How to reduce the environmental footprint of people's diets

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Livestock hasbeen described as climate change's forgotten sector, contributing an estimated 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than direct emissionsfrom the transport sector. Yet none of the 120 national plans to be presented at the COP21 Climate Negotiations in Paris propose reducing meatconsumption. In addition to the implications for climate change this important and overlooked topic also has impacts on land use, food security and publichealth. The research project proposes investigating which interventions are effective in reducing people's meat consumption. Reserach will be carried outwith colleges, retailers and public outlets in collaboration with Cambridge University's Living Laboratory for Sustainability. A number of experiments will becarried out including: 1) Experimental before/after comparisons on meat consumption after the provision of information on the environmental, health andanimal welfare impacts of eating meat. 2) Targeting habitual and automatic behaviours, by changing the prominence, accessibility and opt-in vs op-out ofmeat and vegetarian menu options and foodstuffs. 3) Investigating the permanence of inteventions, do consumption patterns persist after experimentaltreatments stop? 4) Investigating how the effectiveness of interventions varies with age, gender, political views, etc.