should go under a new sub-section titled "The proposed research Model", which should follow current section 3.2

RESPONSE: In line with your suggestion, we have made the section of “The proposed research Model" included hypothesis development. Please also see lines 164-282 of the revised manuscript.

Line 74

Dismiss "a" before valuable; replace "valuable" with "essential"

RESPONSE: Thank you for your keen observation of our manuscript. As you suggested, we have revised the sentence as follows (refer to lines 88-90):

Climate change awareness is essential for the development of active initiatives to manage climate change risks [33], including waste reduction [4].

Line 99

Cumbersome wording, please rephrase

RESPONSE: Concerning your suggestion, we have rephrased the problem sentence as follows (refer to lines 118-120):

Providing information about the negative impacts of food waste at landfills to consumers significantly reduces more food waste than not providing the information to consumers [44].

Line 109

You use a number of terms interchangeably - "hospitality" or "foodservices sector". I would suggest you select one term for both and use consistently throughout the manuscript.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your valuable suggestion. In order to address your concern, we have replaced “hospitality” with “foodservice” (please see lines 130-132 of the revised manuscript in the blue text). Also, we have replaced ‘hospitality’ with ‘foodservice’ throughout the revised manuscript.

The attitudes and behaviors surrounding food waste in the foodservice sector significantly influence the amount of food waste in restaurants [48].

Line 112

energy, water, renewable energy sources cannot be considered as "waste reduction". Please use another phrase, such pro-environmental practices, etc.

RESPONSE: In line with your comment, we have revised the headline and problem sentence as follows (also refer to lines 134-137):

Line 168

global heating? Should be global warming

RESPONSE: The term global heating is now increasingly used following the recommendations of the UK Met Office and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Watts, J. 2018, Global warming should be called global heating, says key scientist. UK Met Office professor tells UN summit Earth’s ‘energy balance’ is changing. The Guardian, 13 December, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/global-heating-more-accurate-to-describe-risks-to-planet-says-key-scientist) although the term does have a long history of use in the scientific literature. Accordingly, the house style of publications such as The Guardian has been changed to reflect this (see Carrington, D. 2019, Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-guardian-is-changing-the-language-it-uses-about-the-environment) while this is also reflected by the Oxford Dictionary (see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/21/oxford-dictionaries-declares-climate-emergency-the-word-of-2019)

Line 190

Cumbersome wording

RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing the issue. In order to address your concern, we have deleted the problem sentence from the revised manuscript (also see lines 212-215):

Line 217

Cumbersome wording

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue. In order to resolve your concern, we have revised the cumbersome wording as follows (refer lines 237-239):

In the foodservice sector, diners’ positive attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on environmentally friendly actions substantially influence their behavioral intention to visiting eco-friendly restaurants [21].

Line 252

Hypothesis 10 should be braked into Hypothesis 10a, 10b and so on (as shown in Table 4). You should also integrate these sub hypotheses within Figure 1

RESPONSE: As per your suggestion, we have revised the Hypothesis 10 and Figure 1 as follows (see lines 273-281):

Hypothesis 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d, 10e, 10f, 10g, 10h, and 10i. Consumers’ high or low dining expenses moderates the nine hypotheses proposed above of relationships among climate their change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride and guilt, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention on waste reduction at restaurants.

Note: The shaded constructs denote the extended TPB and the white constructs denote the TPB.

Section 3.1

Please shorten this section and refer the readers to Table 2 for the exact wording of each construct

RESPONSE: Thank you for your constructive suggestion and we have shorten the section as well as revised each construct referring to Table 2 as follows (284-319):

3.1. Measurement

The online survey used in this study originally comprised 31 items for eight constructs. The constructs represented climate change awareness, climate change mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride, anticipated guilt, subjective norm, attitude, and perceived behavioral control, and intention. Six items addressing the construct of climate change awareness were generated from prior research [2,8,33]. Six items to assess the construct of climate change mitigation pursuing actions were adapted from the literature [35,5,10]. Three items for the construct of anticipated pride in undertaking waste reduction were identified in earlier work [19,53,20] along with three items to gauge the construct of anticipated guilt without participating in waste reduction [17,24]. To evaluate the construct of attitude toward waste reduction, four items have been generated from the research of Han et al. [17] and Onwezen, et al. [53]. Three items were drawn from Han et al. [56] and Onwezen et al. [19] to assess the construct of subjective norm on waste reduction. To measure the construct of perceived behavioral control on waste reduction, three items have been used from Ajzen [15] and Onwezen et al. [20]. Three items addressing behavioral intention to undertake waste reduction were generated by prior research [16,56,22]. Every item has been evaluated applying a seven-point Likert-type scale, such as strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), somewhat disagree (3), neither agree nor disagree (4), somewhat agree (5), agree (6), and strongly agree (7).

Eight general questions related to sustainable diner behavior were also added (Supplementary A). Finally, seven questions related to socio-demographics were incorporated in the survey (Table 1). The survey tool was primarily prepared in English, which was accordingly converted into Korean version by three university specialists in both languages. The survey tool was then back-translated into English to resolve inconsistencies between expressions [57].

Four academics who are specialized in the research theme precisely evaluated the content validity of the questionnaire. Seven Korean restaurant managers assessed the survey to ensure that it suitably evaluated sustainable diner behavior in Korea. Based on the two processes, three items for climate change mitigation pursuing actions were added to the survey instrument in order to clearly capture the meaning of the construct (Table 2). One item each for climate change awareness and anticipated pride with waste reduction and guilt without waste reduction were re-written due to overlapping meaning. The survey was piloted with five Ph.D. candidates with a semi-structured interview. Based upon their comments, several items addressing attitude toward, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on waste reduction were reworded and a screen question was revised. Another trial survey was undertaken with 50 individuals who had eaten out at restaurants in the previous month with subjects specifically requested to offer comments on questions as a pre-test. This procedure resulted in a final revision that clarified questions related to climate change mitigation pursuing actions and general information. The modified survey was then applied to the data collection instrument.

Line 293

You should clearly state that "experienced eating out at restaurants within the past month" was a main inclusion criterion. This sentence belongs to section 3.2.

RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing the issue. For your information, we have included the main criterion in the sub-section as follows (lines 350-352):

After this procedure, 985 participants experienced eating out at restaurants within the past month stated “yes,” and then 667 panel members completed the survey.

line 304/Line 310/Line 324

Theses sentences should be integrated and appear at the beginning of section 3.2

Line 320

Should be moved to the beginning of section 3.2

RESPONSE: As you suggested, we have integrated the four sentences and moved them at the beginning of the sub-section 3.2 as follows (also see lines 321-325):

By selecting questions to participate in the research process, subjects who are not qualified are excluded by the survey system (“During the past month, have you eaten out at any restaurants?”). For this research project, all subjects were Koreans 20 years old or over and had dined in restaurants within the month prior to completing the survey. A quota sampling method has been utilized in terms of the total population by age and gender in Korea [62].

Line 321-330

These paragraphs need to be significantly shortened. Please state the dropout percentage

RESPONSE: According to your suggestion, we have shortened the problem paragraph and stated the dropout percentage as follows (please also refer to lines 348-359 of the revised manuscript):

Of them, 4,441 respondents connected to the questionnaire. Every panelist was requested to respond to a screening inquiry intentionally created for the study: After this procedure, 985 participants experienced eating out at restaurants within the past month stated “yes,” and then 667 panel members completed the survey. If respondents answered the survey questions in a rapid fashion reflecting a short time frame spent on reading the statements, or if a subject’s answers followed certain patterns, those subjects were excluded from the data set because rapid and patterned responses have been proven to be unreliable [63]. Accordingly, after removing some outliers, patterned responses (e.g., answering same numbers or patterns without thinking), and rapid answers (taking far less time than three seconds per question), 482 responses were used for the analysis. Following the criteria of the American Association for Public Opinion Research [64], this represents a response rate of 48.9%, with a dropout percentage of 32.3% (318/985).

Line 329

(3333, 4443, 5555) - not clear

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue. Some respondents answered same numbering to the questions without reading and thinking. In order to address your concern, we have revised the sentence. Please see “28. RESPONSE” right above in the yellow highlight.

Line 353-359

This whole part has to be moved to the previous section (i.e. 3.2). There is also a repetition here about the topic of randomization

RESPONSE: Based on your suggestion, we have deleted the repetition on randomization and moved in the sub-section 3.2 as follows (also refer to 326-330):

The survey guidelines stated that questions have no correct or incorrect answer in order to decrease subject anxiety. The key terms (e.g., waste reduction for sustainability at restaurants) were explained, along with their examples. The questionnaire had three sections: the first section incorporated definitions on key terms and general questions; the second included items associated with the research framework; and the third comprised socio-demographic characteristics.

Line 375

Belongs to "Methods" and not to the "Results"

RESPONSE: Thank you for your valuable comment. As you suggested, we have moved the sub-section of ‘Grouping check’ to Methods (see lines 392-400).

Line 376 - 382

These paragraphs need to be significantly shortened.

RESPONSE: Based on your suggestion, we have shortened the problem paragraph as follows (also refer to lines 392-400):

3.4. Grouping check

The high and low dining expense was assessed by a general question (i.e., “When you dine at restaurants, what is your average spend per person by Korean won?”). Grouping has been performed by a median-split (KWR 20,000) on average dining expenses per restaurant visit. There are 177 high- and 199 low-spending respondents. For more accurate analyses, the respondents on the median (n=106) have been excluded. To confirm validation of grouping, average difference in average spend has been checked to see higher spend group (mean = KWR 45,903) had relatively higher than the low spending group (mean= KWR 11,648). This result indicates that there is a satisfactory difference in grouping [72].

Respondents’ profile

Move this section to Methods.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your valuable comment. As you suggested, we have moved the sub-section of ‘Respondents’ profile’ to Methods (see lines 401-429).

Table 1

Table 1 should be disassembled into two tables. The first should present only basic demographics (and presented in the Methods section). The second table should be moved to the appendix and shortened. Please redesign the table so it will include three columns instead of six (spreading over more pages in the appendix). Please present only the percent of participants agreeing with each statement (agree and strongly agree). In some characteristics, such as occupation, the categories can be united.

RESPONSE: According to your comments, we have disassembled the Table 1 into new Table 1 and Supplementary A, applying your suggestions as follows. Please refer to lines 415-418 for the new Table 1 and lines 850-854 for Supplementary A.

Table 1. Comparison of demographics of high

and low dining expense groups

Characteristics	High^a (%)	Low^b (%)
*Gender*
Male	56.5	42.7
Female	43.5	57.3
*Age*
20 – 29 years old	19.8	35.2
30 – 39 years old	31.6	32.7
40 – 49 years old	31.6	19.1
50 – 59 years old	13.0	9.5
60 years old and over	4.0	3.5
*Educational level*
Less than or high school diploma	14.7	10.6
2-year college	20.3	12.6
University	56.5	61.3
Graduate school or higher	8.5	15.6
*Marital status*
Single	42.4	49.8
Married	54.8	48.7
Other (divorce)	2.8	1.5
*Monthly household income*
Less than 2.00 million KRW*	5.6	13.6
From 2.00 to 3.99 million KRW	33.3	28.1
From 4.00 to 5.99 million KRW	32.8	29.5
From 6.00 to 7.99 million KRW	14.7	16.6
8.00 million KRW and over	13.6	12.2
*Occupation*
Professionals	13.6	12.6
Business owner	6.8	5.0
Service worker	6.8	6.5
Office worker	53.1	42.3
Civil servant	2.8	5.5
Home maker	7.3	7.5
Retiree	1.1	0.5
Student	4.0	11.1
Unemployed	1.7	4.5
Other	2.8	4.5
*Residential district*
Metropolitan areas	67.2	71.8
Non-metropolitan areas	32.8	28.2

Note: *US$ 1 = KRW (Korean Won) 1,147 as of May 1, 2019.

High^a: high group (n=177); Low^b: low group (n=199).

