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Impact of Food Consumption and Consumer Choices on the Environmental Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Food".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 8599

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, Milano 20133, Italy
Interests: food choices; food labeling; consumer behavior; food; policy; innovation in the food sector
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, Milano 20133, Italy
Interests: international trade; applied economics; firm heterogeneity; development economics; food policy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is well-known that the food system has an increasingly disruptive impact on the environment. On the consumption side, we have witnessed a change in dietary patterns, with a constant shift of food consumption towards unhealthy products with high content in saturated fat, sugar, meat, and oils, whose production represent an important cause of environmental degradation. These changes in dietary habits pose a relevant problem in terms of climate and public health.

From the production side, the increasing industrialization of agricultural production and of the food-processing sector heighten the impact of the food system on the environment. In particular, livestock and dairy production play a pivotal role in this environmental impact due to the high amount of inputs required (e.g., fresh water, land, feed) and polluting output (e.g., methane, nitrous oxide, ammonia, and nitrate leaching).

All these elements may represent a challenge and an opportunity for consumers to increase the sustainability of the food system through their choices, and for producers to provide foods at a lower cost for the environment.

In this context, policy interventions should be aimed at implementing tools that can help to encourage sustainable consumption and production in order to mitigate the disruptive impact of the food system on climate change and on food-related diseases.

In this Special Issue, authors are encouraged to submit papers dealing with the environmental sustainability of the food system. Topics related to sustainable food choices, sustainable food and agricultural production, and policy tools aimed at promoting green and healthy production and consumption are particularly welcome.

Prof. Dr. Alessia Cavaliere
Dr. Daniele Curzi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable food consumption
  • sustainable food production
  • food policy
  • food choice
  • pro-environment behavior
  • environmental standard

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 5035 KiB  
Article
The Impact of Awareness Campaigns on Combating the Food Wasting Behavior of Consumers
by Cătălina Chinie, Isabelle Biclesanu and Francesco Bellini
Sustainability 2021, 13(20), 11423; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011423 - 15 Oct 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 7860
Abstract
As food loss and food waste continue to be social, economic, and environmental issues, governments, private companies, and nonprofit organizations have started initiatives in order to raise awareness about this topic. Food waste occurs mainly at the consumer level, so information campaigns have [...] Read more.
As food loss and food waste continue to be social, economic, and environmental issues, governments, private companies, and nonprofit organizations have started initiatives in order to raise awareness about this topic. Food waste occurs mainly at the consumer level, so information campaigns have been carried out in the media, in shops, or online, in order to point out the extent of the problem, its effects, and to educate consumers as to how to generate less waste. Although some awareness campaigns were conducted in Romania, mostly by the private sector, but also by governmental institutions, these efforts are still few in comparison with other European countries. Research of this topic has also started to increase, but the effects of the campaigns conducted in Romania have not been thoroughly assessed. In an effort to evaluate the effectiveness of these campaigns on consumer food-wasting behavior, we have carried out a study among Romanian citizens, based on a survey. The data were analyzed using the chi-square test and the probit regression model. The results indicate that most respondents already self-assessed their food waste as small to moderate, regardless of their familiarity with food waste campaigns, and it might be the case that only their additional actions to reduce food waste are linked with them coming across food waste reduction campaigns. Full article
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