00:00Merci, tout le monde, pour rejoindre aujourd'hui le web.
00:03Bonne journée à tous.
00:05C'est un plaisir d'être ici pour parler de l'EcoFoodChoice Project résultat.
00:11Aujourd'hui, le sujet est «Environnement Rating Labels et Consumer Behaviour en Europe ».
00:16Je suis avec mes collègues, Birgit Schulz-Eller,
00:20qui va parler de la reporte de l'EcoFoodChoice Project.
00:26Just so you know, this webinar is being recorded.
00:32The replay will be published on our website within about a week,
00:37together with our first webinar, which you can always watch on replay,
00:41and you will also receive the replay by email.
00:45Don't hesitate to send any questions that you have in the Q&A section.
00:49We will have time at the end of the presentation to answer as many questions as we can.
00:56And if we don't have the time to answer your question,
00:58we might send a Q&A report after the webinar,
01:03or we might come back to you after the webinar as well.
01:05And you can always contact us if you would like to discuss further one specific topic.
01:12If you haven't met me yet, I'm Zoë Kuder, I'm the project manager for EcoFoodChoice.
01:18Today I will just give a very brief introduction about our project,
01:22just for those of you who don't know the project yet.
01:26And then I will leave the floor to Birgit Schulz-Eller,
01:30senior researcher and consumer sciences expert at the University of Göttingen,
01:35who developed a very interesting report of market analysis assessing the transformational potential
01:44of an environmental rating label in Europe.
01:50So about the EcoFoodChoice project, just in case you haven't heard about the project,
01:56we are a scientific consortium of more than 30 technical experts with complementary expertise
02:01in food systems, environmental assessment, consumer science and more.
02:06And we are funded by the European Union through the LIFE project,
02:10so we work with no private interest and transparently.
02:13We are coordinated by ADEM, the French Agency for the Ecological Transition,
02:19which is where I work.
02:21So we benefit from the French experience in the eco-labeling topic.
02:26And the project started in 2023 and is lasting for four years.
02:31The mission of the project is to provide Europe with a harmonized operational and collectively
02:35supported food environmental labeling system by the end of the project.
02:42So you can see a bit more about the work packages.
02:45So we work on three main technical work packages.
02:49One is about the environmental impact indicators.
02:52And so just so you know, we start with the product environmental footprint framework
02:57as a starting point.
02:58So when we talk about an environmental label, we talk about climate change, but also
03:05all the different indicators that you can see on the screen.
03:08We have a work package on the scoring methodology.
03:12So how we aggregate these impacts into one score.
03:17And then we have a work package about how we present this score to the end consumers.
03:22And that's the work package that Birgit, together with me today, is leading.
03:27And we also have work packages around harmonization, communication, collaboration and so on.
03:34And so just to remind you about why and what is an environmental rating label.
03:41So the main purpose is to inform consumers.
03:45So today on the market, you can see many different labels, traditional labels that allow to differentiate
03:52mostly within a product category.
03:55So for example, between two pack of sausages, you might see one with a label and another one without.
04:02But for most product, there is no information and it becomes quite difficult to compare
04:07different products if they don't have one single harmonized label.
04:14So that's what a harmonized eco label is about.
04:17It's about being able to compare products within and between categories.
04:25And the main other goal is to fight against greenwashing and together with industrials to drive
04:31eco conception and better production practices with the support of information.
04:39So we start from some we can look at some studies, for example, one from the European Commission a few
04:46years
04:46back stating that 50 percent of sustainability claims were false or at least not proven.
04:53And this is consistent with discussions at the European level.
04:56So that's a very important goal for an environmental rating label as well.
05:04Just a bit, one information about the landscape of eco labels in Europe.
05:08So you may have seen this report already developed as part of the EcoFoodChoice project,
05:15analyzing the landscape of eco labels in Europe.
05:21So you can have a look at this report later.
05:23I'm not going to present it today, but maybe one key point to keep in mind here is that there
05:29is a fast
05:30growth of eco labels and footprinting initiatives in Europe with different methodologies and different
05:36databases and that may hinder comparability on the market for consumers.
05:45So there is a need for a harmonized and transparent methodology,
05:49ideally managed by nonprofit or public organization.
05:52But the private sector, of course, can play a very important role for operationalization, for tooling
05:59and to take part in collective projects towards harmonization.
06:03So a collective effort is needed.
06:05And this is what I'm saying is really coming from the report.
06:10So please don't hesitate to read all the details later on.
06:16This is just an overview of the milestones of the project.
06:20So since our last webinar, some news.
06:26So we have released a first version of the EcoFoodChoice scoring methodology at the end of 2025.
06:34The method was open for public consultation and the final version of the EcoFoodChoice method is expected at the end
06:43of this year.
06:44So stay tuned. There will be a second round of consultation.
06:47You will be able to read the methodology and send comments.
06:51So stay tuned if you're interested in this.
