Consumer-citizens are concerned about sustainability and perceive issues such as climate change as one of the main global problems facing the world (Eurobarometer, 2021). When it comes to the food system in general, various sustainability issues, such as use of child labour, deforestation of the rain forest, food security or use of pesticides and animal welfare, raise concerns among consumer-citizens (Grunert et al., 2014, Stancu et al., 2020). However, sustainability aspects are less of a concern when moving to more specific levels, for instance, the food product category level (Grunert et al., 2014).
The discrepancy between concern for sustainability in general and the lower concern in food choices may be explained in part by a lack of consumer understanding of what food sustainability entails (van Bussel et al., 2022). Generally, consumer-citizens are unaware of the actual impact of food production and lack knowledge about sustainability of the food system at large (van Bussel et al., 2022). Previous literature shows that consumer-citizens associate sustainability mainly with environmental-related aspects (Grunert et al., 2014, Peano et al., 2019, Simpson and Radford, 2012, Stancu et al., 2020, van Bussel et al., 2022), whereas other issues are less salient. Although sustainability in food is difficult to understand for consumer-citizens, they seem to find it less challenging to correctly interpret certain sustainability food labels (Grunert et al., 2014). Although labels seem to have an effect on consumer-citizens' perceptions and behaviour (Majer et al., 2022), the over-abundance of labels available on the market can create further confusion (Torma and Thøgersen, 2021). This also highlights that there are distinct levels of abstraction at which consumer-citizens’ understanding of sustainability is relevant, starting from the general sustainability, moving to the food domain, then to product categories and finally to the level of specific food products.
How is sustainability defined?
Sustainability is often described as a complex concept and it has been defined in several ways (Reynolds et al., 2022). The original definition of sustainable development from the Brundtland report (WCED, 1987, Chapter 2) is one of the most commonly used definitions of sustainability. According to the report, “
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The concept is further explained in the report as consisting of two core concepts, the
needs of humanity and especially the poor, and the
limitations “imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs” (WCED, 1987, Chapter 2). More recently, in 2015, the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs,
https://sdgs.un.org/goals) have been agreed upon and consist of 17 goals. These goals can be seen as aligned with the definition of sustainability from the Brundtland report (WCED, 1987) as they reflect human needs and ways to live with the limitations of our planet.
Sustainability is also seen to consist of three pillars, the environment, society and economy (Elkington, 2018, van Bussel et al., 2022). Whereas the environmental and social aspects were already covered in the Brundtland report definition of sustainability, the so-called “triple bottom line” definition refers to people, planet and profit, thus making the economy dimension of sustainability explicit (Elkington, 2018). These pillars of sustainability are reflected in the UN SDGs as well.
Sustainable development is visualised in the doughnut model as a space shaped like a doughnut where the inner boundary refers to the use of resources to satisfy human needs and the outer boundary reflects the limitations of the planet (Raworth, 2017). This framework depicts sustainability as this space where the use of resources is enough to ensure that human needs are met but is not high enough to overpass the limitations of our planet. The space between the inner and outer boundaries is seen as the “safe and just operating space” (O’Neill et al., 2018), a term also used by European Union (EU) expert bodies (SCAR, 2021).
Within food, one of the more commonly used definitions is that of sustainable diets, defined as “those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources” (FAO, 2012, page 7). The health and cultural dimensions of sustainability are explicitly mentioned in this definition in addition to the more generally used three dimensions of environment, society and economy.
Sustainability labelling framework at European level
The European Commission has proposed a legislative Sustainable Food System Framework (FSFS), which was announced in the Farm to Fork strategy and should be adopted by the end of 2023 (European Commission, 2023). The sustainability labelling framework is part of this legislative proposal and has the goal of empowering consumers to make more informed and sustainable food choices. The proposal is a response to the many calls for a harmonised sustainability labelling scheme across the EU to empower informed choices among consumers, and such a unified label could be the result of the upcoming sustainability labelling framework. However, the development of a unified label is complex and entails many trade-offs.