The food system is a leading driver of various environmental and health damages. In particular, the meat industry is one of the most harmful parts of this system.
The environmental damage includes climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. Human health is affected with the development of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, obesity, and numerous cancers.

In my research, I identified the consumers as a crucial role in mitigating those damages, due to the high direct influence they have on the system with their behavior. The needed behavioral change is reducing the amount of meat consumed, preference for locally and organically produced meat, and adopting a plant-rich diet. When initiating change, it is strategically advised to start with a group of people who are the most advanced and resourceful to engage. Therefore, I chose to focus on supporting the behavioural change of young adults without kids, who already intends to take action.

In my research, it became apparent that despite having the intention, this consumer group endures several barriers and lacks the motivation to change. Therefore, I identified 6 ways to motivate them to change and proposed a design intervention that is based on those motivators.
To ensure a validated design approach, I have supported my intervention with frameworks that are based on behavioural science insights.

The design intervention I propose is supporting a change in the way consumers do their grocery shopping. I designed a sustainability loyalty program, which is a customer reward scheme that promotes sustainable food choices in a supermarket. Unlike conventional retailer loyalty programs, this program rewards only customers who follow a predefined standard of an environmentally sustainable diet.

To support a change in meat consumption, customers are provided with a gamified mobile app that introduces them to a reward scheme that promotes sustainable food choices in a supermarket. Consumers feel more motivated when their meat consumption is more visible/traceable. Therefore, the app calculates and reports to the program members their daily carbon footprint and provides a historical overview of the carbon footprint by purchase and also by product category. Thus, program members can track and evaluate their progress.

The app also improves the educational experience about the meat industry and the consumers› part in it. It does that by offering participation in a variety of educational workshops on the topic of sustainable farming.

Furthermore, It Normalises conversations about new eating behaviours by connecting the program members with one another. Members can add each other to their friend’s list and evaluate each other scores and progress.

Find out more about the intervention in the images below.