Most people get food’s environmental impact completely wrong, study finds

Researchers from the University of Nottingham’s School of Psychology asked 168 participants in the UK to sort a wide variety of supermarket foods into environmental impact categories of their own making. The findings revealed consistent misconceptions about which foods are more or less harmful to the environment. The study was published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

Why Food Choices Matter for the Environment

Food production plays a major role in environmental issues, including greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Encouraging more sustainable eating habits depends in part on understanding how people perceive the environmental footprint of different foods.

Scientists measure a food’s environmental impact using a life cycle assessment, which tracks the entire process from production to disposal. This “cradle-to-grave” approach considers inputs such as fertilizer, water, and energy, along with outputs like emissions and waste. It evaluates multiple factors, including greenhouse gas emissions (often as CO₂ equivalents), land use, and water use.

Study Examines Real-World Grocery Choices

Earlier research has typically focused on a limited selection of foods. This project, funded by the UKRI’s Smart Data Research UK, is the first to explore how people perceive the environmental impact of a broad range of products commonly found in a typical grocery shop.

Participants were also shown scientific estimates of each product’s environmental impact and asked whether the results were higher or lower than they expected.

Key Misconceptions About Food and Sustainability

The study found that people tend to judge food impact using two main factors: whether the food comes from animals or plants, and how processed it is. In general, participants assumed that meat and dairy products, as well as highly processed foods, are worse for the environment.

However, these assumptions do not always match reality. Many participants overestimated the environmental impact of processed foods while underestimating the impact of water-intensive products (e.g. nuts). They were also surprised to learn how much higher the environmental impact of beef is compared to other meats like chicken.

Labels Could Help People Make Better Choices

Daniel Fletcher, Postdoctoral researcher from the School of Psychology is lead author on the study, he said: “We designed an online task to engage people with the topic and provide an interactive and visual way of investigating their understanding of the environmental impact of food. We found participants would be willing to change their purchasing behavior based on this task, reporting intentions to decrease (or increase) their future consumption of products for which they were surprised by how high (or low) the scientifically estimated environmental impact was.

“Our findings also suggest people may struggle to compare the environmental impact of animal-based products and highly processed foods because they see their effects as too different to weigh against each other. Environmental impact labels that give foods a single overall grade (such as A-E) could help make these comparisons easier for consumers.”

Professor Alexa Spence from the School of Psychology was co-author on the study and said: “The environmental impact data on food products is opening up new avenues for this research and this is the first study to look at this against a wide range of everyday products and examine what people’s perceptions of these are. What was clear from the study is that there are a lot of misconceptions around this which really supports the need for environmental impact labeling which would help people to be more informed to make sustainable food choices.”