Reducing the environmental footprint of meat: Exploring interactive education as a tool to reduce consumption

Joselyn L. Sellers

doi:10.7273/000003771

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing society today and future generations to come. Although the majority of people are aware of the severity of climate change and its detrimental effects, many are unaware of what causes it, or what can be done to help at an individual level. People are told over and over again the same things in regard to reducing their carbon footprint, but report feeling small and insignificant in the big picture. This is largely brought on by the disconnect between people and the targets of their behavior. What most people may not understand is that small changes can have big impacts over time if applied broadly enough. Reducing one’s intake of meat and dairy has emerged as an effective way to live a more sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle, with potential for significant mitigation of emissions. This research aims to examine the question that if people were better educated about the impacts of the livestock industry on the environment, would we see a behavioral and societal shift away from eating meat and dairy? I decided to study this issue because I personally eat a primarily plant-based diet in my own attempt to reduce my carbon footprint and live a more sustainable lifestyle. Although I am neither vegan nor even vegetarian, I limit the amount of animal products I consume as much as possible, while still treating myself on occasion. I am also an Environmental Science major and wanted to combine my educational background with something that I am passionate about. Nutrition and living a plant-based lifestyle is something that I have grown very knowledgeable about over the past few years, dedicating much free time to reading books, recipes, and blog posts on the topic. Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies and I have developed a strong interest in sharing my knowledge of a plant-based lifestyle and its broader benefits with those around me. My goal is not to persuade others to eat less meat necessarily, but to show them that one of the ways they can reduce their carbon footprint is by reducing their meat and dairy intake. The aims of this research are three-fold. First, designing an interactive model serves as a robust exploration of the feedbacks and time delays inherent in livestock production. Second, by facilitating students through an exploration of food choices and their impacts will help answer if they are willing to cut down on their meat consumption. Third, learning by doing – rather than being told – will help support the use of interactive education to support learning and behavior change. The results of this research support the hypothesis that interactive education is a useful tool for shaping behavior, thus reducing the harmful environmental consequences of meat. The majority of surveyed students responded that they would be more willing to reduce their meat consumption after interacting with the model. By doing and thinking, people saw the opportunity for a new way to reduce their carbon footprint and felt confident that it would actually have a broader impact. Shaping meat consumption habits is no easy task and requires identifying the complex social factors associated food selection and developing policies for effective intervention. Successful interventions to improve environmental objectives will depend upon a good understanding of the impacts of meat consumption by the consumer, which means that it is up to civil society, the scientific community, and educators to coordinate these efforts and support learning by doing. A system dynamics interactive model similar to the one developed for this research could be used to run scenarios of interventions in the livestock sector that will help to plan and make future decisions that both sustain productivity and maintain environmental viability.

Reducing the environmental footprint of meat: Exploring interactive education as a tool to reduce consumption

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