People misjudge the environmental footprint of many foods. Better labeling could guide more sustainable consumer decisions.
A recent study provides new insight into how people understand the environmental impact of the foods they eat, revealing that many individuals misjudge these impacts. The findings point to a clear need for environmental impact labeling.
Researchers in the University of Nottingham’s School of Psychology carried out a food categorization task with 168 UK participants. Each person sorted a wide variety of supermarket food items into environmental impact categories that they defined and named themselves. The results showed several common misunderstandings about how different foods affect the environment. The study is published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
Why understanding food impact matters
Food systems significantly contribute to environmental challenges, including greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Encouraging shifts toward more sustainable diets requires a clearer picture of how people interpret the environmental footprint of food products.
Environmental impact is measured using life cycle assessment, which evaluates a product from “cradle-to-grave,” beginning with raw material extraction and ending with disposal. This method compiles data on inputs such as fertilizer, water, and energy, and outputs like emissions and waste, then assesses impacts across categories that include greenhouse gas emissions (often expressed as CO2 equivalents), land use, and water use.
Previous research has focused on only a limited selection of food types. In contrast, this study, supported by UKRI’s Smart Data Research UK, is the first to explore perceptions across a broad range of foods that someone might buy during a typical grocery trip.
Participants’ reactions to scientific impact scores
The participants in this study were shown product-level scientific impact estimates and reported whether they were surprised by how high or low each impact was.
The researchers found that people conceptualize the environmental impact of food along two underlying dimensions: animal versus plant origin and level of processing, with meat/dairy and more highly processed products perceived as worse for the environment. People also often overestimate the environmental impact of highly processed foods and underestimate the impact of water-intensive products (e.g. nuts). People were also surprised by how much higher the impact of beef is compared to other types of meat, such as chicken.
How the online task influenced behavior
Daniel Fletcher, Postdoctoral researcher from the School of Psychology is lead author on the study, he said: “We designed an online task to engage people with the topic and provide an interactive and visual way of investigating their understanding of the environmental impact of food. We found participants would be willing to change their purchasing behavior based on this task, reporting intentions to decrease (or increase) their future consumption of products for which they were surprised by how high (or low) the scientifically estimated environmental impact was.
“Our findings also suggest people may struggle to compare the environmental impact of animal-based products and highly processed foods because they see their effects as too different to weigh against each other. Environmental impact labels that give foods a single overall grade (such as A–E) could help make these comparisons easier for consumers.”
Professor Alexa Spence from the School of Psychology was a co-author on the study and said: “The environmental impact data on food products is opening up new avenues for this research and this is the first study to look at this against a wide range of everyday products and examine what people’s perceptions of these are. What was clear from the study is that there are a lot of misconceptions around this, which really supports the need for environmental impact labelling, which would help people to be more informed to make sustainable food choices.”
Reference: “Dimensions underlying public perceptions and misperceptions of food’s environmental impact” by Daniel Fletcher, Gavin Long, Evgeniya Lukinova, John Harvey, Joanne Parkes, Charles Ogunbode, James Goulding and Alexa Spence, 26 October 2025, Journal of Cleaner Production.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.146938
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5 Comments
And I honestly don’t care what my foods carbon footprint is. Healthy, good tasting food is my only criteria.
And why does it matter? CO2 sensitivity has been PROVEN BY OBSERVATION to be too low to matter to the climate. Do some research scitechdaily and stop feeding fear to your readers.
This is a Springer Publishing ploy – politically active investment scam has bought up the mass of scientific publications and requires “Climate Change” to be wedged or insinuated into anything in print. All part of the Euro financial conspiracy (not climate) with ‘the Paris Accords,’ Davos and Aspen – et al.
Why should we even be mindful of some bogus, useless construct? Who cares?
And what kind of a term is it, anyway? “Carbon footprint”. Does carbon have feet?
I’m trying to form a gag with two Oxygens – but I won’t go there.