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In this study, we conducted a comprehensive content analysis of the distribution of television advertising time among various food items from the perspective of sustainability. We employed the food item sustainability index published by van Dooren et al. in 2017 that uses climate impact as the ecological indicator and nutritional characteristics as the public health indicator. For a period of 12 months, we videotaped advertisement from two most popular Finnish channels 24 hours of television broadcasting per day on the third day of every month. We identified a total of 2,394 food commercials. We analysed a total of 742 minutes of food advertising time. We found that commercials were dominated by three food items: yogurt (16 per cent of advertising time), bread (14%) and cheese (10%). The food items with the lowest climate impact and highest positive nutritional characteristics received only seven per cent of the total advertising time and the ones with the highest climate impact and lowest nutritional characteristics received 29 per cent. Our results indicate that food advertising on television is not beneficial seen from a sustainability perspective. Regulation – or even banning – of advertising for most harmful food items should be considered.

In this essay we draw attention to a crisis that touches upon a great number of individuals: the plight of non-human animals. Billions of farmed animals are slaughtered each year to produce for instance food and clothes, while wild animals experience various degrees of human-induced harms. Yet, non-human animals are largely invisible in discussions of sustainability and associated accounting efforts. This is due to a problematic ontology that leaves domesticated animals hovering between society and nature while grouping wild animals with their habitats and inanimate things. Our purpose is to consider how to make animals visible in sustainability (and) accounting. To that end, we first illustrate how sociology and philosophy, among other disciplines, have begun to shift towards the view that non-human animals are worthy of our moral, political and legal consideration. We then develop a view of sustainability that explicitly includes animals and introduce an accounting framework with examples of indicators to track progress from no rights to fundamental rights for non-human animals. publishedVersion

During the past few decades, the global food system has confronted new sustainability challenges related not only to public health and the environment but also to ethical concerns over the treatment of farmed animals. However, the traditional threedimensional framework of sustainable development is ill equipped to take ethical concerns related to non-human animals into account. For instance, the interests of farmed animals are often overridden by objectives associated with social, economic or environmental sustainability, despite their vast numbers and influence on contemporary societies. Moreover, sustainability policies necessarily involve an element of ethical evaluation; yet this element is not explicitly incorporated in prevailing frameworks of sustainable development. Our purpose in this article is to address these shortcomings by developing a Sustainability Matrix that recognizes the need to consider food system sustainability from the perspective of all interest groups affected by the issue under consideration, from a plurality of ethical standpoints. Combing sustainability principles with the basic idea of an ethical evaluation tool, the proposed Sustainability Matrix evaluates the sustainability of food-related systems, decisions and policies from the perspectives of three major strands of ethical theory and from the perspectives of human beings, farmed animals and wildlife. In terms of policy implications, the Sustainability Matrix can be applied in deciding on the specific targets of food system sustainability that can then be utilized as a basis for designing policies and measures towards the achievement of these goals.

In recent years, there has been an increased mobilization around veganism and plant-based diets. This chapter analyzes this mobilization, the evolution of the images and practices of vegan eating, and associated kinds of political consumerism. The chapter demonstrates how vegan eating takes place as an assemblage of several actors and platforms, such as consciousness-raising campaigns, vegan bloggers, pledges and festivals, and new vegan foods marketed as “cool” and suitable for everyone. The concepts of boycott and buycott are too narrow to adequately describe veganism as political consumerism. Instead, discursive and lifestyle political consumerism and their interplay characterize the current building of new images and communities. The internet and social media have a central role in shaping the cultural contents of the “veggie trend.” Moreover, vegan eating is not always inspired by other-oriented motives but also by self-regarding motives, such as health, pleasure, and distinction.

Citizen attitudes and opinions form an important driving force for improvements in the ethical status of farm animals in society. Hence, it is important to understand how attitudes to farm animals vary in society and what factors, mechanisms and social processes influence the development of these attitudes. In this study we examine the relative importance of socio-demographic background, animal related experiences and social-equality attitudes in the formation of attitudes to farm animals in Finland. The research is based on a nationwide survey (n = 1890). Our research findings suggest that female gender, young age, urban residency, a non-farming background and social-equality attitudes are linked to greater concern for farm animals. A farming background, valuing social equality, and gender have the strongest connections to farm animal attitudes, followed by age and place of residence. Having a companion animal and education level have a relatively modest connection to attitudes to farm animals. In order to accumulate comparative evidence of social-group differences in attitudes to farm animals, further research should continue to develop improved indicators for attitudes to farm animal welfare and rights. Moreover, explanations for social-group differences in citizen attitudes to farm animals should be subjected to further empirical testing.