06:54We also have worked on data sets, which are not public yet, but we are working on this.
07:03And we will also issue recommendations reports and a workshop on how to develop data later on.
07:11And in green is the part Birgit is working on.
07:14So I'm not going to talk about it too much because she will have the floor later on.
07:20She worked really hard on selecting an efficient label format that is well understood by consumers.
07:29And she will give more information about this afterwards.
07:32And this is my last slide. I want to give you one more update.
07:36So we have initiated a new partnership with the Food Chair project.
07:42The project is EU funded as well through the Horizon Europe program.
07:50And among others, they are developing a European open source database of lifecycle inventories for food products.
07:57So there is a very good connection between the two projects to make eco-labeling advance in Europe and also
08:04environmental footprinting.
08:06So we are working on co-developing a methodological guide for the scoring of food products that can serve eco
08:13-labeling.
08:14And we will also co-organize a workshop on data development for eco-labeling later during the year.
08:23So stay tuned for this as well.
08:26So, well, if you have any burning questions, feel free to send them in the Q&A.
08:31And in the meantime, I will give the floor to Birgit and I will answer your questions in the Q
08:38&A as she speaks.
08:43Thanks for your interest in our webinar today, in which I want to share some insights from our market analysis,
08:53which aimed at assessing the transformational potential of an environmental rating label.
08:59So, Zoe, I think you have to click. I cannot control here. So please, next slide.
09:07Yes. So we want to look at what is needed to have an effective European environmental rating label. Next slide,
09:16please.
09:18Yeah. So I want to share with you the goals, some basic definitions of what is an effective label, the
09:25scope of the analysis and a bit of deep dive and our synopsis.
09:28And then, of course, I'm very interested in getting questions and trying to answer these from your side.
09:37If we have some time, I can also give you a glimpse into results of the label visual testing.
09:42But that is open actually for another webinar in case of your further interest.
09:48So just as a teaser, because the results are there now.
09:53So please just use the Q&A, please, for questions right now.
09:58And so we will collect them and we'll have time later on to answer these.
10:03Right. So I hope you can all see the Q&A section and there you should be able to put
10:08your questions.
10:08I saw just some quickly raised hands, but please use the Q&A section for now.
10:14So let's go on. So can you either give me the control or...
10:19Yeah, I gave you the control.
10:21Oh, nice. OK, very good. Very good. Yeah, that makes things easier.
10:24Right. So, yes. So what we probably have seen also from your answers to the earlier poll,
10:34yes, it seems that people want a food environmental rating label.
10:39Also, iFood had a very nice survey done with 10,000 consumers across 18 European countries.
10:47And yes, two thirds would welcome a universal label that signals environmental impacts, of course.
10:55But you probably heard about the attitude behavior gap, which basically tells us that what people
11:02say they want is not necessarily what they in the end would do.
11:07That has been studied for decades and persists.
11:11So it's something not easy to overcome.
11:14So citizens want it. Yes. Do shoppers use it too?
11:17Well, we don't see too many. We have a lot of activity in the environmental rating label scene, in the
11:23eco label scene,
11:24as you've seen in Zoe's slides. But on the other hand, there is not too much put into practice yet.
11:31So we cannot really observe it in practice. So what would make a food ERL successful?
11:38And what are the conditions under which an ERL can be successful?
11:41And there are many dimensions that need to be need to be reflected to be able to answer this question.
11:49And this is what we did with the market analysis.
11:52Now I have clicked too often.
11:55So what is our market analysis?
11:57It probably is a modest trial to achieve a mutual understanding of the drivers of food label effectiveness,
12:02also within a community beyond research.
12:06That is the most important interest, I guess.
12:10Then take stock of current knowledge and consumer research on the drivers of food label effectiveness
12:15and assess the prospects based on this of eco labeling to transform consumer behavior in our four study countries.
12:22I think you've seen it in the beginning when Zoe presented.
12:25So we are working in France and Germany, our home countries, and then in Spain and the Netherlands,
12:32where our other partners come from.
12:33And I also want to spur the discussion about success factors of a future environmental rating label.
12:44So, yes.
12:46So what makes a label effective is basically, well, has been said by John Turgazen 25 years ago,
12:54and by many others as well since and probably also before.
12:59But how we can define label effectiveness is the extent to which the label is recognized.
13:04So people need to see it.
13:07They should like the label, but they certainly need to understand that they should trust it and then also use
13:13it.
13:13And then we can talk about an effective eco label, right?
13:17So that is something I want to have as a mutual understanding here in the room.
13:21So what we then said, well, yes.
13:25Okay.
13:25So if it is about if this label effectiveness is about recognition, liking, understanding, etc.,
13:35what actually makes a label being understood and used and trusted, etc.?
13:44There's a lot of insights from consumer research on this, but probably to just reframe it a bit.
13:52Well, we have, of course, some factors which affect label recognition, understanding and use,
13:57which are basically seen here in the top of the slide.