Supplementary A

Comparison of general characteristics of high and low

dining expense groups

Characteristics	High^a (%)	Low^b (%)
*Frequency of eating out*
Less than 5 times per month	47.5	30.2
5 – 14 times per month	43.5	39.1
15 times and over per month	9.0	30.7
*Purpose of dining out*
Date	22.6	15.1
Social gathering	31.1	28.1
Family gathering	40.6	29.3
Business meeting	2.3	5.0
Celebration of special occasions	2.3	1.0
Other	1.1	21.6
*Average spend per person*
> 20,000 Korean Won (KRW)	0.0	100.0
= 20,000 KRW	0.0	0.0
< 20,000 KRW	100.0	0.0
*Eating style*
Non-vegetarian	77.9	78.4
Vegetarian	21.5	19.6
Vegan	0.6	2.0
*Practicing waste reduction at work*
Somewhat agree and agree	54.3	61.4
Strongly agree	4.5	4.0
*Practicing waste reduction at* *home*
Somewhat agree and agree	63.7	66.3
Strongly agree	4.0	6.0
*Restaurant style recently visited*
Environmentally neutral restaurant	57.6	66.4
Environmentally friendly restaurant	37.9	29.1
Vegetarian restaurant	2.8	2.0
Vegan restaurant	0.6	0.5
Others	1.1	2.0
*Restaurant classification recently visited*
Upscale full-service restaurant	5.6	0.5
Casual/family full-service restaurant	68.3	70.8
Hotel restaurant	0.0	1.0
Limited service (fast food) restaurant	4.0	14.6
Café	2.3	1.0
Buffet restaurant	18.6	10.6
Speciality food service (e.g., caterer)	0.6	0.5
Other	0.6	1.0

Note: *US$ 1 = KRW (Korean Won) 1,147 as of May 1, 2019.

High^a: high group (n=177); Low^b: low group (n=199).

Table 2

Behavioral intention to waste reduction - please clarify whether respondents were given examples as to what account for pro- environmental practices

RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing the issue and we have clarified the examples on pro-environmental practices at restaurants in the questionnaire as follows (please also see Supplementary C at the beginning of the questionnaire on lines 867-871):

Line 445-452

Please indicate which hypothesis were rejected/confirmed

RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing the issue. Actually, there is no rejected hypothesis so we have cleared that as follows (also see lines 472-473):

Hence, all the nine hypotheses have been supported, revealing that there is no rejected hypothesis.

Figure 2

Please add hypothesis numbers

RESPONSE: According to your suggestion, we have added all the hypothesis numbers in Figure 2 as follows (pleas also see lines 474-476).

Line 475

Please improve syntax

RESPONSE: In line with your suggestion, we have improved the problem paragraph as follows (also refer to lines 495-499):

The data still supported the nine hypotheses when the control variables were added. Hence, the seven socio-demographic factors were not influenced in the present research model. Furthermore, all the path coefficients and t-values in the research model were very similar to the path coefficients and t-values included seven control variables (see Supplementary B).

Discussion

Your "take home message" needs improvements. The discussion opens with discussing the impact of food consumption and food waste, but theses issues are only part of the "pro-environmental" behaviors you refer to in your study.

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue. As you suggested, we have revised the discussion section in order to address your concern as follows (please also refer to lines 500-520):

4.4. Discussion

Food production, consumption, and waste are some of the greatest sources of anthropogenic GHG emissions [36-37,39]. Reducing food waste can therefore be a significant contribution to climate change mitigation, particular from foodservices, such as the restaurant sector, as more people eat out than ever before [1,36-37,45,10,12]. However, research on restaurant consumers’ waste reduction attitudes and behaviors is relatively limited in the foodservice industry, which has tended to focus on technical means to reduce waste for mitigating climate change [5,38,46]. In responding to this knowledge gap, this study has sought to better understand through the application of the TPB model what makes diners reduce waste for the purpose of addressing climate change while eating out at restaurants. Thus, this work sought to verify an extended TPB framework incorporating climate change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride related emotions, four main TPB constructs, and dining expenses as a moderator.

Results reveal that climate change awareness has significant effects on attitude and behavior intention to waste reduction for sustainability. Also, climate change mitigation pursuing actions positively influences attitude and behavioral intention to waste reduction. Consumers’ anticipated emotions of guilt and pride is identified as leading to their behavioral intention. Regarding the key TPB variables, diners’ attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control have an impact on their waste reduction behavior. Furthermore, levels of dining expenses significantly moderate seven relationships out of nine hypotheses in the research model. The following sections discuss the theoretical and managerial contributions as well as limitations and future research directions drawing upon the findings in detail.

There is no need to repeat your results. Please be more explicit regarding the direct and indirect implications of your findings, and provide possible explanations to each one. Please compare (and discuss) your results with those of other relevant studies. You state that your study "extend prior literature" but don't explain or illustrate in what way.

RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing the issue. As you suggested, we have added the context of prior literature as follows (please also see the blue text in lines 521-554): Conclusions

5.1. Theoretical implications

This work offers theoretical contributions to the tourism and foodservice literature by applying an extended TPB model in an Asian foodservice environment (Korea). Specifically, the significant effects of climate change awareness on attitude toward waste reduction and behavior in a foodservice context extend prior literature on associations among climate change concerns, attitudes to energy efficiency, and behavior in the context of renewable energy technologies and household energy efficient behavior (e.g., [4]). The influences of climate change mitigation pursuing actions on attitude and waste reduction behavior in foodservices expand previous research on relationships between interest in climate change mitigation, attitude toward willingness to act, and behavior with volunteers and barriers from industry, commerce, and government in the USA [10]. The influences of anticipated guilt and pride on behavioral intention to reduce waste in restaurants extend previous literature on relationships between anticipated pride/guilt and personal norm in tourist behavior in applying the norm activation process and value-attitude-behavior model [24] and the effects of anticipated pride and guilt on pro-environmental decision making [49]. The impacts of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on behavioral intention to reduce restaurant waste are consistent with previous studies on the impact of the key TPB variables on consumer preference for sustainable restaurants from Campania region in Southern Italy in an extended TPB setting [23] and consumers’ food waste behavior in the TPB context [26-30].

