Endorsing Sustainable Food Consumption: Prospects from Public Catering

Abstract

The aim of this article was to analyse an attempt to promote sustainable consumption by shaping the conditions for consumption. In particular, the focus lies on sustainable public catering as an approach to shaping both the supply of and demand for sustainable meals. In order to capture the processes of governing consumption, the way is traced in which rationalities (ways of thinking and calculating), technologies (means and instruments), visibilities (concrete manifestations), and identities (types of agents assumed) related to a policy intervention for sustainable public catering are interpreted and recreated by three main groups of actors involved: policy makers, catering professionals, and consumers. This analysis highlights the active role of practitioners in realizing policies for sustainable consumption. It has implications for policy makers and analysts: Reflexive policies should heed to actors' unfolding interpretations as they can take the policy process in different directions.During the past decades, sustainable development has emerged as an issue on the political agenda, and consumption patterns have gained prominence in the discussion on sustainable development. As early as in 1987, the report Our common future defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment J Consum Policy (2012) 35:7-21

What Leads to Lunch—How Social Practices Impact (Non-)Sustainable Food Consumption/Eating Habits

“…This evokes the question of why they favored one choice over another and what external effects drove these choices. Eating-out options of interviewees during a lunch break, inspired by [11,28,29].…”

“…Furthermore, the field of nutrition has been named as one of the meaningful fields of action for a sustainable future [5,6]. It is responsible for a significant share of the resource consumption of society and results in considerable material footprints [7][8][9][10][11]. Thus, the food sector has to transform towards more sustainable ways: Ultimately, resource consumption for this sector has to be cut by at least 30% [8].…”

Sustainability and meat consumption: is reduction realistic?

“…Engage and exemplify remind us that political negligence toward meat eating and its environmental impacts is counterproductive to raising consumer awareness about this important issue. Both notions might also stimulate public-policy initiatives that could guide and educate food consumers, such as supporting or subsidizing a vegetarian day every week (e.g., Meatless Monday, Thursday Veggie Day, see Leenaert, 2010;Wahlen et al 2012). In addition, these schemes could spur policies recognizing that the meat politics of the near future should give much more attention to the cultural underpinnings of the dominant meat-eating pattern-for example, meat symbolizing masculinity, human mastery of nature, luxury, festivity, social and economic progress (see Lang et al 2010;De Bakker & Dagevos, 2010;.…”

Co-Producing Sustainability: Involving Parents and Civil Society in the Governance of School Meal Services. A Case Study from Pisa, Italy

“…Governments play a role as active participants in the market, by purchasing public works, supplies and services thus orienting consumers' behaviors and production practices [3][4][5][6]. The economic relevance of public services is undoubtedly high: public expenditure equals approximately 19 per cent of the European GDP [7].…”