Climate Impact Labels on Meat Products
Listen to the article (American accent)
Climate impact labels on some foods like beef can help people make better choices for our planet. A study found that these labels can help people choose foods that don’t have a negative impact on the environment.
Policymakers want people to choose foods that produce less greenhouse gasses. In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that people should switch to diets that are good for the environment, healthy and produce fewer greenhouse gasses.
Henry Dimbleby, a food advisor to the British government, says that it would be hard for a government to tell people to eat less meat. Most of the farmland in England is used to grow food for livestock like cows, or to let them graze. To use the farmland in a more environmentally friendly manner, Dimbleby thinks that people need to eat 30% less meat over the next 10 years. However, Greenpeace believes that people should eat 70% less meat.
A study has found that consumers responded well to labels about the climate on foods.
Researchers in the US asked a group of adults to choose one item from a fast-food menu. There were three groups. One group didn’t see any labels, another group saw green labels on food that isn’t bad for the environment, and the third group saw red labels on food that is bad for the environment.
23.5% more people chose an environmentally friendly option when the menus had labels about negative impact.
Telling people that a food was bad for the environment was more effective than telling them that a food was good for the environment.
Vocabulary18 words
- Climate
- the weather conditions and weather patterns of a place over a long period of time
- Impact
- influence; effect; consequence;
- Label
- a small piece of material attached to an object that gives information about it. It is usually made of paper, fabric, or plastic; tag; ticket; stamp
- Planet
- a large object in space that orbits (goes around) a star (Earth is a planet)
- Study
- the activity of examining/studying something in detail to discover new information; research; investigation
- Find
- realize; learn; discover;
- Environment
- the natural world, the place we live, the area around us, nature
- Policymaker
- a person or group of people who make decisions about how a company, organization, or government should operate and the rules
- Produce
- to create or make something
- Greenhouse gas
- gasses in Earth's atmosphere (sky) that trap heat; gasses that are bad for the environment
- Advisor
- a person who gives advice or suggestions to help someone make a decision
- Livestock
- horses, cows, sheep, etc. kept or raised on a farm; farm animals
- Graze
- to eat small amounts of grass or other plants by moving around and feeding on a wide area, as cows and sheep do
- Environmentally friendly
- eco-friendly; not bad for or damaging to the Earth; sustainable
- Manner
- way; method; the way in which something is done or happens; mode; process
- Consumer
- customer; user; shopper
- Respond
- to say or do something in reaction to or because of something
- Researcher
- a person who does research; a person who studies something to find new results
Discussion questions
- How does the production of different types of food impact the environment, and how can this information be conveyed through climate impact labels?
- How effective are climate impact labels in helping people make more environmentally friendly food choices?
- What are the potential challenges of having a government policy that encourages people to eat less meat? What are the pros and cons of that policy?
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