14:00You probably should have seen it without this little arrow yet.
14:05So this is, of course, visual design cues.
14:08This is, of course, environmental consciousness of the people who are confronted with the label.
14:14But it is also all the clutter that is around when you go shopping.
14:19That is the proliferation of other food labels.
14:21And we often talk about the label jungle in this respect.
14:24So that is the one part, label recognition, understanding use, etc.
14:28But then there are other factors.
14:30And then we'll talk about why that's important on the next slides.
14:33And we'll start bottom up with this model.
14:36There's also the question of whether there is at all room for improvement.
14:40So how sustainable are diets currently?
14:43What are the dominant dietary patterns in the countries?
14:45And how easy is it to achieve a behavioral change, right?
14:52So this is basically what we see or we drew from our research, basically, as the main drivers of national
15:02prospects of a food ERL.
15:04And I will talk a lot at the latest stage about the visual design cues, but because that is kind
15:11of leading towards our label testing.
15:15Right. So I kind of go bottom up through this and want to talk about dominant dietary patterns first.
15:30So what is sustainability of diets?
15:32And of course, this is a desk research result, to be honest.
15:36It's not my own expertise to just the sustainability of diets.
15:40But of course, there are a lot of studies around that can be reviewed.
15:43And what we did is that we focused very strongly on cross-country comparisons because it's important that studies use
15:51the same methodology to evaluate diets in different countries, et cetera.
15:56So this is what I will present here.
15:58On the one hand, there are many indices that have been developed to measure adherence, for example, to the planetary
16:07health diet, which was put forward by Willett et al. in 2019.
16:12And there have been many researchers developing indices to evaluate diets based on that.
16:19The key driver of diet sustainability can be claimed red meat consumption.
16:24But of course, there are other factors as well which drive it.
16:29So these indices try to cover all kinds of foods that are consumed, evaluate or take into account the environmental
16:37impacts and then evaluate the diets against this.
16:40The typical country diets in the case of the studies I reviewed.
16:44Key barriers, obviously, to achieve a sustainable diet is the lack of knowledge and transparency on the environmental impacts of
16:52different foods has been said before by many others.
16:55And then you need to consider that changing dietary patterns is very, very hard.
17:00Man is by nature a habitual animal.
17:03So and we have to also consider that there is out of home consumption, et cetera, which can be a
17:13chance to change your habits because you're exposed to new to new kinds of recipes, et cetera, which you wouldn't
17:23probably discover at home.
17:24To change your diet towards vegan or vegetarian foods.
17:30But there's also a risk in people persisting or not having access due to the food system, not having access
17:36to any kind of different different food products or diets.
17:43Another very, very, very important barrier to changing, changing diets is price differences.
17:51Of course, I will talk about environmental consciousness being important on the one hand, but other other motives obviously being
18:01sometimes at the forefront.
18:02And that is price.
18:04And we have persistent price differences between food categories.
18:07I elaborate on that in the report.
18:10And these are also partially politically driven.
18:12So VAT rates differ in different countries, differ for plant based alternatives.
18:18And this creates some barriers as well.
18:21But looking into the sustainability of diets as they are viewed by nutritionists, nutritional scientists.
18:28I have here a nice study by Grant et al to show you a bit what what could be a
18:35kind of order of our four countries in terms of sustainability of diets.
18:39This one here would, with most indicators, put Spain first in terms of diet sustainability.
18:46And what I liked about the study in particular is that they use different, different indices.
18:51So you see here, wish 2.0, wish and eat.
18:56So there are three different indices that were compared and based on most, Spain is first and Germany is put
19:05last together with the Netherlands in this case here.
19:09But we can also see some deviations.
19:11And I want to put forward some reservations on this, of course, you will see in my synopsis that I
19:17basically kept what Grant said here.
19:19But, of course, these evaluations can only rely on nutritional patterns, national nutritional patterns.
19:28And the data availability is, of course, crucial because I've worked on the data and have been looking for newer
19:35results.
19:36I know very well that the latest data from German nutrition survey are from 2007.
19:42So these are quite old and probably not really up to date.
19:46There are also some studies which document changes of Spanish diets very strongly away from Mediterranean diets to more meat,
19:53which would also kind of put into perspective this evaluation, which is seen here.
19:59So, of course, of course, this can be contested.
20:02I'm very well aware of this.
20:04And that is why I want to more put into the forefront really on the one hand that we see
20:13differences between the countries.
20:14We cannot probably fully and with a very strong or very clear conclusion say this country has kind of the
20:29most sustainable diet, etc.
20:31But we see trends here and also depending on different indices, we see a rather clear pattern.
20:38But we also need to consider data availability, etc.
20:42We can see differences and these differences may be important in terms of the potential that the label can have
20:50to change this, of course.
20:52So in Spain, probably the diet may be already more sustainable, perhaps, and then the label would probably not contribute
21:05too much to a further change or probably could help people in keeping their diet.
