Sustainability labels (2012)

When sustainability was only a trend that studies looked at in isolated approaches, EUFIC was the first to conduct Europe-wide research into consumers’ awareness, understanding of use of several labels on both a qualitative and a quantitative level.

We studied the relationship between consumer motivation, understanding and use of sustainability labels on food products (both environmental and ethical labels), collecting data in six different European countries (the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Poland) and focussing on four selected labels: Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Carbon Footprint and Animal Welfare.

We found that consumers express medium high to high levels of concern with sustainability issues at the general level, but lower levels of concern in the context of concrete food product choices. Overall understanding of the concept of sustainability was limited, but understanding of the four selected labels was better, as some of them seem to be self-explanatory.

The results indicated a low level of use, no matter whether use was measured as self-reported use of different types of information available on food labels or as use inferred from the results of a choice-based conjoint analysis. Use of these labels is related to both motivation and understanding which are affected by demographic characteristics, human values (e.g., universalism and benevolence), and country differences.

The results imply that sustainability labels currently do not play a major role in consumers’ food choices, and future use of these labels will depend on the extent to which consumers’ general concern about sustainability can be turned into actual behaviour.EUFIC Forum n°6: Sustainability and social awareness labelling.

Publication:

• Grunert, K. G., Hieke, S., & Wills, J. (2014). Sustainability labels on food products: Consumer motivation, understanding and use. Food policy, 44, 177-189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.12.001

Book chapter (in German):

• Hieke, S., Grunert, K. G., & Wills, J. (2015). Nachhaltige Gütesiegel und ihre Rolle im Verbraucherverhalten. CSR und Produktmanagement: Langfristige Wettbewerbsvorteile durch nachhaltige Produkte, 69-95.

Want to know more? Contact sophie.hieke@eufic.org