Food, Energy, and Water Nexus at Household Level: Do Sustainable Household Consumption Practices Promote Cleaner Environment?

Abstract

Governments around the globe are trying to find sustainable solutions for lessening pressure on natural resources and reducing carbon emissions. Daily household consumption of food, energy, and water has an impact on stocks of natural resources, environmental quality, and climate change. Households have significant potential for increasing conservation actions for efficient use of natural resources and greenhouse gas emissions. Households could contribute to a clean and healthy environment by adopting sustainable household practices through lower per capita consumption and carbon emissions. This study explored the role of different sustainable household consumption practices in promoting a clean environment as well as the factors affecting the adoption of these practices in Pakistan. Factor analysis and an ordered probit model were used to analyze the data from 1424 participants chosen through a multistage random sampling technique. The factor analysis identified 35 sustainable household practices for sustainable consumption. These 35 practices were grouped into the underlying factors of “Food” (14 items), “Energy” (12 items), and “Water” (9 items). The results from the econometric model showed a significant relationship between gender, education, residential area, family size, and income and the adoption of sustainable household consumption practices. Statistically, higher levels of reported sustainable consumption practices were apparent among females, households living in urban areas, more educated people, individuals of large family sizes, and more affluent households. Therefore, public policies for taking care of the environment need to put households at the center while at the same time promoting mass uptake of sustainable consumption practices related to food, energy, and water. In addition, the sector-specific policies also need to be augmented through focus on household-level consumption and production dynamics for achieving the UN’s SDGs.

Food Waste Utilization for Reducing Carbon Footprints towards Sustainable and Cleaner Environment: A Review

“…PHA is a significant category of polymers that has previously been in investigation but is now ready to fully participate in the market, where production capacity is expected to treble in the upcoming few years. Its degradation rate and rubber-like qualities have revealed that it has tremendous opportunities as a replacement for conventional plastics [104,105]. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development-specifically SDG 12, target 12.3-demands for per-capita universal food waste at the retail and consumer levels to half and curtailing the loss of food along production and supply chains.…”

Policy Recommendations for Reducing Food Waste: An Analysis Based on a Survey of Urban and Rural Household Food Waste in Harbin, China

“…Research on food loss and waste began in the late 1980s; since 2005, research on this issue has become more widespread globally [9]. In recent years, research on food waste at the consumer end has mainly focused on five areas; anti-food waste policies and methods [10][11][12][13], quantity measurements of household food waste [14][15][16][17][18], analyses of the harms of food waste [18][19][20], analyses of the factors influencing household food waste [21][22][23][24][25][26], and methods and techniques to deal with food waste [27,28]. In the area of anti-food waste, a study on anti-food waste policies explored the influencing factors of policy implementation and found that the effective implementation of policies is closely related to the active participation of supermarket managers.…”

“…A survey examined the role of different sustainable household consumption behaviors in promoting a clean environment in Pakistan, as well as the factors influencing the adoption of these behaviors. The results showed significant relationships between gender, education, residential area, household size, income, and the adoption of sustainable household consumption practices [22]. A study found that households often hold conflicting attitudes toward waste prevention and face a conflict between their willingness to reduce food waste and their preferences for food safety, taste, and freshness [23].…”