sufo:trop

Sustainable Food Consumption in Austria: Trends and Options

The overall objectives of the project are to contribute to a transition to more sustainable food consumption in Austria through an improved understanding of food consumption patterns and trends and their direct environmental impacts and to develop policy recommendations for a more sustainable consumption.

The project sufo:trop (Sustainable food consumption in Austria: trends and options) focuses on food consumption patterns in Austria, and by relating them to economic data from households, it makes policy recommendations related to sustainable food consumption. Current trends suggest that the fraction of food consumption in total household expenditures is declining (in Austria 20% in 1970 and 12% in 2002). The daily calorie intake is, however, increasing, as does the proportion of meat and sweets, two highly energy intensive food categories. Hence, food consumption has evidently become less sustainable during this period. In the project, different groups of food will be considered: meat vs. vegetables; conventional vs. organic production; regional vs. more distant production; etc. The second focus is on the household specific consumption patterns, taking household income, family structure and household location into account. Simulations with respect to different consumption patterns will provide the basis for policy recommendations regarding sustainable food consumption.

sufo:trop is carried out by a team from the Sustainable Europe Research Institute and the Department of Economics at the University of Graz (in charge: Birgit Friedl). Its duration is from Aug. 2005 to June 2007.

Downloads:

- Download the first interim report

- Download the final first year report

- Download the second interim report

- Download the presentation and the paper by Ines Omann et al. at the ISEE conference in New Dehli in December 2006, titled “Socio-economic drivers of (non-)sustainable food consumption. An analysis for Austria.”

- Download the poster “Socio-economic drivers of non-)sustainable food consumption”presented by Alexandra Pack at the SCORE Conference, 23. – 25.11.2006, Wuppertal

- Download the SERI Backgroundpaper “Organic food in Austria: Production and Consumption Patterns”, by Elisabeth Hinteregger, 2006.

- Download the final report .

- Download the SERI FactSheet, presenting the summarised results

Partner

partnerDepartmentofEconomics(UniversityofGraz)