Is Agricultural Emissions Mitigation on the Menu for Tea Drinkers?
by
Rebecca Boehm 1,*, Hannah Kitchel 2, Selena Ahmed 3
, Anaya Hall 4, Colin M. Orians 5, John Richard Stepp 6, Al Robbat, Jr. 7, Timothy S. Griffin 2 and 
Sean B. Cash 2
Rebecca Boehm 1,*, Hannah Kitchel 2, Selena Ahmed 3, Anaya Hall 4, Colin M. Orians 5, John Richard Stepp 6, Al Robbat, Jr. 7, Timothy S. Griffin 2 and Sean B. Cash 2
1
Food and Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, 1825 K Street NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20006, USA
2
Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, 150 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111, USA
3
College of Education, Health and Human Development, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA
4
Energy and Resources Group, University of California at Berkeley, 310 Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-3050, USA
5
Department of Biology, Tufts University, Robinson Hall, Room 364, 200 College Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA
6
Department of Anthropology, 1112 Turlington Hall, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7350, USA
7
Department of Chemistry, Sensory and Science Center, Tufts University, 200 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2019, 11(18), 4883; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11184883
Received: 1 July 2019 / Revised: 16 August 2019 / Accepted: 27 August 2019 / Published: 6 September 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marketing of Sustainable Food and Drink)
Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental and social impacts of their purchases. Prior research has assessed willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental and ethical attributes on foods and beverages such as locally grown, fairly traded, and organically produced. However, few studies have examined WTP for agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, especially in the U.S. and to date, no prior study has examined how knowledge or concerns about climate change motivate WTP for climate-friendly products. The objective of this study was to estimate WTP for agricultural GHG mitigation and examine variability in WTP across consumer characteristics, climate change knowledge and risk perception. A sensory-grounded choice experiment and survey assessing climate change knowledge and risk perception was administrated to specialty food and beverage shoppers in the Midwest and Northeastern U.S. Male and lower-income participants, as well as those at the Midwestern study site were willing to pay a higher premium for agricultural GHG mitigation, relative to females, higher income participants, and those in the Northeastern U.S. Knowledge of climate change and level of concerns for the risks it poses were not significantly associated with increased WTP for agricultural GHG mitigation. This suggests that if consumer demand is going to play a role in driving agricultural GHG mitigation, motivations for such purchasing behavior must be more fully understood.
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Keywords:
climate change; willingness to pay; climate change knowledge and risk perception; greenhouse gas emission labels; choice experiment; latent class analysis; carbon footprint
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MDPI and ACS Style
Boehm, R.; Kitchel, H.; Ahmed, S.; Hall, A.; Orians, C.M.; Stepp, J.R.; Robbat, Jr., A.; Griffin, T.S.; Cash, S.B. Is Agricultural Emissions Mitigation on the Menu for Tea Drinkers? Sustainability 2019, 11, 4883.
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