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BETTER POLICIES FOR BETTER

POLICY HIGHLIGHTS

Towardsgreener

households

Food

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In a context of a growing population, risingincomes and lifestyle changes, food productionand consumption exert ever-growing pressure onthe environment. The intensication of agriculturalproduction methods and a number of food scares

have also raised consumer concerns. Coupledwith concerns about the environment and health,these have induced some people to increase theirconsumption of more environment-friendly products,including organic food. The EPIC survey examinedwhat drives household consumption of organic fruitand vegetables and meat products that take animalwelfare into account.

Questions asked to households included theirexpenditure on organic fruit and vegetables andhumanely-produced meat as well as how much morethey would be willing to pay for these products; theamount of food thrown away and the amount of foodwaste composted, etc. The responses were cross-analysed with a wide range of attitudinal and socio-economic data for the respondent households.

What share of households’ fresh fruit and vegetablebudget is organic?

Food and the environment

FACTFILE

23% on average of surveyed households’fruit and vegetable expenditures are reportedly onorganic produce (see gure above). These gures maybe overestimations, however, as they are stated byrespondents and not measured using scanner-baseddata.

32% of households’ meat budget goes onproducts labelled as taking animal welfare into account. The average varies from 23% in Japan and Korea to 53%in Switzerland.

10% is the average price increase people arewilling to pay for organic fruit and vegetables. Respondentswho are concerned about the environment are willing topay more.

10% of food bought by surveyedhouseholds is reportedly thrown away overall. Countrymedian values vary: from 6% in France to 14% in Israel and15% in Korea.

36% of households on average composttheir food waste. Respondents who are more likely tocompost are older, have larger households, less income andlive in a detached or semi-detached house.

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Organic fruit & vegetables

Analysing attitudes to food

Personal behaviour and choices in daily life, from whatwe eat to how we get to work or heat our homes, have asignicant – and growing – effect on the environment. Butwhy are some households greener than others? And whatfactors motivate green household choices?

Answering these questions is vital for helping governmentsdesign and target policies that promote “greener” behaviour.

The OECD’s Environmental Policy and Individual BehaviourChange (EPIC) survey is designed to do just that. Drawingon observations from over 12 000 respondents in 11 OECDcountries (Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Israel, Japan,Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland), thislarge-scale household survey conducted in 2011 exploreswhat drives household environmental behaviour and howpolicies may affect household decisions. It focuses on veareas in which households have signicant environmentalimpact: energy, food, transport, waste and water.

This yer points decision makers towards ways to designwell-targeted and effective policies to green household foodconsumption.

Note: Figures may be overestimated because they depend on respondents’ own estimates; there may alsobe confusion over what constitutes an organic label.

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P OL I C Y HI GHL I GHT

S

What determines greenbehaviour?

Awareness. Environmental concern plays a centralrole in whether people use and trust organic labelsand buy organic food. Those who are concernedabout the environment spend more on organic andhumanely-produced food. They also tend to throwaway less food.

Price. In all countries, lower prices wouldencourage respondents to buy more organic food.Those respondents who declared that they werenot willing to pay extra for organic fresh fruit andvegetables were asked to state why: in all countriesexcept Korea, the most common response wasbecause “they do not think they should have to payextra”.

Trust and recognition. Trust in the certication andlabelling process was the second most importantreason given for not wanting to pay more fororganic food. In France and Sweden, more than 90%of respondents recognise the national organic foodlogo, while in Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan andSpain, less than 30% of the respondents did. Abouthalf of the respondents who recognised a logo alsoused it.

Waste charges. Respondents charged for theirwaste are 8% more likely to compost their foodwaste and 5% more likely to regularly purchasefood items with less packaging.

Key issues for policy makers

• Consider supply side policies measures which can helpto decrease the organic food price premium compared toconventional products.

• Improve communication between the agricultural sectorand the general public on the higher costs involved inorganic and humane farming.

• Do more to increase awareness and knowledge of thebenets of organic food, in particular among youngrespondents – especially men – who consume less

organic and humanely-produced food.• Increase awareness of and trust in organic food labels,

in particular among young respondents (18 to 34 yearolds). The growing number of (private and public) labelsfor agricultural practices and food quality may havecaused some confusion among consumers. In Australia,for instance, there are as many as six different labels fororganic food.

• Focus on food waste collection systems in urban areas,and on promoting composting in rural areas. Considerintroducing a waste fee based on the volume or weightof waste collected to encourage households to wasteless food. Target campaigns to diminish food wastetowards younger individuals and households with youngchildren.

Attitudes matter

The OECD’s Environmental Policy and Individual BehaviourChange (EPIC) surveys explore people’s attitudes to awide range of issues and their inuence on environmentalbehaviour. Their ndings are important for helpinggovernments encourage greener behaviour by households.For example, did you know that…

• Since the global nancial crisis, more people now feelthat environmental issues should mainly be dealt withby future generations?

• Women are more likely to be environmentallymotivated than men?

• There is an overall willingness to be green and to paymore for environmentally-friendly choices?

• Trust in government is a more powerful factor thanlevels of university education in predicting whetherpeople believe climate change is man-made?

Younger people tend to waste more food

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BETTER POLICIES FOR BETTER LIVES

For more information:

www.oecd.org/

www.oecd.org/env/consumption-innovation/greening-household-behaviour-2014.htm

Photos: © Artisticco/Shutterstock.com

This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General ofthe OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed hereindo not necessarily reect the ofcial views of the Organisation or of thegovernments of its member countries. This document and any mapincluded herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty overany territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundariesand to the name of any territory, city or area.

December 2014

OECD (2014),Greening HouseholdBehaviour: Overview from the 2011Survey, Revised Edition, OECD Studieson Environmental Policy and HouseholdBehaviour, OECD Publishing, Paris,DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264181373-en .

ALSO IN THIS POLICY HIGHLIGHTS SERIES:• Towards greener households: energy• Towards greener households: transport• Towards greener households: waste

• Towards greener households: water