Italian Consumers’ Awareness of Climate Change and Willingness to Pay for Climate-Smart Food Products

Abstract

Understanding climate change awareness and its related risks is crucial to plan efficient climate-smart strategies. An online survey was conducted on Italian consumers with the aim to understand consumers’ inclination toward food products obtained with climate-smart strategies. Specifically, consumers’ awareness about climate change and willingness to choose and pay for products derived from climate-smart agriculture were investigated. Results highlighted two targeted consumers, one more interested in economic issues and more “conservative” and the second one more concerned with climate changes risks with a higher interest in environmental and ethical values (fair trade), representing the primary target consumers for climate-smart foods. This segmentation can be useful to identify expectations and purchase drivers that can facilitate climate-smart policies and the establishment of the climate-smart foods on the market.

Sustainability of Insect-Based Feed and Consumer Willingness to Pay for Novel Food: A Stated Preference Study

“…Simultaneously, the greater impact of environmental information on willingness to pay compared to animal welfare information might stem from our panel of consumers exhibiting a heightened interest in the sustainability aspects of their food choices. Recent literature on Italian consumers indeed indicates an increasing concern for environmental sustainability in food expenditures (Laureti and Benedetti, 2018;Predieri et al, 2023;De Marchi et al, 2024), extending beyond innovative products to conventional ones. This factor likely played a significant role in influencing our findings regarding willingness to pay.…”

“…Collectively, there are various studies that illustrate the influence of emotions on individuals' WTP for various products and experiences. If Bates et al (2023) demonstrated that emotions are critical in influencing WTP for meat alternatives, such as insect-based food, other studies indicate that consumers' awareness of climate change can impact their willingness to choose and pay for climate-smart food products (Predieri et al, 2023). In general, people are willing to pay more to experience positive emotions than to avoid negative ones (Lau et al, 2013), hence the analysis of multiple factors simultaneously could be the key to thoroughly understanding which mechanisms, in synergy, most influence WTP.…”