Behaviour change and reducing food waste in Aberystwyth - results from a student study

Hi everyone, last year during my master’s course (MSc Environmental Change, Impact and Adaptation) the question of what I was going to do my dissertation was constantly on my mind.  I always knew I wanted it to relate to sustainability of some sort as this is what I’m most passionate about.

A few of months ago I was asked by Heather and Chris if I would be interested in writing a blog about my study. I initially jumped at the idea as I was excited to share my research with a wider audience. However, months went by due to being busy at work but finally I now have time.  I hope you enjoy reading about my study as much as I did undertaking it.  But first I would just like to say a big thank you to Heather, Chris, Marc and the Aber Food surplus volunteers and customers at St Pauls community café who participated in the study. It certainly couldn’t have been done without you!

So, now time to get to the nitty-gritty. After narrowing my choices down and getting very helpful advice from my supervisor, Marc Welsh, I decided to focus my study on the issue of food waste and behaviour change. I had previously looked at this problem at university and I was shocked at how unsustainable and wasteful the food supply chain is from farm to table. I found the topic of behaviour change very interesting and was certain that I wanted it to be part of the study as without changing our own behaviour we have no chance of changing the system. I also had the perfect connection of knowing Heather and Chris from Aber Food Surplus who also had the useful suggestion of including St Pauls Community Café in the study.

Firstly, I think it’s important to mention that changing inactive environmental behaviour is now one of the largest barriers to tackling climate change. One of the main issues is food waste, as large amounts of food are wasted at each stage of the supply chain from farms to the household. Many people are both unconcerned about and/or feel uniformed of, the consequences of food waste. Because of this, collective individual and systematic change needs to occur to reduce the amount of food being wasted.

My study focused on household and individual’s behaviour as this is where a large proportion of food waste is produced. It aimed to analyse the behaviour of people who proactively reduce their food waste in order to understand the reasons behind their behaviour change from inactive to proactive. Then, from this, suggest ways that people who are not concerned about reducing food waste can take positive action.

To do this, the Values-Beliefs-Norms theory (VBN) was used to analyse proactive behaviour to aid in breaking the behaviour down into logical stages. This theory argues that someone’s values influence their beliefs which in turn influences how they behave. In order to collect the data, I chose to undertake semi structured interviews, a short demographic survey and ethnography with a sample size of 15 participants. Of these participants, 7 were volunteers and customers at the community café at St Pauls church and 8 were volunteers for Aber food surplus.

Now onto the most important section, the main findings. To summarise, the study suggested that there are a few avenues we need to take to help change inactive food waste behaviour to proactive.

Number 1:

We need to increase people’s awareness of the consequences of food waste as many of the participants stated that this was the key driver for them to start taking more proactive action. To do this, education campaigns and government policy need to focus on these consequences to bring them to the attention of the public.

Number 2:

We need to enhance the education system to include more outdoors and hands on experience with issues effecting not just food waste but climate change as a whole. Other studies have found this to be far more successful in achieving proactive behaviour than learning from a book.

Number 3:

We need to encourage a connection between nature and people, so we appreciate and care for the environment more. This would also encourage biospheric and altruistic values (big words that mean people who care most about the environment and/or other people than themselves) which are integral to forming proactive behaviour and therefore also need to be an important part of any future policy.

Number 4:

We also need to change how people value food. Currently, many people simply throw away food without any thought or worry. If this was to change and people valued their food more, realised how much effort goes into producing their food and became more aware of the consequences related to food waste then people would be far less likely to throw away food.

Finally, because many participants stressed the need to change how and where we buy food, then researching in depth how supermarkets affect food waste behaviour is a major area for future research.

While the study wasn’t perfect and some may question the use of the VBN theory, I believe it successfully raises some extremely important points regarding food waste, behaviour change and ideas for future research. I hope that you feel inspired to start looking at your own food waste, and even helping others to make a change too!

Thank you!

Harry

Aber Food Surplus & St. Pauls Community Cafe