The sustainability challenges that the food system is facing are ever increasing. The traditional approach to monitoring these changes considers economic, societal and environmental sustainability. A strong case has been made, however, that a fourth dimension, ethical, should also be considered. Conventionally, two main strategies have been used to assess the improvements in sustainability: efficiency and sufficiency. Efficiency is usually linked with technological improvements, and sufficiency is connected with a reduction in production or consumption. We introduce a third strategy to the analysis; namely consistency that is related mainly to the ethical dimension of sustainability. Trends of the indicators related to the three strategies are calculated on both a global and regional scale from 1962 to 2009. Efficiency (measured as land requirement for animal products) has increased by about 13 percent globally, sufficiency (measured as the amount of meat consumed) has declined by 91 percent and consistency (measured as the number of animals slaughtered) has declined by 264 percent. In addition, convergence analysis emphasizes that industrialized and developing countries are moving towards similar patterns of animal products consumption. Such results suggest that measures should be taken to develop a food system that is not only efficient, but also ethically just.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the barriers perceived by consumers to lowering their meat consumption levels and adopting a plant-based diet, which means a diet that includes mainly non-meat foods, yet it can contain both vegetarian and meat meals.Design/methodology/approach– The prevalence of different barriers for following a plant-based diet is addressed, as well as consumer profiles considering socio-demographics, values and meat consumption frequencies. The data were collected in 2010 by a survey questionnaire, sent to 4,000 randomly selected Finns (response rate=47.3,n=1,890).Findings– Different types of barriers are perceived to hinder the adoption of a plant-based diet, including meat enjoyment, eating routines, health conceptions and difficulties in preparing vegetarian foods. These barriers are strongly correlated, indicating that consumers may not make qualitative difference between different barriers. Furthermore, there are distinct socio-demographic, value and especially meat consumption frequency elements that strengthen the barrier perception, these being male gender, young age, rural residence, household type of families with children, low education, absence of a vegetarian family member or friend, valuation of traditions and wealth and high meat consumption frequency.Social implications– High meat consumption is related to many environmental and public health problems. The results call for multifaceted policy implications that should concentrate on different barriers and certain socio-demographic, value and meat eating groups. Importantly, focus should be not only on the group with the strongest barrier perception but also on those particularly willing to make changes in their meat consumption patterns. One practical implication could be to increase the availability of vegetarian foods in public cafeterias or school canteens, as a decrease in meat consumption frequency is strongly correlated with the alleviation of the barrier perception.Originality/value– Information about differences in socio-demographics, values and meat consumption frequencies between consumers provide opportunities for focussing policy actions to aid the adoption of a plant-based diet.

Kirja-arvio

Societal and technological development during the last century has enabled Western economies to achieve a high standard of living. Yet this profusion of wealth has led to several outcomes that are undesirable and/or unsustainable. There is thus an imperative need for a fundamental and rapid transition towards more sustainable practices. While broad conceptual frameworks for managing sustainability transitions have been suggested in prior literature, these need to be further developed to suit contexts in which the overall vision is arguably clear, such as in the case of consuming animal-originated foodstuffs. In this article we introduce a novel transition management framework that is based upon the dimensions of sustainability. The suggested transition management process includes the identification of objectives and obstacles, the listing of options and their opportunities and threats as well as the evaluation of the outcomes (the Five O’s). We argue that sustainability transition management should be a process in which the identification of the relevant dimensions of sustainability and related objectives forms the foundation for strategic, tactical and operational governance activities. We illustrate the practical applicability of the framework in the case of transition towards plant-based diets.