Another theoretical contribution is the observation of the moderating effects of high and low dining expenses with regard to waste reduction for climate change mitigation in the context of Asian restaurants. For example, the magnitudes of effects between climate change awareness and attitude as well as perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention are larger in high dining expense spenders than in low dining expense spenders. The findings extend prior literature on associations between consumers with high spending for organic products, with their strong eco-friendly attitude, and support for sustainability among wine consumers, comparing high and low household income levels [25]. In contrast, the magnitudes of effects between climate change awareness and behavioral intention, climate change mitigation pursuing actions and attitude/behavioral intention, anticipated guilt and behavioral intention, and attitude and behavioral intention are larger in low dining expense spenders than in high dining expense spenders. The results expand the findings of prior research on the relationship between individuals with non-luxury goods who are more likely to decide not to pollute and those with luxury goods who are less likely to concern the environment from the perspective of leisure and tourism-related behaviors [51].

Line 541-543

It is not clear to me how diners can be involved in waste reduction practices. Please be more explicit.

RESPONSE: As per your thoughtful suggestion, we have revised the problem paragraphs as follows (also refer to the blue text in lines 577-582)

These could be conducted by incentive programs e.g., using recycling products, taking a leftover, bring own bags or containers, giving discounts or saving points when diners are involved in waste reduction practices at restaurants, and/or through positive-reinforcement by restaurant staff. In addition, when diners do not participate in waste reduction practices at restaurants, restaurant staff would provide advice about the consequences on the environment.

Limitations and future research directions

You jump very quickly to suggestions for future research and do not discuss limitations of current research.

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue. In order to resolve your concern, we have added the limitations of the current research as follows (also see the blue text in lines 600-620):

5.3. Limitations and future research directions

Even though this work provides a significant contribution to understanding restaurant waste reduction in relation to climate change mitigation, there are a number of limitations which provide opportunities for future work. For example, this study conducted the survey only in one country so future study may need to be conducted in other nations and cultures in order to compare and generalize the findings of this research. Also, a quantitative method was applied to obtain and analyze data so future studies may need to adopt a qualitative approach to understand other dimensions of consumer behavior on waste reduction in foodservice industry. This survey also measured several items for atmospheric fine dust, which is a significant climate change related phenomenon in Korea and elsewhere in north-east Asia, together with climate change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions. Future research could measure these items separately in order to better understand differences of consumer behavior in relation to different dimensions of climate change. This is important as although climate change is a global problem it is experienced locally. For example, the climate change related issue of fine dust in the atmosphere may be more important for some jurisdictions than others, while in Korea it is a very important issue. In addition, to undertaking surveys with consumers in different countries and locations, other types of research methods, such as observation or big data analytics, could be employed to better develop a stronger knowledge base on consumer behavior in terms of climate change and waste reduction in the foodservice industry. Furthermore, future research on individual consumers’ pro-environmental practices at restaurants could directly measure attitudes towards specific waste-reduction practices in restaurants.

Please add conclusion remarks, highlighting your main insights.

RESPONSE: We greatly appreciate your valuable suggestion and we have added the conclusion remarks as follows (please also see the blue text in lines 621-636): Conclusion

Although waste reduction in the foodservice industry is significant in climate change mitigation, research on pro-environmental practices in restaurants has been substantially overlooked. Hence, this study built and verified a theoretically comprehensive research model including climate change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride and guilt with waste reduction, and the four key TPB concepts (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention), along with high and low dining expense groups. The findings of this study suggest that restaurants need to highlight the effects and consequences of waste reduction when dining out. It is also concluded that the foodservice industry should utilize the positive and negative emotions of consumers to increase and improve their pro-environmental practices as well as reduce business costs surrounding waste. Moreover, this study strongly urges restaurant entrepreneurs that they should seriously consider the main TPB constructs to enhance consumer waste reduction behavior. Finally, foodservice stakeholders need to develop their marketing strategies in terms of high and low dining expense groups to attract potential diners not only in terms of how much they spend on a meal but also with respect to pro-environmental practices such as waste reduction and climate change mitigation.

Thank you very much for your constructive comments!

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity of reviewing this interesting article. It addresses a topic of high importance and relevant for the journal's scope. I find the reserach well designed and conducted and the article well written. I really consider it one of the best articles in its field.

Author Response

Reviewer 3:

Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report

( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required

( ) Moderate English changes required

(x) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

Yes Can be improved Must be improved Not applicable

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Is the research design appropriate?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Are the methods adequately described?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Are the results clearly presented?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We greatly appreciate your favorable feedback and thoughtful suggestions. Based on your valuable comments on minor spell check required, we have substantially revised as well as improved our manuscript (please also see all the blue text in our entire revised manuscript).

Thank you very much for your constructive comments!

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 4 Report

General Comments

This is an interesting study that investigates linkages between climate change awareness and food reduction behavior in consumers in South Korea. Mainly, the authors design and conduct online survey among consumers in South Korea on the food waste in restaurant. The manuscript tests different hypothesis on whether awareness on climate change can reduce food waste or not. Although authors present an interesting finding showing significant effects of climate change awareness on behavioral intention to reduce waste, the manuscript needs to be improved before considering for publication in the current form. I would suggest addressing the following comments.

The manuscript consists of Section 2 “Literature Review”. However, the added value of this section is not clear. My suggestion would be to incorporate relevant parts of this section either in Introduction or Method section. This section can also rename as “Theoretical framework” moving parts of introductory literature into introduction. This is important because the section does not provide a complete or systematic literature review in the topic of food waste.

The manuscript can also be enriched by critical discussion of the current food systems on consumer choice. Normally, it is considered that consumers have choice to choose what to eat and reduce food waste. However, the main question is whether the current food environment is supportive enough for dietary changes and reducing food waste.

Specific Comments

Line 83-91: Please see also the IPCC SRCCL Chapter 5 for climate change mitigation from food systems and food loss and waste in the food system. Please see also Hic et al. 2016 ES&T for GHG emissions associated with food waste.

Line 102-104: Please explicitly mention SDG 12.3 which has the target to halve per capita food waste by 2030. Please consider citing that “SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) could be the bottleneck for sustainable development”. See Pradhan et al. 2017 Earth’s Future.