21:13Whereas, if it is correct here to say that Germany probably lags a bit behind in terms of sustainability of
21:22diets, the label could probably have more potential to change.
21:26So, I'm reacting too slowly. Thank you, Zoe.
21:33So, as I said before, red meat consumption is very important.
21:37And what we then said is, well, let's look into studies which also compare kind of the share of people
21:44following vegetarian diets, for example.
21:47And there, what you can see here is that in the Netherlands and Germany, especially among the younger people, which
21:54will shape the future sustainability of diets probably a bit more than the older ones would do, or I, for
22:03example.
22:05So, yeah, basically, we can see that the share of vegetarians in Germany and the Netherlands, especially among the younger
22:11age groups, is higher already.
22:13And this kind of hints at a future development towards more sustainability in the diets already.
22:21Right. So this is this is one part of the analysis, which is quite important, I think, to look at
22:26what's already there.
22:29Right. And then on the other hand, yes, as I said already, if you want to label it to be
22:35recognized, you need to consider what's already there.
22:38You need to figure out how overwhelmed people may already be in terms of other food labels which are available.
22:47And this is why we also looked into the proliferation of other food labels and the label jungle.
22:54So what we can see here is, well, I try to kind of give an overview of the label proliferation
23:03in the four different countries, try to assess it.
23:07It's not a quantification of market share. So please don't take it as, well, this is kind of where the
23:13biggest organic share is or whatever.
23:16But if we look into environmental food labels first, we see, of course, the organic label is important.
23:23And there we see already that there is kind of a difference across the countries where we, of course, have
23:28the European organic label.
23:29But in conjunction in Spain with, well, basically, there's a Spanish logo for organic products.
23:39And then each region in Spain would have their own kind of frame around it.
23:44But the picture you can see in the middle here with the with the sun and the soil, et cetera,
23:49that is basically the key.
23:51And then in France, you would have the agriculture biologique, you have eco in the Netherlands and you have bio
23:57in Germany.
23:58But in Germany, we again have different additions because almost each federal state has their own organic sign as well,
24:07which always goes along with the European one.
24:09And of course, we have Demeter and in Germany, a lot of other organic associations which put their own labels.
24:17We also have the retailers. It's only Ithaca here, but we have many more. Each retailer has their own organic
24:23sign on products again as well.
24:26We have some more environmental labels in France and the Netherlands, and we have now as well some upcoming environmental
24:38labels which start to be present in the market, like the green score, the planet score, which is also available
24:45in Germany and some organic products in particular.
24:48So this is basically the current landscape before introduction of an additional environmental rating label.
24:56And yes, for animal welfare, just too quick again. Do you go back? Can I? Thanks.
25:07Yes. Yeah. So for animal welfare, just as one other sustainability dimension, I won't bore you with all fair trade
25:14and other sustainability dimensions here, but you probably are well aware that there are many.
25:20It's basically the same picture here. We have very little label differentiation in Spain.
25:27We have some more in the Netherlands, and this is just a picture taken from the Verbraucherzentrale, which is a
25:34consumer association in Germany, which tries to explain to consumers how they can detect higher animal welfare.
25:41And you see here the multitude of labels which is available to consumers and oftentimes several of these on the
25:49same food package to assess animal welfare contributions of the products.
25:56So this is part of the landscape and shall only illustrate why I come to the conclusion that really in
26:03Germany and partially also in the Netherlands, there's really this often claimed label jungle and an ERL and environmental label,
26:12environmental rating label will have very hard time to be recognized for consumers.
26:18Right. So this is the conclusion here. In Germany, we have the biggest problems.
26:23You probably are aware of the EMCO directive empowering consumers for the green transition, which I've shown here as well.
26:32And there's also a report by the European Court of Auditors on food labeling in the EU saying, well, consumers
26:38get lost in the maze of labels.
26:40So there is a strong need to reduce these kinds of labels. So question arises, what does the EMCO do
26:46already around this kind of label jungle?
26:50And basically what I find is that most labels I showed before are certified and therefore would not be endangered
27:00by the EMCO directive.
27:01So there's no drive by this directive to get rid of any of the labels which I showed before.
27:08And we probably for each single one, we wouldn't say, well, this is particularly unnecessary or so. Right.
27:16So they are not really endangered. They would remain. Many simple green claims and any carbon neutral claims, etc.
27:23would, of course, be eliminated. But as you saw for Germany, especially there, the number of labels remains really, really
27:30high.
27:31Well, what we know is that it reacts very, very sensitive. So that's just a picture from Lebensmittelpraxis, which talked
27:44about the EMCO and its implications for the food market.
27:52We know that retailers seem to support the reduction of labels, but are rather reactive.
27:58Obviously, they have not really contributed to limiting the number of claims, etc., which are around beforehand.
