Environmental Information or Social Norm? A Ladder Toward Environmentally Sustainable Food Choices

Abstract

Agricultural production and the food supply chain have a significant impact on the environment. To foster an environmentally sustainable food system, it is vital to change consumers' food choice patterns to be more environmentally sustainable. This study presents a concept ladder , a simplified model under which consumers may be at different stages in terms of their willingness and ability to make environmentally sustainable food choices: some may have little concern, others may have more concern but require the impetus of broader social norms to modify their choices, while a final group may have strong concern but in some cases be unable to exercise their preferences because of financial or other constraints. To empirically test this concept, we conducted a large‐scale randomised experiment involving Japanese consumers through two online surveys. In the first survey, respondents were randomly separated into three groups and provided with either environmental issue information (T1), social norm information (T2) or no information (Control). Two weeks later, a follow‐up survey was conducted to compare the actual environmental sustainability of food choice behaviours among the groups. The results show that the treatment effect of T1 is the largest for those with a low level of environmental concern, while the treatment effect of T2 is the largest for those with a moderate level of environmental concern, consistent with the ladder concept. Several robustness checks support these findings.