Figure 1: Please provide explanation of color and different shapes in the figure, either in caption or legend.

Line 264-274: This paragraph is hard to follow this is mainly because the authors are using many terminologies without explaining, e.g., “31 items”, “8 constructs”, “six indicators”. Providing a flow diagram would help to explain the method to the reader.

Line 275-279: Please clearly mention how many questions are there in the survey. Proving questions in the supplementary find would be an idea.

Line 283-284: The meaning of this sentence is unclear.

Line 459-460: The hypotheses 10a-10i are not mentioned in the method section. Please also mention them in the method.

Line 481-482: Please consider to also cite Hic et al. 2016 ES&T here.

Line 526-530: May consider highlighting here that SDG12 would be the bottleneck for success of the 2030 Agenda.

Line 559-570: This section mainly focus on limitation, “future research direction” is missing.

Author Response

Reviewer 4:

Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report

( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required

( ) Moderate English changes required

( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

(x) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

Yes Can be improved Must be improved Not applicable

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Is the research design appropriate?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Are the methods adequately described?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Are the results clearly presented?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

(x) ( ) ( ) ( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General Comments

We greatly appreciate your insightful feedback and thoughtful suggestions. Based on your valuable comments, we have provided substantial revisions and consequently our manuscript has been improved tremendously as follows. Please also refer to the blue text of our revised manuscript which indicates the paper’s newly added and revised parts.

RESPONSE: Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments. In order to resolve your concern, we have integrated the theoretical framework as the sub-sections of 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 into the introduction section (see lines 85-162 of the revised manuscript). In addition, we have made the new section of “The proposed research Model" included hypothesis development (see lines 164-282 of the revised manuscript). Please also refer to ‘Responses 15-16’ for reviewer 1.

Specific Comments

RESPONSE: Thank you so much for your recommendation on valuable references. As you suggested, we have included your suggestions as follows (please also refer to lines 97-110 of the revised manuscript):

Climate change mitigation pursuing actions are the seeking of practices that lessen greenhouse gas emissions [35,5,10]. Such actions can be undertaken by individuals, businesses, organizations, or government [10]. Activities such as waste reduction and recycling that reduce life-cycle energy use and industry emissions are undertaken by both organizations and individuals [1,36-37]. In contrast, the adoption of plant-based diets is more of an individual response to climate change, along with other potential factors such as animal welfare, health improvement, and biodiversity conservation [3]. Combining supply-side actions such as efficient production, transport, and processing with demand-side interventions such as modification of food choices, and reduction of food loss and waste, reduces GHG emissions and enhances food system resilience [38]. Avoiding food loss and waste will have positive environmental effects because, for example, during 2010-2016 global food loss and waste equalled 8–10% of total GHG emissions from food systems and cost about USD 1 trillion per year (2012 prices) [38,39]. In this research, climate change mitigation pursuing actions are conceptualized as the seeking of appropriate behavioral and systemic actions for mitigating climate change and associated atmospheric and weather events.

RESPONSE: With regard to your thoughtful comment, we have included your suggests as follows (please also see lines 120-126 of the revised manuscript):

Food waste reduction has become a global concern with the sustainable development goals aimed at halving food waste per capita at retail and consumer levels, with plate and portion size reduction, menu change, and menu information being effective interventions [36-37,45]. Meeting the Agenda 2030 sustainable development goals requires a termination of the current locked-in relationship between the desired poverty reductions that have contributed to improved health and nutritional status and the resulting increase in greenhouse gas emissions and food waste [46].

Figure 1: Please provide explanation of color and different shapes in the figure, either in caption or legend.

RESPONSE: With regard to your thoughtful comment, we have provided a note in Figure 1 as follows (please also see line 281):

Note: The shaded constructs denote the extended TPB and the white constructs denote the TPB.

RESPONSE: We appreciate your keen observation on our manuscript. In order to resolve your concern, we have revised the wording to be consistent as follows. If you still think that a flow diagram needs for the 31 items of eight constructs, we will add it (please also refer to lines 284-300):

3.1. Measurement

Line 275-279: Please clearly mention how many questions are there in the survey. Proving questions in the supplementary find would be an idea.

RESPONSE: Thank you so much for your comment and we have provided the questionnaire as the supplementary C (please also refer to lines 863-996).

Line 283-284: The meaning of this sentence is unclear.

RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing the issue. In order to address your concern, we have revised the problem sentence as follows (please also see lines 306-307):

Four academics who are specialized in the research theme precisely evaluated the content validity of the questionnaire.

Line 459-460: The hypotheses 10a-10i are not mentioned in the method section. Please also mention them in the method.

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue. As you suggested, we have mention in the previous section as follows (also refer to lines 273-282):

Based on all the hypotheses, the proposed research framework is presented in Figure 1.

Note: The shaded constructs denote the extended TPB and the white constructs denote the TPB.

Figure 1. Proposed research model.

Line 481-482: Please consider to also cite Hic et al. 2016 ES&T here.

RESPONSE: We greatly appreciate your thoughtful suggestion. We have added Hiç et al., 2016 and revised the sentences as follows (also see lines 501-504):

Line 526-530: May consider highlighting here that SDG12 would be the bottleneck for success of the 2030 Agenda.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your valuable suggestion and we have included the SDG12 as follows (please also see lines 556-564):

Line 559-570: This section mainly focus on limitation, “future research direction” is missing.

RESPONSE: We appreciate your thoughtful comment. In order address your concern, we have added future research directions in the blue text as follows (please also refer to lines 600-620):

5.3. Limitations and future research directions

We thank the reviewer for constructive and valuable comments!

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 5 Report

This study evaluates an extended theory of planned behavior model incorporating climate change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride and guilt, and high and low levels of spending on dining. Overall, the approach of the study in the manuscript is good and could be useful in the public domain, but the manuscript needs considerable revision to reach the public domain. Authors are suggested to address following comments in order to make the manuscript suitable for publication.

# Abstract:

*The abstract should be rewritten by detailing the aim and concept of the study. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions.

* Line no 23-24, Rephrase the sentence.

# Introduction:

* Introduction is very general and need to be elaborative to explore the actual philosophy to design the study The introduction is insufficient to provide the state of the art in the topic. Hypothesis should be given. How this work is different from the available data?

