This report from The Eating Better Alliance looks at the role of business in leading the way to help people make healthy and sustainable choices, including shifting to more plant-based eating with less and better meat.

FCRN members Prof. Dr. Susanne Stoll-Kleemann and Uta Schmidt (MSc.) have brought our attention to their recent article on reducing meat consumption.

The Eating Better Alliance has launched a new campaign about eating less meat. The alliance have worked to create a new way of talking about eating less meat, through fun and positive messages and a set of adverts to inspire a new generation of men to be more daring with their food and give vegetarian options a chance. 

The Danish Council on Ethics is calling on the Danish government to regulate the consumption of what it calls ‘climate damaging foods’ by placing taxes on those products with the highest associated emissions.

The report investigates consumers’ meat eating patterns, the relationship with BMI, and their willingness to eat less meat or to eat meat that they may perceive to be ‘better’ in some way – eg. organic or free range.

This paper addresses the relationship between meat eating and climate change focusing on motivational explanations of environmentally-relevant consumer behavior. Based on a sample of 1083 Dutch consumers, it examines their responses to the idea that they can make a big difference to nature and climate protection by choosing one or more meals without meat every week.

This paper looks at the attitudes of different consumer segments to reducing meat consumption / consuming alternatives to meat consumption. It finds that general awareness of the environmental impacts of meat consumption is fairly low, and that while there is some acceptance of consuming less meat or consuming alternatives, this is not the case for all consumers and varies by consumer segment.

There seems to be a strong focus on livestock at the moment.  Greenpeace International has also entered the field now, with a new report, Ecological Livestock. Focusing on Europe, the report explores livestock production and consumption can be reduced to fit within ecological limits, such as biodiversity, climate change and water use.

The environmental organisation, WWF has published a new report entitled A balance of healthy and sustainable food choices for France, Spain and Sweden. It builds on the Livewell project undertaken in the UK which considers what a healthy acceptable and lower GHG  diet might look like.