28:05And obviously there are still some uncertainties around how to deal with claims which are not compliant, etc., how to
28:12deal with packages of such products.
28:13Right. So this is basically the assessment from the perspective of label proliferation.
28:22We see a very, very strong food label proliferation, particularly in Germany, but also in the Netherlands.
28:31If you look across further label dimensions, we see a lot there.
28:36Spain really kind of lags behind, but in a positive sense, from my perspective, in terms of consumer transparency or
28:44consumer overload.
28:49Yeah. So we can see also from this perspective, yes, the countries differ in terms of potential transformational potential of
28:59an ERL,
29:00just because there is so much clutter around for consumers already, which may make it difficult for consumers to recognize
29:07a new label and to take it into account in their future purchasing decisions.
29:16Right. So moving on to environmental consciousness.
29:20And again, remember that we are all doing this exercise here now together to understand what would be the national
29:28prospects for a food ERL.
29:30So if I talk now about environmental consciousness, this is on the one hand because consumer research shows that this
29:37has a very strong impact on label understanding and use and also recognition.
29:42But first of all, understanding and use. But again, we are interested in particular in our report in country specific
29:49differences or country specific comparisons.
29:54So what we are interested in is saying, can we can we see differences and expect differences in label use
30:01based on environmental consciousness and also knowledge?
30:04So very nice, actually, in this context is that there has been some effort in research to make such comparisons
30:15possible.
30:16Obviously, we know there are many, many surveys around which are done in one country or two countries and then
30:22they use the same methodology.
30:24But then for other countries, we have other surveys and we cannot really compare it.
30:28So what that Thomas did is they took basically European data, cross country comparison done or they took the Euromonitor
30:41data from 2019, which included questions on environmental consciousness.
30:48And they tried to combine the items into an index and develop an index to assess the environmental consciousness across
30:59different European countries.
31:00And you see a little map here, which is part of the of the publication, which tries to distinguish here
31:09a bit between the countries.
31:11You see the color differences are quite strong. But if you look at the indices they present in the end,
31:18they don't differ that much.
31:20But in this sense, we would say the darker the color, the higher the environmental consciousness, which would mean that
31:26Netherlands and France would be more and people in Netherlands and France would be more environmentally conscious than in Germany
31:34and in Spain.
31:35That is that is that is one assessment. And I just can encourage to do more research in this respect.
31:42We, of course, have done some comparative consumer research now within the framework of our with of our project.
31:51But the results are more recent. So we'll be published a bit later.
31:56Yes. So, yes, saying that consumers want to act environmentally responsibly, but with differences across the countries, we we can
32:14say that depending on the definition of environmental consciousness, of environmental knowledge,
32:24we can expect our label to be effective, more effective, probably in countries with a higher environmental consciousness.
32:37But having said that, we cannot leave aside the other dimensions which I have talked about beforehand.
32:44So we need to consider all of these elements together. And this is what I tried to do in the
32:53with a kind of visualization of our key findings in our report.
32:58And I know what everything I said was quite short now and didn't deep dive too much.
33:04But if we look into our four countries, we can probably group them somehow into a cluster of France, Germany
33:11and the Netherlands, where we can say that the in terms of sustainability of diets,
33:17there's some good potential to improve with all the reservations I gave before on these country comparisons.
33:28And in terms of environmental consciousness, consumers are overall very interested in consuming more sustainable consumers are used to labels.
33:38We see a lot of labels, which also means consumers are kind of used to using labels, to look at
33:47labels, to take them into account.
33:50But the high label proliferation, particularly in Germany, also leads to a lot of distraction and potentially also fatigue.
33:58And we see that actually in our visual testing results now where we also ask people how much they would
34:04like to have an environmental label.
34:08And we actually find that Germany, but also in the Netherlands, consumers are rather reluctant to have a new one.
34:16So there is a higher share, almost one third in Germany, who doesn't want an additional label, which is very
34:24interesting, I think.
34:26For Spain, the assessment would be a bit different. Sustainability of diets, at least as we saw from the analysis
34:37I presented beforehand,
34:39could mean that diets are a bit better adapted to the planetary health diet than in France, Germany and the
34:45Netherlands.
34:45If you dive deeper, you can see that in Spain, we have lots of differences in diets, dietary patterns between
34:53the north and the south,
34:55with more Mediterranean diets in the south and more meaty diets in the north.
35:00So we cannot, of course, I know we cannot collapse this all into one, but it's a trial to see,
35:06well, if we just compare this at the country level, what would be the result?
35:11Okay, so please don't, if you are from Spain, don't be angry with me or if you are from the
35:16other countries of saying this.
35:18I just want to create some sensitivity for the importance of this aspect.
35:26In terms of environmental consciousness, we see some lower environmental consciousness, but with an increasing tendency.
35:37In terms of label knowledge, we could say that probably people are rather less familiar with food labels because they
35:46are not that present and there is not such a multitude.
