Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Policy packaging can make food system transformation feasible

Nature Food volume 1, pages 173–182 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Redesigning food production and consumption is key to limiting global warming, soil erosion and biodiversity loss. Yet, transforming the food system may involve political feasibility problems, as potentially effective policy interventions interfere with citizens’ daily lives. Here, we show that policy packaging—the systematic bundling of different policy measures—can help to mitigate the potential trade-off between political feasibility and problem-solving effectiveness. We use conjoint experiments with citizens from China, Germany and the United States to scrutinize support for different combinations of policies aimed at reducing food systems’ environmental impacts. Our results do not support the widespread claim that costly market-based or push measures per se receive less support than non-market-based or pull measures. Instead, they show that citizens are likely to support even costly policies, but this support varies by country and depends on the specific combination of policy measures, their stringency and revenue earmarking.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Effects of policy design attributes on the proportion of respondents supporting a policy package by country.
Fig. 2: Effects of tax revenue earmarking on the proportion of respondents supporting a policy proposal by country.
Fig. 3: Distribution of respondents’ share of support for policy packages that include particular policy attributes.
Fig. 4: Tax-conditional marginal means by country.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

All data and associated code for replicating the experimental results presented in Figs. 1–4 of the paper as well as the results presented in the Supplementary Information are publically available at the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/FR73RE.

References

  1. Bajželj, B. et al. Importance of food-demand management for climate mitigation. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 924–929 (2014).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Springmann, M. et al. Mitigation potential and global health impacts from emissions pricing of food commodities. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 69–74 (2017).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Springmann, M. et al. Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits. Nature 562, 519–525 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Godfray, J. et al. Meat consumption, health, and the environment. Science 361, eaam5324 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Poore, J. & Nemecek, T. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 992, 987–992 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Creutzig, F. et al. Towards demand-side solutions for mitigating. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 260–271 (2018).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Steg, L. Limiting climate change requires research on climate action. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 759–761 (2018).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Lemken, D., Kraus, K., Nitzko, S. & Spiller, A. Staatliche Eingriffe in die Lebensmittelwahl: Welche klimapolitischen Instrumente unterstützt die Bevölkerung? GAIA 27, 363–372 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Fesenfeld, L. P., Schmidt, T. S. & Schrode, A. Climate policy for short- and long-lived pollutants. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 933–936 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Bataille, C., Guivarch, C., Hallegatte, S., Rogelj, J. & Waisman, H. Carbon prices across countries. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 648–650 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Fesenfeld, L. P. The Effects of Policy Packaging on Public Support for Transformative Policies (Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zurich, 2018); https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000397449

  12. Fesenfeld, L. Governing urban food systems in the long-run: comparing best practices in sustainable food procurement regulations. GAIA 25, 260–270 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Alexander, P., Reddy, A., Brown, C., Henry, R. C. & Rounsevell, M. D. A. Transforming agricultural land use through marginal gains in the food system. Glob. Environ. Change 57, 101932 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Klenert, D. et al. Making carbon pricing work for citizens. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 669–677 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Wicki, M., Fesenfeld, L. & Bernauer, T. In search of politically feasible policy-packages for sustainable transport: insights from choice experiments in China, Germany, and the USA. Environ. Res. Lett. 14, 084048 (2019).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Bernauer, T. Climate change politics. Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 16, 421–448 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Pahle, M. et al. Sequencing to ratchet up climate policy stringency. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 861–867 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Schaffrin, A., Sewerin, S. & Seubert, S. Toward a comparative measure of climate policy output. Policy Stud. J. 43, 257–282 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Rhodes, E., Axsen, J. & Jaccard, M. Does effective climate policy require well-informed citizen support? Glob. Environ. Change 29, 92–104 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Stokes, L. C. Electoral backlash against climate policy: a natural experiment on retrospective voting and local resistance to public policy. Am. J. Pol. Sci. 60, 958–974 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Stadelmann-Steffen, I. & Dermont, C. The unpopularity of incentive-based instruments: what improves the cost–benefit ratio? Public Choice 175, 37–62 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. OECD–FAO Agricultural Outlook 2018–2027 (OECD, 2018).

  23. Ecological Footprint Explorer (Global Footprint Network, 2018); https://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/

  24. Hainmueller, Hopkins, D. J. & Yamamoto, T. Causal inference in conjoint analysis: understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments. Polit. Anal. 22, 1–30 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Hainmueller, J., Hangartner, D. & Yamamoto, T. Validating vignette and conjoint survey experiments against real-world behavior. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 2395–2400 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Bansak, K., Hainmueller, J. & Hangartner, D. How economic, humanitarian, and religious concerns shape European attitudes toward asylum seekers. Science 354, 217–222 (2016).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Carattini, S., Carvalho, M. & Fankhauser, S. Overcoming public resistance to carbon taxes. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 9, e531 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Drews, S. & van den Bergh, J. C. J. M. What explains public support for climate policies? A review of empirical and experimental studies. Clim. Policy 16, 855–876 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Huber, R., Wicki, M. & Bernauer, T. Public support for environmental policy depends on beliefs concerning effectiveness, intrusiveness, and fairness. Env. Polit. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2019.1629171 (2019).

