Cultured meat: overcoming consumer barriers

Dissertation Leonore Lewisch

Global meat consumption is on the rise, despite strong criticism for its impact on global warming, poor animal standards and zoonotic diseases. Since over 90% of the world population regularly eats meat, the potential of advocating a meat-free diet appears limited. Instead, cultured meat could be a remedy for this dilemma. Cultured meat describes meat that was physically grown in a laboratory by cultivating animal stem cells. The research of this dissertation focuses on the marketing perspective of cultured meat and explores consumer perceptions on this topic. More precisely, this work investigates customer-centered mechanisms that could reduce the key psychological barriers reported by potential consumers. A series of experiments is intended to shed light on how those oppositions towards cultured meat can be systematically reduced in order to foster the subsequent diffusion of this food tech innovation.

Photo: ThisIsEngineering from Pexels

Consumer Sufficiency as a pathway to climate change mitigation: Understanding the effectiveness of gain frames to foster consumption reduction

Dissertation Charlotte Baar

In Sustainability research Sufficiency represents the consumption-based complementation of the technology-driven concept efficiency. It is considered a crucial strategy guiding sustainable development. Sufficiency is interpreted as a sense of “enoughness”, or simply as as reduced consumption, or even as shifted consumption patterns. The term is widely used across diverse disciplines, which leads to scattered conceptualizations and a fragmented knowledge base which hampers the advancement of knowledge. In my doctoral project, I will investigate Sufficiency from a consumer perspective. Research questions include, i.e., what classifies Sufficiency-based lifestyles and values (conceptualization and literature review), and how/under which circumstances are they adopted by individuals (empirical work)? My project will focus on Communication as commonly used political tool to shape individuals’ environmental behavior. Gain-framed communication offers promising possibilities for encouraging behavior change, but hasn’t been applied to Sufficiency-messages before. In taking an interdisciplinary perspective (Psychology, Communication-Science, Environmental Sciences, Sociology, Marketing and more), I intend to contribute to knowledge accumulation in the field with the conceptualization and measurement of Consumer Sufficiency. Based on these insights, in the following step this project aims to provide empirical evidence on consumers’ readiness for Sufficiency-adoption, and on the effect of gain-frames to encourage Sufficiency-based behavior change.

Photo: Caroline Kunesch (BOKU)

A conceptual review and taxonomy of constructs assessing consumer dispositions towards environmental sustainability

Dissertation Laura Wallnöfer

The SDG12 in the United Nations' Agenda 2030 provides a guideline to complement the technology-driven approaches on the production side with individual-level-driven approaches on the consumption side. Current lifestyles, however, are embedded in a fossil-fuel dependent socio-economic system and shaped by an overconsumption of natural resources. The need to understand consumer-driven sustainability approaches has led to the conceptualization of over 60 consumer dispositions within the marketing, consumer behavior and environmental psychology literature. The non-consolidated literature and use of ad-hoc scales that lack elaborate scale development have led to conceptual and operational issues. This requires a systemization of the dispositions based on their conceptual domain (nature of construct) and contextual scope (nature of environmental issue). Thereby overview and guidance is provided to researchers and the identification of further methodological and substantive gaps is facilitated. With the development of a taxonomy of consumer dispositions towards environmental sustainability a conceptual contribution to the research on individual-level approaches to sustainable consumption is aimed.

Fostering Carbon-Friendly Diets: Consumption-side Interventions to Reduce Meat Intake

Dissertation Tatjana Kwasny

A reduction of meat consumption and shift to plant-based diets have been acknowledged as central for reaching climate targets. While scholarly research has identified drivers of meat consumption and barriers to its reduction, insights into the effectiveness of measures to initiate such a profound change in consumer behaviour are still relatively scarce. This dissertation focuses on consumption-side interventions in the context of meat consumption and aims (i) to review effective interventions to foster sustainable food consumption, in particular reduced meat consumption, (ii) to distil mediating processes and boundary conditions for different types of interventions, and (iii) to test long-term effects of interventions on actual meat consumption and their potential to initiate changes in dietary habits. This research contributes to the scholarly discourse around sustainable food consumption and provides inputs for evidence-based policy-making in the area of sustainable food consumption and carbon-friendly diets.

Photo: Ella Olsson at Pexels

Approach for Social Life Cycle Assessment during R&D

Dissertation Daniela Fürtner

With the implementation of new value chains, several benefits as well as risks may occur. In order to assess socio-economic impacts already during R&D activities, Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is sought to be implemented. A common framework for a holistic early stage socio-economic impact analysis of bio-based production systems from Short Rotation Coppice has to be established. Since
S-LCA is still under development, there are several challenges to solve, like the selection of appropriate and expressive indicators, finding a way for efficient data collection and adequate valuation methods. For this purpose, a mixed-methods approach of quantitative as well as qualitative characteristics is intended.

Life Cycle Assessment framework: dealing with methodological issues, and recommendations for developing an LCA in the R&D phase of agricultural dendromass value chains

Dissertation Enrique Alejandro Perdomo Echenique

As part of the Dendromas4Europe (D4EU) project, short rotation coppice is the agricultural production of dendromass, which feeds into the creation of new bio-based value chains. To support the establishment of a sustainable supply system, this dissertation aims to develop an integrative framework which captures the challenges, dynamics and potential answers for an LCA during a R&D phase of wood-based supply chains. The study addresses the main challenges connected to analysing potential environmental impacts, as well as identifying the most relevant environmental impact categories related to dendromass value chains. Moreover, the investigation considers the interactions between multidisciplinary stakeholders involved in the entire value chain, from raw material production to the final products. The results of the study will serve as guidance for further environmental studies that focus on the development of sustainable wood-based supply chains.