The originality and novelty of the paper need to be further clarified.

*The introduction of the paper must be extended and reformulated in order to provide a more comprehensive approach.

# Methods:

*Line no 275, Elobrate Likert-type scale.

# Results and discussion:

* The discussion section should be merged with results section.

*The manuscript does not provide interesting and technically sound discussion; it would be better to use more recent references in discussion.

*Under section, discussion, it is recommended to discuss and explain what should be the appropriate policies based on the findings of this study. Also, the results should be further elaborated to show how they could be used for real applications.

# Conclusion

* Conclusions and future prospects should be another section.

*Authors are suggested to draw major inferences/primary conclusions first quoting the data/results obtained followed by the secondary conclusions/ recommendations reached through the critical analysis/ investigation of the study.

Author Response

Reviewer 5:

Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report

( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required

( ) Moderate English changes required

(x) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

Yes Can be improved Must be improved Not applicable

Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Is the research design appropriate?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Are the methods adequately described?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Are the results clearly presented?

( ) (x) ( ) ( )

Are the conclusions supported by the results?

( ) ( ) ( ) ( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We greatly appreciate your thorough review and thoughtful suggestions. Based on your valuable comments below, we have substantially revised as well as improved our manuscript as the followings. Please also refer to the blue text of our revised manuscript for newly added and revised parts.

# Abstract:

*The abstract should be rewritten by detailing the aim and concept of the study. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions.

RESPONSE: Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. As you suggested, we have improved the abstract as follows (please also refer to lines 14-32):

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of what makes consumers reduce waste in order to address climate change, particularly when dining out. To accomplish the goal, this research constructs an extended theory of planned behavior model, using four main constructs of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention and incorporating climate change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride and guilt, and high and low levels of dining expenses. An online survey was conducted of 482 respondents aged 20 years old or over who had dined in restaurants in the previous month in 2019. A partial least squares-structural (PLS) equation modeling analysis has been utilized with multi-group analysis. Results reveal that climate change awareness has significant effects on attitude and behavior intention, and climate change mitigation pursuing actions positively influence attitude and behavioral intention to reduce waste. Consumers’ anticipated emotions lead to their behavioral intention. Diners’ behavioral intention to reduce waste is significantly influenced by their attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on waste reduction in restaurants. The levels of dining expenses significantly moderate seven out of nine hypotheses. Research on consumers’ waste reduction in relation to climate change is not sufficiently conducted in the foodservice sector. Using an extended TPB to understand diner behavior related to waste reduction and climate change, this study therefore makes an important contribution to improving sustainability in foodservices, especially in the Asian context.

* Line no 23-24, Rephrase the sentence.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your keen observation. As you suggested, we have rephrased the problem sentence as follows (please also see lines 25-27 of the revised manuscript):

Diners’ behavioral intention to reduce waste is significantly influenced by their attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on waste reduction in restaurants.

# Introduction:

* Introduction is very general and need to be elaborative to explore the actual philosophy to design the study The introduction is insufficient to provide the state of the art in the topic.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your insightful comments. In order to address your concern, we have revised the whole introduction section as follows (also refer to lines 37-162 of the revised manuscript): Introduction

1.1. Climate change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions

Climate change awareness can be defined as the perceived concerns over threats to human society and natural ecosystems from climate change [32,8,33,4]. Climate change awareness is essential for the development of active initiatives to manage climate change risks [33], including waste reduction [4]. Moreover, growing awareness of climate change influences the adoption of low-carbon consumption patterns that can help mitigate climate change [2]. Climate friendly behavior is also influenced by climate change awareness and mitigation initiatives [34]. In this research, climate change awareness is conceptualized as the perceived concerns on the reasons, consequences, or risks of climate change. Such a definition also incorporates responses to climate change associated weather events or atmospheric conditions, such as fine dust and reductions in air quality [32].

1.2. Waste reduction in foodservices

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency [40], waste reduction can be defined as a set of processes and practices intended to reduce, recycle, and reuse resources or use renewable energy sources. For the foodservice industry, waste reduction during the consumption stage has a significant sustainability role, including environmental conservation and promoting human health and wellbeing [41,42,43]. Providing information about the negative impacts of food waste at landfills to consumers significantly reduces more food waste than not providing the information to consumers [44]. Food waste reduction has become a global concern with the sustainable development goals aimed at halving food waste per capita at retail and consumer levels, with plate and portion size reduction, menu change, and menu information being effective interventions [36-37,45]. Meeting the Agenda 2030 sustainable development goals requires a termination of the current locked-in relationship between the desired poverty reductions that have contributed to improved health and nutritional status and the resulting increase in greenhouse gas emissions and food waste [46].

Reducing waste in the foodservice industry has been found to have a number of positive environmental and socio-economic consequences [47-48,23]. The foodservice sector is one of the largest food waste sectors based on food inputs, with sustainable measures potentially reducing waste and improving efficiency and thereby lowering costs [47]. The attitudes and behaviors surrounding food waste in the foodservice sector significantly influence the amount of food waste in restaurants [48]. The level of interest in protecting the environment is so substantial that some consumers actively seek restaurants that adopt sustainable practices e.g. food safety, improved energy efficiency, waste reduction, recycling, and low-carbon food [23]. As pro-environmental practices, waste reduction behavior in foodservices for sustainability and climate change mitigation reasons refers to practices for reducing, recycling, or reusing resources (e.g., food, energy, water, plastic, disposable products) and using renewable energy sources during dining.

1.3. TPB and theory extension

The TPB is a theory on the linkages between individuals’ beliefs and behavior that states that perceived behavioral control, attitude toward behavior, and subjective norms lead to intention and behavior [15,16]. In order to predict pro-environmental behavior, incorporating significant variables, e.g., responsibility, personal norm, and anticipated pride and guilt, into the TPB has been found to substantially increased the explanatory power of environmentally friendly behavior for travelling [19,20]. With respect to sustainable tourism, an extended TPB has been applied by including green image, environmental awareness, and anticipated emotions, revealing that the extended TPB enables a better understanding of tourists’ waste reduction intentions [17]. In the foodservice domain, TPB constructs have enabled an improved understanding of the behavioral responses of green hotel guests [18].

