Why doesn’t a green mindset translate to action?

In collaboration with Carlos Martin-Rios of the EHL Hospitality Business School (Switzerland) and his PhD student Julneth Rogenhofer, as well as Maria-Eugenia Ruiz-Molina of the University of Valencia (Spain), Professor Chan explores Young professionals’ attitudes towards food waste: A global study on awareness, behaviour, and regional differences.

The team conducted an online survey of more than 600 young professionals across Asia, Europe, and North America, particularly those transitioning from academic studies into professional careers. “These young professionals are the future decision-makers and are encouraged to take on more social responsibilities,” says Professor Chan.

Participants were asked how strongly they try to avoid wasting food, how often they engage in various environmental actions, and how well they understand the negative impacts of food waste.

The researchers presumed young people’s general pro-environmental behaviours would be positively associated with negative attitudes towards food waste. However, the analyses show that there is no significant correlation between environmentally friendly actions and anti-food waste attitudes.

Professor Chan points to a psychological phenomenon called “intention-behaviour gap,” where people have good intentions but fail to follow through. “This is why most pro-environmental campaigns fall short,” she says.

The analysis of the data also indicates that the gap lies in the lack of awareness about the consequences. When people realise that throwing away food means wasting resources and harming the environment, they are much less likely to do it. “The risks and consequences awareness acts as a critical connector and turns a general concern for the planet into a tangible action about the food on our plate,” Professor Chan adds.

Why culture matters

The study also reveals cultural influences when it comes to food waste. Young professionals from European countries have stronger negative attitudes towards leftovers compared to their counterparts in Asia and the US.

Professor Chan notes that deep-rooted cultural values play a role and may still be ingrained in young professionals. For example, in Chinese culture, showing hospitality often means offering voluminous and variety of food at social events, shifting the focus away from overconsumption and leftovers concerns.

This doesn’t mean one culture cares about food waste more than another. Rather, it highlights that anti-waste campaigns need to be culturally tailored. As Professor Chan notes, “Food waste reduction messages and educational initiatives that neglect these culturally embedded values may be less effective.” She also points to traditional practices, like Shanghai’s “xiao die” or small plates, as ways to provide variety without excess in meal planning for both restaurateurs and individual households.

The education paradox

Education is often assumed to be a powerful tool to fill the gap. Therefore, the researchers specifically examined whether students in hospitality or food management programmes had stronger anti-food waste attitudes.

Surprisingly, the results show that students enrolled in such programmes do not exhibit stronger negative attitudes towards food waste. This finding may suggest that academic institutions have not effectively incorporated sustainable and ethical approaches to food waste management into their curricula.

“The current food waste discussion at school may be mostly focused on the supply chain aspect. For example, hotels and restaurants invest in technology to track kitchen waste, but such tools are not available at the consumer level,” Professor Chan says. “Supply side aspect is essential in food waste management and reduction from industrial perspective, but it seems we didn’t put enough focus on consumers’ individual consumption.”

Practical strategies for a greener future

Making food waste more visible can be a strategy to increase awareness. When leftovers and scraps are hidden away, it’s easy for people to ignore the problem. Professor Chan suggests restaurants or canteens could install transparent trash bags and bins, or use waste trackers, to make people aware of how much they’re throwing away.

From the consumer perspective, Professor Chan notes, “Another useful strategy is to leverage rather than change people’s habits in encouraging pro-environmental behaviours.” For instance, as consumers are habitually concerned about pricing, restaurants can charge meals based on the weight of the amount of food taken to discourage food waste. A buffet restaurant in Switzerland called Tibits is known for this pricing scheme.

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Restaurants can also lead by example. Showing the details about their source of ingredients will highlight transparent waste-reducing practices throughout their supply chain. “Seeing how a restaurant expends effort in ensuring pro-environmental and pro-social operations would legitimise the notion of sustainable dining, which would motivate the guests to minimise food waste,” says Professor Chan.

Additionally, Professor Chan notes that creating interactive dining experiences that emphasise aroma, taste, and visual presentation can shift the focus from quantity to quality, making meals memorable for the experience. In doing so, restaurants not only help lower the environmental impact but also meet the growing consumer demand for sustainability.

An Ecosystem

Plastic recycling is hardly a new business. Traditionally, scavengers collect plastic bottles or boxes and sell them to shops that process the materials. The companies studied in the research seek to break up this old pattern by introducing blockchain and creating an ecosystem for this environmentally-beneficial activity.

