Policy framing, design and feedback can increase public support for costly food waste regulation

Fesenfeld, Lukas; Rudolph, Lukas und Bernauer, Thomas (2022): Policy framing, design and feedback can increase public support for costly food waste regulation. In: Nature Food, Bd. 3, Nr. 3: S. 227-235

Abstract

The reduction of food loss and waste is urgent, yet strict food waste regulations can be costly and unpopular. Drawing on a large set of survey experiments conducted in a high-income country, this study assesses the positive impact that specific policy framing, design and feedback may have on citizens' level of support to these regulations. Stricter regulation of food waste reduction is widely presumed to increase food prices, which could render its implementation politically unfeasible. Here we empirically tested whether specific policy framing, design and feedback could help ensure public support despite potential food price increases. We used survey experiments with 3,329 citizens from a high-income country, Switzerland. A combined framing and conjoint experiment shows that messages emphasizing national or international social norms in favour of reducing food waste (policy framing) can increase public support for more ambitious reduction targets. Also, most citizens support food waste regulation even if this leads to substantial increases in food prices, but only if such policies set stringent reduction targets and are transparently monitored (policy design). Finally, a vignette experiment reveals that voluntary industry initiatives do not crowd out individuals' support for stricter governmental regulation, but potentially crowd in support if industry initiatives are unambitious (policy feedback).

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 320 Politik
• Sprache: Englisch