New initiative by World Resources Institute (WRI) and leading companies in the food industry launched – the Better Buying Lab.

The Lab has a big mission: to research and scale cutting-edge strategies that enable consumers to choose more sustainable foods, focusing first on plant-based foods.

What we eat has an enormous impact on our environment, a fact consumers are increasingly aware of. WRI’s research has found that even small dietary changes can have big effects, and increasing plant-based diets can cut greenhouse gas emissions and ease pressure on land, water and forests.

But shopping and eating are habitual processes and change is not always easy for consumers to make. Past efforts to help consumers adopt plant-based diets have often centered on information campaigns, which have rarely moved large numbers of people to change what they eat. Real, large-scale change requires a range of sophisticated strategies that line up with how people actually make decisions about food.

By bringing together the food industry and the brightest minds from consumer research, behavioral economics and marketing strategy, the Lab will accelerate learning about the best ways to engage consumers in building a sustainable food future. To date, the Lab’s partners include Google, Sainsbury’s, Hilton Worldwide, Quorn and Triniti. The first findings will be released later this year. Website: BetterBuyingLab.org, blog :Better Buying Lab Aims to Accelerate Demand for Sustainable Food, press release: New Better Buying Lab to Develop Sustainable Food Strategies.