Eat for Change: Sustainable Diets Pathways for 24 to 35 year olds

Eat4Change

This work is funded via the Eat4Change programme - a 4-year, EU funded project led by WWF-Finland and involving 12 other WWF offices across Europe. The project aims to engage a youth+ audience (15-34) on the topic of sustainable food and diets, working together with young people directly for real life change on an individual and institutional level to achieve real impact for people and the planet, highlighting global interconnections and dependencies and demonstrating how individual lifestyle choices around food can directly contribute to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Read more about the wider programme here: https://www.wwf.org.uk/eat4change

Objectives and scope

For this project we want to focus in on the top half of the Eat4Change target audience - 25 to 34 year olds in the UK. Our insights tell us that broadly speaking in the UK this age group want to reduce meat consumption and eat more healthily, agreeing that a plant-based diet will have a positive impact on the environment. They are also most likely to support in theory more restrictive measures to drive dietary change. However, this group are also amongst the biggest meat consumers.

Given the unique qualities of this age group, we want this project to:

• (a)Identify the specific barriers preventing dietary change - exploring the reasons behind the attitude-behaviour gap - disaggregating by relevant demographic characteristics such as region and SES
• (b)Assess openness to change, behaviour changes this audience would be willing to adopt (e.g., eating less meat, buying better meat such as organic) and what they would need to adopt and maintain these behaviours (e.g., changes to the food environment)
• (c)Develop interventions and/or communications approaches to overcome identified barriers, and field-test them to understand effectiveness at supporting healthier, more sustainable choices in real-world environments such as supermarkets and restaurants
• (d)Provide insight as to the role WWF can play in driving dietary shift with this audience, including identifying how this age group perceives WWF in relation to food and diets and recommending levers for change that could be implemented by the organisation
• (e)Recommend routes, channels, moments and messengers through which WWF could reach this audience and drive change

Responses should be sent by email to Dani Jordan, Behavioural Science Specialist, WWF-UK: djordan@wwf.org.uk

Responses should be received no later than 12 noon on the 15th April 2022.