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Commentary & Analysis
19th March 2025
Making sense of public opinion on sustainable food and diet changes in 2025 – from willingness and perception gaps, to policies and public engagement.
According to Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) latest carbon budget, a range of low-carbon choices will form part of a “balanced pathway” towards net zero – with food and diet changes making “smaller, but important contributions” to this transition. Household low-carbon choices contribute to one-third of emissions reduction in 2040, while a shift in average meat and dairy consumption are anticipated to make up 6% of these household emissions reductions. The CCC note that:
“By 2040, 25% of meat (30% of red meat) and 20% of dairy is replaced with lower-carbon foods, compared to 2019 consumption levels”
Drawing on evidence from a Citizens’ Panel, which was convened as part of the report, the CCC found that:
Interestingly, much of the news coverage of the Carbon Budget focused on diet shifts, despite a greater emphasis on other measures. (Electrification and low-carbon electricity supply make up the largest share of emissions reductions in the CCC’s pathway – 60% by 2040).
A three-month online research and engagement project conducted by Hubbub worked with 175 UK homeowners (followed by polling of 501 UK homeowners) to understand how to support UK households in the transition to net zero.
On diets and food, the work found people’s motivations involve a mix of considerations about health, costs and taste. Health was the biggest priority when it came to diet, but people also reported cutting down on meat due to increased costs.
When it came to tackling food waste, the expert advice and engagement offered to households helped to drive meaningful changes. By engaging in the project, 75% (130) of 175 Household participants said they felt more confident about reducing and preventing food waste at home.
More widely, the work suggests that further measures are needed to enable households to buy more loose fruit and vegetables, and increase the range of vegetarian choices available; while in terms of communication and engagement, the report suggests there is a need reframe meat reduction more positively.
Commentary & Analysis
11th December 2024
A story – told through data – of the climate discourse in the UK.
Several key barriers around changing food policy in the UK have been highlighted in a report drawing on interviews with former prime ministers, health secretaries and other senior ministers. While the piece focuses largely on the obesity crisis, its implications are relevant in the context of the climate crisis.
In terms of barriers to widespread dietary changes, the high profile interviewees argue that:
The report goes on to offer practical advice on how today’s politicians can drive meaningful change in food policy:
A report from the New Climate Institute finds that the UK has jumped the highest in its league of countries’ performance on tackling climate change, finishing behind only Denmark and the Netherlands.
While no country has performed well enough to qualify as a ‘very high’ performance, the UK’s ranking has been boosted by the new Labour government’s commitments to reduce emissions and roll out renewable energy across the country.
Despite this, the report says “the country is not on track to reach this target despite a significant reduction in 2023. While the coal exit was set for 2024, oil and gas use also need to be phased out…credible plans now only cover
one-third of the emissions reductions required to achieve the 2030 target“.
Ultimately, whether the UK can remain in its high position depends on whether it can follow through on ambition with effective implementation.
Commentary & Analysis
10th November 2024
Taking on the NIMBYs. Beating the blockers. The end goal is commendable, but is this how UK voters would like to be described?
(This commentary has been adapted from a published opinion article in Politics.co.uk)
Overall meat consumption in the UK has fallen by 15% in a decade. This is largely due to people taking smaller servings, according to a study conducted from 2008 to 2019 by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the University of Edinburgh.
Researchers found that men and people from poorer backgrounds, who typically eat more meat, were more likely to have cut their consumption by switching to smaller portions. Meanwhile women and wealthier people were more likely to stop eating meat completely.
However, consumption of white meat has risen amongst the British public, with chicken and pork increasingly considered healthier than red meat.
A new study of over 14000 Britons looks at how the British public see the UK’s role on climate action on the global stage. The research finds that the public wants:
In light of the results of the 2024 US election, most Britons want to see the UK either maintain (40%) or strengthen (26%) its commitments to climate change, even if President-elect Trump withdraws the USA from the Paris Agreement again.
In the face of rising climate impacts, UK-based researchers are calling for more measures that simultaneously tackle the root causes of climate change, while enabling society to adapt.
Efforts to tackle climate change have tended to prioritise mitigation (reducing emissions) over adaptation efforts (reducing vulnerabilities), and these two broad types of measures are often split across government departments, such as Defra and DESNZ in the UK.
But new research, using the UK’s record-breaking 40C heatwave in 2022 as a case study, has found clear demands for national and local governments to roll out measures that combine mitigation and adaptation.
Policy-makers, climate organisations, and those working in emergency response felt that approaches – such as creating climate-resilient neighbourhoods, tree-planting and other nature-based solutions – should be a priority, given their dual benefits. They felt efforts to combine emissions reductions and adaptation have challenges, but were feasible, with better coordination.
The new analysis also suggests that framing these efforts as part of working towards a ‘climate resilient net zero’ can be a useful way of engaging a range of relevant audiences and decision-makers – building on existing support for net zero.
The study findings are supported by Climate Barometer tracker insights, which shows that both the public and MPs feel mitigation and adaptation are equally important. It also echoes previous work which found that the public view mitigation and adaptation as “two sides of the same coin”.
What impact do visual representations of climate protesters in the media have on audiences? A new study has addressed this in light of the recent media trend towards depicting more young and female protesters in news stories.
By comparing audience responses to 10 different images (photo-edited to make comparisons in the study), the researchers found that images showing climate protestors and the police together, as well as images of younger protestors, tended to lead to more negative emotional responses amongst audiences. This included feelings of guilt and shame about climate impacts affecting future generations.
The content of the protest images did not deeply influence audiences’ broader climate attitudes and behaviours after viewing them. But the researchers did find that feelings towards protest images were influenced by a range of factors, such as the audiences’ gender, and suggest that the viewers’ worldview may play a role too.
New public polling: Behind the noise on net zero
With new tracker data being launched, we show how the solid support for climate action has become disconnected from the ‘noise’ surrounding net zero.