35:49But on the other hand, it is a big advantage potentially for an environmental rating label in Spain because we
35:57can see that there is just literally more space on the packages to put in another label and the distraction
36:08is much lower because we do not have like five or six labels on one package.
36:13That really happens rather rarely.
36:17Right.
36:20As I said, and this should have come beforehand, we need to put especially environmental consciousness into perspective.
36:30So, yes, it is one of the very important dimensions we need to compare, but when you look at different
36:40surveys, many of these actually allow people to avoid trade-offs.
36:44So they don't have to say, well, yes, if I am asked what is more important to me, then I
36:50would have to admit that it is price probably.
36:52You also have issues of social desirability, et cetera.
36:55So I just want to warn to take environmental consciousness as a stated preference.
37:00Also, it's too important as a dimension.
37:09In reality, the price is often the most important criterion.
37:13And in food, it is also own health, animal welfare, et cetera, which often overlays the environmental impact.
37:20And that needs to be taken into account, of course, when you want to assess the transformational potential of an
37:27environmental rating label.
37:30There's also in Germany in particular, and that is under discussion with the EMCO, a very, very strong reliance on
37:39regional claims,
37:42which was also found, is often taken by consumers as a, and then often false, queue for lower environmental impacts,
37:50more animal health, social responsibility, a lot of halo effects around regional claims.
37:57And this also needs to be taken into account.
38:00So if a person is environmentally conscious and wants to buy in a more sustainable way or environmentally sustainable way,
38:11they would already look at queues.
38:13It's the organic label I was talking about, but then there are also regional queues which are used so far.
38:19And this is something that needs to be overcome, because if once an environmental rating label is introduced, this may
38:25clearly show that the regional dimension is not the one which has the strongest relevance for the environmental impact.
38:33Right. And then there may be some some in a trade offs which which can come into force.
38:40So this is something, especially in Germany, but probably also in your countries, which can have a very strong impact
38:47on how effective an environmental rating label can be in the future.
38:53Right. So last aspect, I don't want to let fall under the table as the visual design queues, obviously.
39:03And there we really can stand on the shoulders of giants because a lot of work has been done in
39:10the past on visual design queues and their impact on label recognition, also understanding and in the end use.
39:17So there is a lot of research that has been done. And yes, the most important the most important conclusions
39:32from this are really the relevance of color coding for the visibility and also for intuitive reactions, the reduction of
39:40complexity for better understanding.
39:46So this is this is this is a very, very interesting and important result.
39:51And we basically took that very strongly into account for our further visual testing research.
39:58We have seen a lot of work being done on label liking.
40:06And you probably have recognized that I haven't put liking here in the list of design cues or in the
40:14list of effectiveness measures for design cues.
40:17Liking is actually something which is really to be seen distinct from effective from from from label understanding, probably not
40:29really use, but the understanding would determine how you how how successfully you can use the label.
40:40It turns out in research that very, very complex labels with a lot of dimensions and different cues would actually
40:48undermine understanding, lead to worse results in terms of intuitive reaction to which is the best label.
40:58So from our perspective, it is very clear that complexity needs to be reduced to achieve a better understanding, which
41:07would also be in line with many or with the requirements of an EMCO directive or green claims directive, if
41:14it ever would come into life again, to avoid consumer confusion and potentially misleading.
41:26I wanted to make a cut here because this is basically our market analysis inside, say, so most important dimensions,
41:39etc.
41:39I have some more more slides on our visual testing, but I don't want to deep dive into these before
41:49I have answered burning questions from your side.
41:52So, Zoe, if you want to moderate, probably the Q&A.
41:58Yeah, so we have received some questions.
42:03You might be able to see them as well on your screen, Birgit, and if there's one that you would
42:07like to answer, you can also decide, but yeah, I will maybe start with the first question that we have
42:16received and you can.
42:21So, there are different meanings of sustainability in diets. Does the label mean different things in different countries?
42:30So, any views on this, Birgit?
42:32Yeah. Does the label mean different things in different countries? Well, basically, this, of course, should not happen. This is
42:44why my colleagues are working on a harmonized label scheme.
42:48Whether it's understood differently, that is something that is still probably subject to further research. What we see is, of
42:59course, that people already have associations with different products, etc.
43:04and which is probably the most important environmental impact dimension in peppers compared to apples compared to potatoes or something
43:15like that.
43:15These may not always be true. And this is exactly where this label tries to help in using the same
43:23framework to assess all products and basically provide one message to the consumer in terms of taking into account all
43:33environmental impacts.
43:34This is the one which has the lowest and overall environmental impacts. Without overwhelming consumers with too many insights into
43:45which dimension is more important and which one. Right. So, yes, the message should be the same.
43:50And I hope I answered the question in terms of what it meant.
43:57So, there was also two, I think, two understanding questions on the slide with the sustainability of diets on cross
44:04country and how to read the WISH 2.0 WISH and the EAT diet.
