Psychological consumer behavior and sustainable green food purchase

PurposeThe study aims to examine the role of consumer psychological attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control and pro-environmental self-identity on green food purchase intention. Also, it examines the effect of ecological conscious consumers' behavior (ECCB) on green intention and behavior.Design/methodology/approachThe study has focused on the upper-middle-class segment of Karachi. The authors have used area sampling for collecting the data. Six recruited enumerators distributed 450 questionnaires in five areas of Karachi and received 423 filled-in questionnaires. The study has used the Smart PLS version for data analysis.FindingsThe study found that biospheric egoistic and hedonic values affect attitudes toward green products, and altruistic values have no effect on attitude. Also, the authors did not find any association between attitude and green purchase intention, but found that attitude stimulates ECCB. Subjective norms and perceived behavior control strongly affect green purchase intention and ECCB. The results also suggest that pro-environment self-identity and ECCB are significant predictors of green purchase intention. The authors also found that green purchase intention stimulates green food behavior.Originality/valueThe authors have taken a holistic approach by investigating 13relationships. The authors also examined the association between hedonic values and green purchase intentions, which in the past studies have contradictory results.

Primary productivity in subsidized green-brown food webs

Ecosystems worldwide receive large amounts of nutrients from both natural processes and human activities. While direct subsidy effects on primary productivity are relatively well known (the green food web), the indirect effects of subsidies on producers as mediated by the brown food web and predators have been neglected. With a dynamical green-brown food web model, parameterized using empirical estimates from the literature, we illustrate the effect of nutrient subsidies on net primary productivity (i.e., after removing loss to herbivory) in two generic ecosystems, terrestrial and aquatic. We find that nutrient subsidies increase net primary productivity because more nutrients are available, but this effect saturates with higher subsidies. Changing the quality of subsidies from inorganic to organic tends to increase net primary productivity in terrestrial ecosystems, but less often so in aquatic ecosystems. This occurs when organic nutrient inputs promote detritivores in the brown food web, and hence predators that in turn control herbivores, thus promoting primary productivity. This previously largely overlooked effect is further enhanced by ecosystem properties such as fast decomposition and low rates of nutrient additions, and demonstrates the importance of nutrient subsidy quality on ecosystem functioning.

Blue and green food webs respond differently to elevation and land use

While aquatic (blue) and terrestrial (green) food webs are parts of the same landscape, it remains unclear whether they respond similarly to shared environmental gradients. We use empirical community data from hundreds of sites across Switzerland, and show that blue and green food webs have different structural and ecological properties along elevation as a temperature proxy, and among various land-use types. Specifically, in green food webs, their modular structure increases with elevation and the overlap of consumers' diet niche decreases, while the opposite pattern is observed in blue food webs. Such differences between blue and green food webs are particularly pronounced in farmland-dominated habitats, indicating that anthropogenic habitat modification moderates the climatic effects on food webs but differently in blue versus green systems. These findings indicate general structural differences between blue and green food webs and suggest their potential divergent future alterations through land use or climatic changes.

The measurement of competitiveness of forest green food industry in Yunnan Province

Improvement in living standards has led to the development and utilization of forest green foods. The study seeks to examine the foundation and potential of forest green food industry in Yunnan Province. By constructing the industrial competitive advantage model, this paper measured and analyzed the competitiveness of forest green food industry in Yunnan Province from 2016 to 2020 by using fuzzy evaluation method and AHP. The conclusions were as follows: (1) The competitiveness of forest green food industry in Yunnan Province was at a medium level with competitiveness index of 83.98. (2) The competitive advantage of forest green food industry in Yunnan Province mainly depended on key factors such as natural endowment and education level. The area is however not having comparative advantage in general factors and important factors. Therefore, there is the need to put in place measures to realise the full potential of forest green food industry in the area by providing players in the sector with requisite skills.

Towards More Sustainable Diets: Investigating Consumer Motivations towards the Purchase of Green Food

The concept of green consumption has become an environmental topic that draws worldwide attention. In order to mitigate environmental damage, it is imperative to increase the recyclability of the food system, and therefore, novel, sustainable, and produced foods need to be supplied to the food system. Among such foods, precooked plant-based foods (PPBFs), which feature health, convenience, and functionality, have become a new trend of the food culture. This study uses the value–attitude–behavior (VAB) model as the theoretical framework and incorporates research variables, such as “environmental concern”, “time pressure”, and “cooking habit”, so as to discuss consumers’ behavioral intention toward PPBFs. The research results reveal the following: (1) consumers’ health value and interest in PPBFs will significantly affect their behavioral intention; (2) there is a significant relationship between environmental concern and behavioral intention; and (3) time pressure and cooking habits indicate an insignificant relationship with behavioral intention.

Green Economy and Meat Processing–Future Prospects

This paper provides a brief overview of the possible strategies for reducing hydrocarbon emissions from the meat industry according to the Green Deal program of the EU in the next decades. An overview of emerging technologies (high-pressure processing (HPP), shock wave technology (SW), ohmic heating (OH) and pulsed electric field (PEF), cultured meat) that should reduce gas emissions is given, as well as methodologies that can be applied (labelling, sustainable cooking, product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) applications). Noticeably, most novel strategies draw the conclusion that we should go for lower consumption of meat, especially beef, and change habits to eat and prepare foods in energy and environmentally friendly ways, as well as apply the so-called “green” food declaration in the future. Transforming into a climate-friendly economy, protecting biodiversity, and reorienting the agri-food industry growth can contribute to creating greater resilience of society.