Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Consumer Preferences for Different Designs of Carbon Footprint Labelling on Tomatoes in Germany—Does Design Matter?


Details zur Publikation

AutorenlisteMeyerding S.G.H., Schaffmann A.-L., Lehberger M.

Jahr der Veröffentlichung2019

QuelleSustainability

Bandnummer11

Heftnummer1587

VerlagMDPI

ISSN2071-1050

DOI10.3390/su11061587

SprachenEnglisch

Peer reviewed


Abstract

The climate impact of tomato production is an important issue in the sustainability of
tomatoes, especially in northern European countries, such as Germany. Communicating the climate
impact of products to the consumer is difficult and the design of the label might be the key to its
success. For this reason, the present study compares the utilities of six different carbon footprint
labels to evaluate which label design works best for the consumer. 598 consumers were surveyed
in a representative online choice-experiment. The participants had to choose between tomatoes
with different product characteristics, such as origin, price, organic label, and carbon footprint label.
A split sample approach was used where each sub-sample with around n = 100 saw a different
carbon footprint label design in the choice-experiment. The results suggest that qualitative carbon
footprint labels using color-coded traffic light labelling are superior to those that claim climate impact
reduction or neutrality, including those that provide more details regarding the climate impact of
the product and the company. The latent class analysis with four consumer segments shows that
a significant proportion of consumers in Germany would consider a carbon footprint label as an
important characteristic.