In foodservices, extended TPBs have also improved understanding of consumer behavior in terms of sustainability [21-23]. Combining the three variables of environmental concern, collectivism, and perceived consumer effectiveness, in an extended TPB has been found to highly explained consumer intentions to visit eco-friendly restaurants [21]. With respect to diners’ takeaway waste separation intention, an extended TPB incorporating environmental concern has highly predicted separation intention in relation to conditional factors of facilities and time pressure [22]. In an extended TPB, two added variables (perceived usefulness and curiosity attitude) and attitudes, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms have been found to influence the intentions of consumers who preferred sustainable restaurants with behavioral intentions affecting actual behavior [22]. Hence, in this study, the four constructs of climate change awareness, mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride and guilt, have been incorporated into an extended TPB applied to better understand diner behavioral intention with respect to waste reduction.

Hypothesis should be given. How this work is different from the available data?

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue. In order to address your concern, we have re-written the hypothesis section as follows (please also see lines 164-282 of the revised manuscript):

The proposed research model

2.1. Climate change awareness, attitude, and behavioral intention

The level of awareness of anthropogenic climate change is positively related to risk perception and the climate action that people take [8,34] refers to a “pro-climate friendly behavior.” There are numerous instances of the implications of awareness for climate change actions. For example, public awareness of heat waves influences attitudes towards the influences of heat waves on the society and the reframing and communication strategies [7]. Increasing climate change awareness brings greater use of eco-friendly food on the basis of reducing GHG emissions and mitigating climate change [2]. Public opinion on climate change concerns are also related to environmental attitudes and the adoption of energy efficient behavior to reduce emissions [4]. Hence, this research posits two hypotheses on waste reduction for sustainability in foodservices:

Hypothesis 1. Consumers’ climate change awareness has a positive effect on their attitude toward waste reduction.

Hypothesis 2. Consumers’ climate change awareness has a positive effect on their behavioral intention on waste reduction.

2.2. Climate change mitigation pursuing actions, attitude, and behavioral intention

Although individuals may be engaged in pursuing climate change mitigation, they are constrained by structural, economic, and social barriers, including limited awareness of the problem, attitudes, and actions to improve the environment [35,5], which also influence consumer attitudes and behaviors [10]. People who acknowledge climate change mitigation practices usually have pro-environmental attitudes towards global heating as well as being engaged in pro-climate behaviors [4]. Moreover, people who consider that anthropogenic climate change is taking place were more likely to show concern with the impacts and engage in mitigation [9], implying that climate change mitigation pursuing actions influence attitude and behavior. Hence, we postulate two hypotheses on waste reduction for sustainability in foodservices:

Hypothesis 3. Consumers’ climate change mitigation pursuing actions have a positive effect on their attitude toward waste reduction.

Hypothesis 4. Consumers’ climate change mitigation pursuing actions have a positive effect on their behavioral intention on waste reduction.

2.3. Anticipated pride and guilt and behavioral intention

Individuals’ anticipated pride and guilt has been shown to have significant roles in their sustainability-related behavior [24,19,20,42]. Anticipated pride and guilt allow an individual to act for the environment in a manner that is consistent with the individuals’ norms on the self-regulating function of the emotions [19]. Anticipated emotions of pride and guilt greatly enhance the explanatory power of the expanded TPB, leading to the intention of action [20]. For individuals in individualistic cultures, anticipated pride and guilt has been found to have had a greater impact on environmentally friendly choices than in collectivist cultures, and emotions are also more social in nature in collectivist than individualist cultures [50].

The anticipation of the positive future emotional state from green action by an individual just prior to making an environmentally-related decision was found to lead to higher pro-environmental behavioral intentions in comparison to the anticipation of a negative emotional state from inaction [49]. Tourists’ anticipated emotions of pride and guilt also have positive effects on personal norms which, in turn, lead to eco-friendly behaviors of word of mouth, buying, and sacrifice [24]. Anticipated pride in this research is conceptualized as anticipating emotions of being proud of, being accomplished by, and/or being confident with respect to reducing waste at restaurants, while anticipated guilt is defined as anticipating emotions of being guilty, being remorseful, and/or being sorry for not reducing personal food waste at restaurants. Hence, we propose the two hypotheses in foodservices:

Hypothesis 5. Consumers’ anticipated pride has a positive effect on their behavioral intention on waste reduction.

Hypothesis 6. Consumers’ anticipated guilt has a positive effect on their behavioral intention on waste reduction.

2.4. Attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention

Key variables of TPB, subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived control of behavior have generally been found to predict behavioral intentions very accurately [15,16]. Tourists’ attitude toward and subjective norm on waste reduction behavior have positive impacts on their waste reduction intentions [17]. Among green hotel guests, subjective norm, attitude, and perceived behavioral control significantly influence continued intention to stay in the hotel [18]. With respect to foodservice industry waste, consumers’ attitude and perceived behavioral control have been found to influence takeaway waste separation in workplaces [22]. In the foodservice sector, diners’ positive attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on environmentally friendly actions substantially influence their behavioral intention to visit eco-friendly restaurants [21]. In the extended TPB model, consumers’ subjective norm, attitude, and perceived behavioral control on sustainability directly influence the behavioral intention to dine at sustainable restaurants [22]. Hence, we suggest three hypotheses with waste reduction in the foodservices:

Hypothesis 7. Consumers’ attitude has a positive effect on their behavioral intention on waste reduction.

Hypothesis 8. Consumers’ subjective norm has a positive effect on their behavioral intention on waste reduction.

Hypothesis 9. Consumers’ perceived behavioral control has a positive effect on behavioral intention on waste reduction.