  30. Beiser-McGrath, L. F. & Bernauer, T. Could revenue recycling make effective carbon taxation politically feasible? Sci. Adv. 5, eaax3323 (2019).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  31. Hahn, R. W. & Stavins, R. N. Economic incentives for environmental protection: integrating theory and practice. Am. Econ. Rev. 82, 464–468 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  32. Kallbekken, S. & Sæælen, H. Public acceptance for environmental taxes: self-interest, environmental and distributional concerns. Energy Policy 39, 2966–2973 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Cherry, T. L., Kallbekken, S. & Kroll, S. The acceptability of efficiency-enhancing environmental taxes, subsidies and regulation: an experimental investigation. Environ. Sci. Policy 16, 90–96 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Kirchgässner, G. & Schneider, F. On the political economy of environmental policy. Public Choice 115, 369–396 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Fairbrother, M. When will people pay to pollute? Environmental taxes, political trust and experimental evidence from Britain. Br. J. Polit. Sci. 46, 661–682 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Häusermann, S., Kurer, T. & Traber, D. The politics of trade-offs: studying the dynamics of welfare state reform with conjoint experiments. Comp. Polit. Stud. 52, 1059–1095 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Rinscheid, A. & Wüstenhagen, R. Germany’s decision to phase out coal by 2038 lags behind citizens’ timing preferences. Nat. Energy 4, 856–863 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  38. Zhang, L., Xu, Y., Oosterveer, P. & Mol, A. P. J. Consumer trust in different food provisioning schemes: evidence from Beijing, China. J. Clean. Prod. 134, 269–279 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Bernauer, T., Prakash, A. & Beiser-McGrath, L. F. Do exemptions undermine environmental policy support? An experimental stress test on the odd–even road space rationing policy in India. Regul. Gov. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12225 (2018).

  40. Meckling, J., Kelsey, N., Biber, E. & Zysman, J. Winning coalitions for climate policy. Science 349, 1170–1171 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Schmid, N., Sewerin, S. & Schmidt, T. Explaining advocacy coalition change with policy feedback. Policy Stud. J. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12365 (2019).

  42. Schmidt, T. S. & Sewerin, S. Technology as a driver of climate and energy politics. Nat. Energy 2, 170–184 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  43. Oates, W. E. & Portney, P. R. in Handbook of Environmental Economics 325–354 (Elsevier, 2003).

  44. Culpepper, P. D. Quiet Politics and Business Power: Corporate Control in Europe and Japan (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010).

  45. Weaver, R. K. The politics of blame avoidance. J. Public Policy 6, 371–398 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Wiedenhofer, D. et al. Unequal household carbon footprints in China. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 75–80 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. De Mesquita, B. B., Smith, A., Morrow, J. D. & Siverson, R. M. The Logic of Political Survival (MIT Press, 2005).

  48. Burstein, P. The impact of public opinion on public policy: a review and an agenda. Polit. Res. Q. 56, 29–40 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Anderson, B., Böhmelt, T. & Ward, H. Public opinion and environmental policy output: a cross-national analysis of energy policies in Europe. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 114011 (2017).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was funded by the ERC Advanced Grant ‘Sources of Legitimacy in Global Environmental Governance’ (grant number 295456) and supported by ETH Zürich. We are grateful for valuable comments by B. Anderson, G. Brückmann, F. Egli, L. F. Beiser-McGrath, R. Hess, R. Huber, D. Kolcava, V. Koubi, S. Mohrenberg, Q. Nguyen, D. Presperger, A. Rinscheid, L. Rudolph, A. Schrode and F. Quoss, as well as the interviewed experts and anonymous reviewers. The ETH ethics commission provided guidelines for the study procedures and approved the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Lukas Paul Fesenfeld, Michael Wicki & Thomas Bernauer

  2. Institute of Science, Technology and Policy, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Lukas Paul Fesenfeld, Michael Wicki & Thomas Bernauer

  3. Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Yixian Sun

Authors
  1. Lukas Paul Fesenfeld
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael Wicki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yixian Sun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Thomas Bernauer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

L.P.F., M.W., Y.S. and T.B. developed the study concept and survey design. L.P.F. and Y.S. conducted the interviews. L.P.F. conducted the analyses and interpreted and prepared the results. The other authors supported interpretation of the results. L.P.F. wrote the paper with input from the other authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lukas Paul Fesenfeld.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Example of experimental conjoint choice and rating task.

We showed study participants four such pairs of random policy packages and asked them to decide which proposal they preferred within each pair, both in a forced-choice question and on a seven-point rating scale. The different policy design attributes were described to respondents prior to the four choice tasks.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–5, Figs. 1–3 and survey Instrument.

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fesenfeld, L.P., Wicki, M., Sun, Y. et al. Policy packaging can make food system transformation feasible. Nat Food 1, 173–182 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-0047-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-0047-4

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene