Young, W, Russell, SV, Robinson, CA et al. (1 more author) (2017) Can social media be a tool for reducing consumers’ food waste? A behaviour change experiment by a UK retailer. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 117 (Part B). pp. 195-203. ISSN 0921-3449
Abstract
This paper reports on a landmark study to field-test the influence of a large retailer to change the behaviour of its millions of customers. Previous studies have suggested that social media interaction can influence behaviour. This study implemented three interventions with messages to encourage reductions in food waste. The first was a social influence intervention that used the retailer’s Facebook pages to encourage its customers to interact. Two additional information interventions were used as a comparison through the retailer’s print/digital magazine and e-newsletter. Three national surveys tracked customers’ self-reported food waste one month before as well as two weeks after and five months after the interventions. The control group included those who said they had not seen any of the interventions. The results were surprising and significant in that the social media and e-newsletter interventions as well as the control group all showed significant reductions in self-reported food waste by customers over the study period. Hence in this field study, social media does not seem to replicate enough of the effect of ‘face-to-face’ interaction shown in previous studies to change behaviour above other factors in the shopping setting. This may indicate that results from laboratory-based studies may over-emphasise the effect of social media interventions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Food waste; retailer; behaviour change; social influence; social media; consumer |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Innovate UK - KTP fkaTechnology Strategy Board (KTP) KTP009067 ASDA Stores Ltd KTP009067 Operating Account N/A |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 04 Nov 2016 17:25 |
Last Modified: | 06 Oct 2017 13:50 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.10.016 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.10.016 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:106961 |