2.5. Moderating role of high and low dining expenses

An individual’s income and level of spending can have significant implications for behavior. Compared to individuals with non-luxury goods, people with luxury goods (e.g., traveling by luxury vehicles or jets) are more likely to make decisions that benefit themselves rather than the environment [51]. For tourists the association between destination image and satisfaction, traveler motivation and satisfaction, cognitive quality and satisfaction is very different depending on whether expenditure is high or low [52]. In visitor economy crowdfunding, high and low investment amount groups moderate crowdfunder’ relationships, i.e., uncertainty level, venture quality, word-of mouth, participation, and re-participation [53]. Gender, age, language, occupation, group size, place of origin, and staying length have been found to be significantly different between high and low spenders in a South African wine festival. Visitors with higher expenditure placed greater importance on the inherent motivation to attend the festival than low-spenders [54].

In the foodservice industry, diners with high expenditure levels for a lunch considered that the nutritional elements of a menu were more important than low spenders, while low spenders think that taste is less important than high spenders [55]. In this study, high and low dining expenses are defined in relation to the average expenditure levels for a meal per person in the foodservice industry in Korea. Hence, this study anticipates that high and low levels of consumer dining expenses moderate nine relationships of the proposed framework in the foodservice industry:

Hypothesis 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d, 10e, 10f, 10g, 10h, and 10i. Consumers’ high or low dining expenses moderates the nine hypotheses proposed above of relationships among climate their change awareness and mitigation pursuing actions, anticipated pride and guilt, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention on waste reduction at restaurants.

Based on all the hypotheses, the proposed research framework is presented in Figure 1.

Note: The shaded constructs denote the extended TPB and the white constructs denote the TPB.

Figure 1. Proposed research model.

The originality and novelty of the paper need to be further clarified.

RESPONSE: In line with your suggestion, we have added unique contribution at the end section in the introduction as follows (please see lines 78-83):

*The introduction of the paper must be extended and reformulated in order to provide a more comprehensive approach.

RESPONSE: We greatly appreciate your inspiriting suggestion. In order to resolve your concern, we have revised the introduction section. Please refer to “3. RESPONSE” above (also refer to the blue text in lines 37-162 of the revised manuscript).

# Methods:

*Line no 275, Elobrate Likert-type scale.

RESPONSE: With regard to your construct suggestion, we have revised the sentence as follows (also see lines 298-300):

Every item has been evaluated applying a seven-point Likert-type scale, such as strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), somewhat disagree (3), neither agree nor disagree (4), somewhat agree (5), agree (6), and strongly agree (7).

# Results and discussion:

* The discussion section should be merged with results section.

RESPONSE: In line with your suggestion, we have moved the sub-section of discussion to the results section (please see line 500):

*The manuscript does not provide interesting and technically sound discussion; it would be better to use more recent references in discussion.

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising the issue. As you suggested, we have revised the discussion section in order to address your concern as follows (please also refer to lines 500-520):

4.4. Discussion

RESPONSE: Based on your insightful suggestion, we have elaborated the managerial contributions as follows (also see line 555-599):

5.2. Practical implications

By 2030, sustainable development goal 12 (ensure sustainable consumption and reduction patterns) is to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses [78-80]. In response to this challenge, this work provides a number of practical management contributions with respect to improving waste reduction practices and consumers’ climate change mitigation behavior. For example, the effect of climate change awareness on attitude toward waste reduction and behavior suggests that foodservice businesses can stimulate consumers perceptions of climate change issues, such as fine dust in the atmosphere, in order to improve pro-environmental attitude and behaviors, including waste reduction. This can be done by advertising and promotions as well as other behavioral interventions from the foodservice industry and governments. For example, this could be accomplished by adapting sustainable practices in their businesses and training their employees to communicate the relationships between sustainable restaurant practices and climate change mitigation to customers, i.e. by providing encouraging less waste at buffets. Also, the significant effects of climate change mitigation pursuing actions on attitude/behavior for waste reduction urge that foodservice marketers and governments should focus on boosting consumers’ volunteer participation in waste reduction actions as a pro-social behavior. It could be done by applying appropriate augmented and virtual reality technology to advertise content that inspires the interest of restaurant customers in the environment in relation to where their food comes from and where waste goes.

The influences of anticipated pride and guilt on behaviors for waste reduction suggest that restaurants might practice strategies for increasing guests’ emotions of pride and guilt on waste reduction in the context of eating out. These could be conducted by incentive programs e.g., using recycling products, taking a leftover, bring own bags or containers, giving discounts or saving points when diners are involved in waste reduction practices at restaurants, and/or through positive-reinforcement by restaurant staff. In addition, when diners do not participate in waste reduction practices at restaurants, restaurant staff would provide advice about the consequences on the environment. Moreover, the positive impacts of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on behavioral intention imply that foodservice industries could encourage consumer participation in waste reduction practices in foodservices by stressing to guests the non-voluntary and voluntary aspects. This could be implemented by promotion to attract guests’ attention via appropriate technologies as well as through personal recommendations by restaurants.

Furthermore, the greater influences of climate change awareness on attitude and perceived behavioral control on intention in high dining expense spenders than in low dining expense spenders suggest that restaurant practitioners might focus on market segmentation strategies by high and low levels of customers’ dining expenses. That is, if restaurant marketers and policy makers want to target consumers with high dining expenses, marketers should potentially emphasize climate change concerns and self-efficacy in relation to waste reduction. In contrast, the influences of climate change awareness on behavior, climate change pursuing actions on attitude/behavior, anticipated guilt on behavior, and attitude on behavior in low dining expense spenders than in high dining expense spenders suggest that foodservice stakeholders may need to position waste reduction practices by highlighting pro-social actions on climate change and fine dust mitigation. Such specialized market strategies can therefore potentially reduce restaurants’ operation costs and expenses, resulting in increasing profits as well as less waste.

# Conclusion

* Conclusions and future prospects should be another section.

RESPONSE: We greatly appreciate your valuable suggestion and we have added the conclusion remarks for conclusions and future prospects as follows (please also see the blue text in lines 621-636): Conclusion

RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing the issue. As you suggested, we have reinforced the theoretical contributions as follows (please also see the blue text in lines 521-554): Conclusions

5.1. Theoretical implications

Thank you so much for your constructive comments!

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer 5 Report

The authors have addressed all the comments with full justification. Hence, the paper may be accepted in its current form

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Can Climate Change Awareness Predict Pro-Environmental Practices in Restaurants? Comparing High and Low Dining Expenditure

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