The production of food for consumption produces environmental stress and raises ethical issues. As humans are able to choose different foodstuffs in their diets, food consumption guidance may have large benefits for the environment. Meat consumption is often identified as the most environmentally harmful foodstuff to produce and animal welfare and rights issues are receiving ever more attention. By combining both issues, this article proposes a conceptual framework for combining alternative dietary habits and agricultural production styles in general environmental policy strategies. Two means to lower meat consumption are proposed: 1) Redeveloping the Pigouvian food taxation system introduced by Goodland (1997), in which foodstuffs are taxed according to their environmental burden. An elaborated version could also include an ethical tax that incorporates consumers' attitudes on animal welfare and a coefficient that takes into account the inherent value of animals; 2) Taking the composition of a national stockpile as a starting point and designing the agricultural production system from a combined environmental and ethical perspective. In this system, the environmentally and ethically preferable foodstuffs would be purchased by the government and sold to the global markets. The premiums between these two prices would constitute the subsidies for the national production.

This paper explores citizens’ views about the welfare of farmed fish and the mental abilities of fish with a large survey data sample from Finland (n = 1,890). Although studies on attitudes towards animal welfare have been increasing, fish welfare has received only limited empirical attention, despite the rapid expansion of aquaculture sector. The results show that the welfare of farmed fish is not any great concern in the Finnish society. The analysis confirms the distinct character given to farmed fish compared to traditional farmed animals. Salmon are rated low in their mental abilities, including the capacity to feel pain, which may weaken ethical concerns for fish welfare. When analyzing the social determinants surrounding the rating of the welfare of farmed fish, it was shown that fish welfare attitudes follow general animal welfare attitudes regarding age and place of residence as fish welfare tends to be rated more negatively among younger age groups and among urban residents. However, no clear connection could be identified between gender and the rating of fish welfare, which may suggest that the distinct cultural categorization of fish diminishes the typical gender difference identified in animal attitudes. It is concluded that in order to improve awareness about fish welfare, there is a need to increase dissemination of scientific knowledge about fish and their welfare. Moreover, further research should be directed toward studying the moral positioning of fish and the distinct moral categorization they receive.

This study analyses the strengths, weaknesses and pitfalls encountered when combining qualitative and quantitative information in a Delphi process and when reporting the results as scenarios or images of the future. The paper draws material from seven Disaggregative Policy Delphi processes conducted in Finland in 1999–2008, in which the authors were researchers or advisors. The cases are analysed in terms of the level of integration and the ways to overcome the difficulties. A learning ‘community of practice’ was created by these afterthoughts and by organising an international conference workshop on the issue. Qualitative and quantitative material was holistically integrated in one case. In the other cases, solutions led to domination of one material type over another but even then the other material did give relevant points to scenario formation. Finally, we give recommendations for tackling the pitfalls: 1) balancing between qualitative and quantitative, 2) balancing between formal structure and questions raised in the process, 3) framing questions to discover alternative future states, 4) paying attention to panellists' style, 5) dealing with lack of data for comprehensive cluster analysis, 6) considering scenario consistency, 7) understanding manager's responsibility and, 8) understanding the epistemological aspects of Delphi data. We conclude that integrating qualitative and quantitative material by using mixed methods to form coherent scenarios is at the same time desirable, possible and difficult – making the ‘unholy marriage’ a worthy adventure.

Trust in animal farming is a complex phenomenon and it is expressed in heterogeneous ways in different cultural contexts. Nordic countries are typically known as high-trust societies in terms of food issues. Based on group interviews among Finnish consumers, this paper explores how citizen–consumers express trust and distrust regarding animal farming practices and whether it is possible to identify different forms of trust among different consumer groups. The foundations of emotional trust in animal farming have been weakening due to urbanization and the structural change in agriculture. Ordinary shoppers responded to this situation by transferring responsibility for farm animal welfare to public authorities, relying on habitual policy-generated trust in animal farming. In contrast, gastronomes and organic consumers actively cultivated their emotional trust in livestock production by creating new kinds of contacts to farming. Gastronomes, organic consumers and vegetarians especially acknowledged the complexity of the claims made in farm animal welfare politics. As trust in food has arguably become a subject of active negotiation in Finland, the foundations for the habit-based policy-generated trust may be partly weakening, creating more space for the politicizing of food issues and the developing of alternative sources for regaining trust in food production.