44:12Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:14And what is the focus? Is it health, environmental impact, other themes?
44:18There was some misunderstanding, I think, here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:22So, basically, all of these indices which were compared in the study are intended to say how much people adhere
44:32to a planetary health diet, right?
44:35So, they try to say how big is the gap if you wanted to fully embrace a planetary health diet
44:44with the recommendations, which takes into account healthiness and environmental impact, of course.
44:49So, they, this planetary health diet really means if you want to eat healthy and respect the planetary boundaries, how
44:57much should you consume?
44:58What are the guidelines, basically? Okay.
45:00So, and these indices use kind of different schemes to measure how much a diet adheres to these guidelines.
45:12And there are different ways, obviously, of putting these indices together, but a higher value means better adherence.
45:19And that's probably the most important message, and thanks for asking for clarification here.
45:25Right. So, the colour coding actually means green is better and red is worse, which is exactly the colour coding
45:33which we usually use in our labelling approaches as well.
45:42So, what else can we see? There was one question about is sustainability too carbon centric?
45:52So, well.
45:54Ah, well, there is something for the methodologies, probably.
45:58That is really, but it is really something to, I have some overall conclusions and I probably would jump to
46:04these in the end, just skipping a lot of other slides I had on the visual testing, but I will
46:11need to move on to that to give you some good take home messages.
46:15But it is important that people are not informed about carbon on the one hand and then water footprint on
46:24the other, etc., but that they get one kind of condensed version.
46:28But, of course, it is up to scientists and also probably to policy to make decisions on what the weighting
46:35should be, right, of the different ones.
46:38But the environmental footprint, which we were talking about here as a basis of the environmental label, should embrace all
46:45of these dimensions and should not be too carbon footprint focused, say.
46:53Okay, well, it has a weight and I probably don't say too much if I say it's still the strongest
47:01impact within the environmental footprint, but Zoe, you know more about the methodology which is suggested here.
47:09Yeah, well, in the methodology we don't only look at carbon, for sure, we look at the 16 product environmental
47:17footprint indicators, so that includes water use.
47:20We also include the land use biodiversity indicator, and we try to consider as many environmental indicators as possible.
47:31However, we only look at the environmental impact indicators for now.
47:36We don't look at animal welfare.
47:37We don't look at health.
47:42This other, let's say, very important topics, but that are not included as of now in the PEF framework and
47:51the eco-food choice framework either.
47:56But yeah, well, overall, there is a shift that we can see on the market from a very carbon centric
48:04approach to more indicators.
48:05And that takes some time, of course, because there are a lot of methodological choices to be made.
48:12And within eco-food choice, for example, we try, we aim at having the largest consensus possible in the research
48:20community in Europe.
48:21So it kind of, I mean, it takes a bit of time and we need to make sure that we
48:25have a very robust scientific approach.
48:27But yeah, step by step, we move from the carbon focus to other focus.
48:32And that's also the case for most of the initiatives that exist in the European markets.
48:37Yeah. So there is some tendency, I think, to focus on carbon because people already know it.
48:43But then again, other research shows that people associate all kinds of other impacts as well with the carbon footprint.
48:49So there's a lot of halo effect. And that is something we see as potentially misleading consumers.
48:55If we know they don't really understand what's behind, although they have a glimpse of it, then it is very
49:01important to give them all the information.
49:04But it needs to be in a way that respects their cognitive limitations as well.
49:10They cannot all become experts of food production and environmental impact assessment.
49:14And that will never happen. That is very important to know.
49:17This is why it is up to the scientific community to come up with a methodology which is sound and
49:23respects the latest knowledge.
49:26And on the other hand, for us as consumer researchers here in the project to provide a kind of label
49:34visual,
49:35which is best understood and is least prone to misleading consumers.
49:41But it always goes hand in hand. You cannot see the label visual without the methodology behind.
49:47And that is very important. One of the take home messages here.
49:51There's also a comment on grass fed and industry produced meat.
49:55That's up to lifecycle assessment again to reflect the different environmental impacts.
50:01And of course, a kind of feedlot production has different environmental impacts compared to grazing, etc.
50:13And that is reflected in the LCA and should not be so much part of the market analysis here.
50:18That is a different issue, probably looking more into the methodologies. Right.
50:23So just let me go through here. Yeah.
50:27There was some question about have you have we looked into similar exercises of uniform labeling, for example,
50:36and why they didn't succeed for some of them?
50:43Yeah, well, this is not so much part of this analysis here.
50:46We took into account, of course, a lot of research on the Nutri-Score in terms of effectiveness of color
50:55coding, etc.
50:57We looked a lot into the research of comparison of visual design cues to transport health information or healthiness of
51:07food.
51:08Yes. And what about the wider policy environment in which the harmonized label exists?
51:13Consumer education, food environment, etc.
51:17Yes, of course, all these are important and I would have liked to extend the market analysis to all of
51:23these.