The new model goes something like this: A company connects scavengers and plastic waste processing shops with a mobile app, which registers the amount of plastic collected and processed and other related information via mobile app. At the same time, it also provides subsidies to both the scavengers and plastic waste processers to encourage them to use the app (so that the source of recycled plastic can be traced) and collect and process as much plastic as possible. Or if there’s no existing recycled plastic supply chain in the region, the company would help to activate and build up one, often with financial support from a large corporation in a developed country.

To generate income, some companies would sell plastic offsets to environmentally-conscious individuals and businesses in more advanced economies. Plastic offsets are similar to carbon offsets, which is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide made in order to compensate for emissions made elsewhere. Each plastic offset represents a certain amount of ocean-bound plastic collected and processed. For example, Plastic Bank sells a unit of plastic offset at 50 US cents, which is roughly equivalent to collecting and recycling 1kg of ocean-bound plastic. In doing so, the company uses blockchain technology to verify that the recycled plastic is ethically sourced.

Alternatively, other companies make revenue by selling this ethically sourced and segregated plastic to manufacturers who use it to make eco-friendly products. Plastic Bank offers a programme called Social Plastic, through which it sells its collected ocean-bound plastic to other companies at a premium. Via buying these traceable social plastic and using them in their products, the manufacturers could fulfil their CSR commitment and improve their brand image, in addition to doing good to both the environment and society.

Bringing Benefits to the Supply Chain

The study found that when companies sell either plastic offsets or sustainably sourced plastic, the magnitude of the environmental and social impacts, as well as their profitability, depends on their relative market sizes. But, when they sell both types of products, they can generate a significantly larger environmental impact, benefiting plastic collectors by giving them a higher income, as well as making a higher profit themselves compared with selling either product alone.

Using collected data to calibrate model parameters, the researchers calculated that when a company sells both types of products, it could increase the amount of recycled plastic overall by 35 percent as well as increase profits in the local recycled plastic supply chain by 130 percent. Where there is heightened demand for plastic offsets (say in jurisdictions with higher environmental awareness), the launch of such a business model can increase the recycled plastic amount by 60 percent and the total profit for the recycled plastic supply chain by 200 percent.

Delving deeper into the numbers gives a more detailed picture of how different parties in the supply chain may benefit from the introduction of a company that applies technologies to connect local recycled plastic collectors and processors with external markets. If collectors sold their picked plastic directly to recycling processors, then the latter party would typically capture a larger portion of the profits in the supply chain.

However, when a firm like Plastic Bank is introduced into the equation, and it chooses to sell plastic offsets only, it brings with it positive environmental and social impacts, but the plastic collectors’ share of the supply chain profits remains the same. If this firm instead sells segregated plastic, the environmental and social impact generated may be higher than if plastic offsets were sold only. More importantly, those who are at the bottom of the supply chain – the plastic collectors – would typically see their share of the supply chain profits rise compared to if they dealt directly with plastic processing firms.

Maximum Impact

Furthermore, when both products are sold, firms are typically able to make a positive environmental impact, give higher income to plastic collectors, and make a bigger profit than if they sold one or the other product categories only. However, firms which sell both products may actually make a smaller social impact than if they sell plastic offsets only. This smaller social impact occurs if the market of segregated plastic is small.

For the plastic collectors, they would typically capture a larger share of the plastic recycling supply chain profits than if the firm sells plastic offsets only, but less than if this firm sells only segregated plastic, the researchers found.

Finally, the researchers did a case study based on Plastic Bank and found that the launch of companies like it can generate both significant environmental and social benefits (relative to the baseline case without the firm), and that the social benefits were generally much larger than the environmental. The study also found that companies which aim at maximising both its profit-making and plastic recycling volume goals can generate a much larger social and environmental impact with just a slight sacrifice on its profitability when compared to a solely profit-seeking firm.

“Taking this even further, we find that the typical social enterprise, which often could sell its plastic offsets more effectively than a profit-making firm, can actually financially outperform their profit-centric peers,” Prof. Zhou says.

“By helping to build an ecosystem around plastic recycling, this new breed of social enterprises help to connect the dots and fulfil their triple mission – increase the recycled amount of ocean-bound plastic, reduce poverty in developing countries and become self-reliant financially,” Prof. Zhou says. “Our results give support to the fact that social enterprises can also be financially successful while serving a public good.”