PurposeThe paper aims to examine changes in household consumption behaviour through an empirical investigation of the decision to consume meat, to not consume meat or to consume only small amounts of meat. The goal is to find out if the decision not to consume meat is becoming more prevalent, and to understand in what social categories this is happening, if any. A further aim is to investigate whether meat consumption is strongly associated with gender on the household level.Design/methodology/approachExpenditure survey data gathered from Finland during the last 40 years was used to identify what kinds of changes were taking place in the consumption of meat and meat products. The independent measures include six variables: the gender of the highest earner in the household (HEH), the type of household, the type of municipality and the income quintile, educational level and age of the HEH. The size of the samples varied between 2,986 and 8,258 households.FindingsThe analysis revealed that the decision not to consume meat became prevalent in Finland at the end of the 1970s but the growth rate has somewhat stabilised during recent decades. The gender of the HEH affects the family meat consumption. As non‐meat consumption has become more widespread it has also more clearly become a middle‐class phenomenon.Originality/valueThere are no previous studies available on the development of non‐meat consumption from this long‐term perspective.

The issue of meat consumption has been a subject of interest that has been looked at from environmental, animal and human perspectives. This paper contributes to the discussion by clarifying the diversity of views with regard to the future of meat consumption. Two round Delphi expert interviews and a consumer survey were conducted in order to collect information. Five coherent future images were constructed: Traditional Approach, Business as Usual, Humans First, Wellness and Vegetarian Society. The discussion part of the paper presents possible ways of influencing meat consumption according to the holders of these different images of the future.

Meat consumption with large environmental and ethical implications is expected to grow in the future. Some studies, however, take the opposite view, that meat consumption is at a turning point because of a growing number of vegetarians and other factors in industrialized countries. This paper examines thirty nine Finnish experts' views on the development of meat consumption and analyses the explanatory grounds used by the experts in order to identify possible factors affecting meat consumption in the future. To ensure that different types of views would be represented, a new method of categorization of the experts was developed. In answer to the question; “What would constitute a preferable amount of meat consumption in Finland in the year 2030?”, the average answer given by the experts was 66 kg per person per year and the median 71 kg, both of which would mean a drop from the current level of 72 kg. However, the average probable consumption foreseen by the experts was 75 kg and the median was also 75 kg. By analysing the grounds presented by the experts, the discussion part of the paper presents a selection of strategies that can be used to help decrease meat consumption: 1) aid the technological development of products that could replace foodstuffs that originate from animals, 2) use ad campaigns to increase consumer knowledge about animal rights and vegetarianism, 3) make political decisions to transfer agricultural production away from meat production and promote the broadening of the selection of alternatives to meat products in stores, and 4) place higher taxes on meat products.

Global environmental challenges require changes in both the production and the consumption of goods. In this paper we analyse how consumers perceive the high environmental burden of meat. We analysed consumer environmental consciousness, including problem awareness and a support to action dimensions, latter including perceived self-efficacy as well as solutions to problems. The solutions were positioned on a continuum from increasing the efficiency of production to discussing sufficiency levels in consumption practices (techno-optimism, local meat, organic meat and meat reduction, respectively). We used a statistically representative survey sample (n = 1890) from the population of Finland and cluster analysis to explore differences among consumers. The analysis revealed that most Finns seem to be rather unsure of the study topic. At the same time they tend to have a comparably high level of self-efficacy (55 per cent of respondents) and endorsement of particularly local meat solution type (55%), followed by organic meat (35%), meat reduction (25%) and techno-optimism (15%), though the neutral stand was the most common one across the data. We also identified six consumer groups that reveal not only a high number of Highly unsure consumers (40%), but also some Rather conscious (20%) and a relatively small number of Highly conscious (8%). In addition, there were also easily observable groups of Careless conscious (14%), Rather unsure (9%) and Resistant (8%). The results highlight the need for a multitude of political actions to guide meat consumption, as there are groups that may benefit from practical tools for making dietary changes as well as groups in need for more comprehensive selection of measures, including environmental information.