51:24There are some limits to what you can do in one report.
51:28And the focus here was very strongly, if not really exceptional on the consumer side of things,
51:34because we are also representing in our project the consumer research.
51:37That's important to know. We are working on the validation of label impacts
51:42and are in charge of developing label visual, which is effective and not misleading consumers.
51:48And this is why this report is limited here.
51:51But of course, there are many more aspects.
51:54And I thank you for your comment, because I also had difficulties to limit myself on this,
51:59because we see all these kinds of different issues.
52:04Zoe, while you probably look for more issues which are relevant in the question and answer,
52:14I want to move on to my last slide.
52:18Yes, and now you see everything.
52:20We had a bit of extra.
52:22We should have just moved here.
52:23We had a bit of extra just in case.
52:26Yeah, no, no, well.
52:28Sorry.
52:30Try to figure out.
52:32Which slide are you looking for? The conclusion slide?
52:35Yeah.
52:36Yeah, exactly.
52:37My take home messages just before.
52:39Yes.
52:39Yes, it's here.
52:41Wonderful.
52:42Yeah.
52:43Yes.
52:44So what I want to share with you at the very end again is that, yes, in most countries,
52:51people are open to or even want to have an environmental rating label.
52:55Germany and Netherlands, that is one of the results I could have shared with you if we had more time.
53:01From our own research, Germany and the Netherlands really have higher shares of opponents.
53:07But if we accept for one moment that most, in most countries, most people are open to have an environmental
53:13rating label,
53:14this really does not mean that any label would do.
53:17It is really important because sometimes I have the impression that as long as the idea is great,
53:22anything that looks good could be used to help consumers understand the environmental impacts of products.
53:31And this is just not true.
53:33So that's very important to note.
53:36The most preferred label visual does not correspond to the most effective one in terms of behavioral change.
53:42Many studies actually show that.
53:44So one important recommendation is really to avoid too much complexity.
53:49So if any of you are here and also thinking of a known label or whatever,
53:55because we see that there is a lot of interest in doing this, really avoid too much complexity.
54:03Subcategories are also part of this.
54:06You should avoid to allow for cherry picking, just like labels showing for one product the carbon footprint,
54:13in addition to an overall score and for other ones, a water footprint or so.
54:17That leads to more confusion than it helps.
54:20So please do not do this and do not support labels which are trying to do it,
54:26irrespective of if you like what we come up with in the end.
54:28And that is very important.
54:31Just really provide clear cues, a combination of colors, icons, numbers.
54:34We use numeric scores with our label because we found that it really helps intuitive understanding
54:41and also understand the differences between products.
54:44And our general recommendations are really to test behavioral label effects,
54:49not only visual preferences before you decide what to go forward with.
54:54Ensure sufficient differentiation between products.
54:57And this is really not only the label.
55:00It is, of course, part of the label visual, how much differentiation can be transported with the cue you choose.
55:06But on the other hand, the most important thing behind it is really the methodology
55:11and particularly the grading, which is also part of our project in Work Package 3.
55:18And please also respect consumers' cognitive limitations.
55:22We as experts, and you probably on the other side here as well, try or not tend to, tend to
55:29overestimate what consumers actually know and can understand.
55:35And especially probably overestimate the time they want to spend on it.
55:40This is why we need a very simple, keep it simple and stupid as a marketing thing, but still also
55:46in labeling research,
55:48which goes beyond simple marketing, but really wants to inform consumers.
55:53It is very important to keep it simple, right?
55:56So, and this shall be my last word, one minute after 11.
56:00Thank you very much for your attention.
56:03Well, thank you so much to everyone and especially to you, Birgit, for the great presentation and great insights.
56:09Thank you to everyone for all the very good questions.
56:12Unfortunately, we don't have time to answer all of them, but there are so many questions
56:16that I think it's going to be very relevant for us to go through all the questions, prepare answers,
56:23and we will release a Q&A report on our website afterwards.
56:32So you can see the answers to most of your questions, hopefully.
56:36And please don't hesitate to follow our LinkedIn page.
56:40You can also contact me anytime.
56:44You can find my name on LinkedIn.
56:46You can also, if you don't have it yet, I can share in the chat of this webinar, my email
56:51address.
56:52Don't hesitate to reach out anytime.
56:55We are always happy to collaborate and to discuss with interesting people in our project.
57:02So, yeah, please, please feel free and stay tuned because there will be other webinars.
57:09Actually, maybe, yes, no, I don't have it.
57:11There will be other webinars in the coming month.
57:15We will have a dedicated webinar to our methodology at the end of the year.
57:20So if you were more interested into the LCA part of our project, please connect to that event
57:27and you will get a lot of information on the methodological part.
57:33Yeah, so if you follow the LinkedIn page, you will have access to all this information.
57:39And what else can I say?
57:41No, I think that's all for today.
57:43So thank you very much.
57:44And have a great day.
Commentaires