The ‘Environmental Kuznets Curve’ is a hypothesis, according to which environmental burden rises when the income levels are low, but degradation starts to lower when income levels continue to rise. This approach has been utilized also to hypothesize that animal welfare and usage of animals by humans follow a similar trend. In this article meat consumption per capita is examined in the EU-15 context by comparing it with income levels. It was found that meat consumption rises with income in lower income levels but this growth gradually stabilizes. When the amount of animals slaughtered per capita was analyzed it was observed that with income levels of 11,000 US$, 19,000 US$ and 23,000 US$ per capita the amount of animals slaughtered per capita was equal to 6.8, 11.0 and 9.4 respectively. This indicates that the amounts of slaughter do indeed follow the trend hypothesized by the Kuznets curve. However the results should be interpreted with caution.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence and sociodemographic factors related to vegetarians according to different definitions in Finland and to compare the consumption of selected foodstuffs and nutritional intakes among vegetarians and omnivores. Design: Information about subjects’ identification as vegetarians in a survey was used as a basis for self-defined vegetarianism. Foodstuffs consumed and their frequencies of consumption were obtained, and the reported consumption frequencies of meat, fish, milk and eggs or food portions containing these foodstuffs were used as a basis for an operationalized definition of different types of vegetarianism. Reported consumption was used to estimate foodstuff and nutritional intakes. Setting: Three large nationwide surveys in Finland. Subjects: In total, 24393 participants aged between 18 and 79 years were included. Results: The proportion of self-identified vegetarians was 3?3% of the total population in Finland. According to responses to questions on consumption frequency, 1?4% of the population were pesco-lacto-ovo-vegetarians, 0?43% were vegans, lacto-vegetarians or lacto-ovo-vegetarians, and 0?18% were vegans or lacto-vegetarians. Eighty per cent of the self-identified vegetarians did not follow a vegetarian diet according to the operationalized definition, but they consumed fewer meat products (P ,0?01). Conclusion: Some self-defined vegetarians do consume red meat, poultry or fish, but they follow a healthier diet than self-defined omnivores. In the same sample self-identification indicated more than double the incidence of vegetarianism than the operationalized definition. Therefore self-identification is not a good method for observing the prevalence of vegetarianism.

In this paper, we explore whether attitudes towards farm animals belong to a larger set of societal values which we label "belief systems." Our empirical analysis is based on a postal survey conducted in 2010: a random sample of 4,000 Finns aged from 18 to 75 years was selected from the Finnish Population Register database. Analysis techniques consisted of descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, and correlation analyses. Three dif- ferent belief systems were identified—the Social Justice orientation, the Tra- ditional orientation, and the Wealth orientation—and views on animal welfare were associated with them. In general, respondents with a Social Justice ori- entation expressed social tolerance and shared a relatively egalitarian attitude toward animals. Those with conservative values (the Traditional orientation) showed little concern for animal welfare. Regarding the allocation of trust and responsibility, respondents with the Social Justice orientation attributed responsibility for farm animal welfare to all relevant actors: consumers, pro- ducers, and business and regulative institutions. The belief system based on social justice was associated with low trust in agricultural producers but a high trust in non-governmental organizations as a source of information concern- ing farm animal welfare. In contrast, traditional values were associated with trust in agricultural producers and food chain actors. Overall, the results speak for the development and utilization of more diversified policy instruments in Finland, as the current system of governance over farm animals does not seem to meet the expectations of all Finns.

Mental capacities are an essential basis on which people give moral concern to nonhuman animals. Hence, it is important to investigate public perceptions of animal mind and the factors underlying these perceptions. Although research into citizen beliefs in animal mind has been increasing, population-based studies utilizing multivariate methods have been scarce. In this article, public perceptions of animal mind are investigated with a nationwide survey in Finland (n= 1,824). Eight animal species positioned differently in cultural categorizations are included in the analysis. Dogs were ascribed the most capacities, followed by cows, pigs, wolves, and elk. Citizens expressed a low belief in the mental capacities of chicken, salmon, and shrimp. Classifying animals as companions, food, and threat influences the perceptions of animal mind. Young age, having a companion animal, valuing societal equality, and concern for animal welfare and for animal utilization are connected to a greater belief in animal mind.