Consumer Demand for Sustainable Seafood

Consumer Demand for Sustainable Seafood: Lessons from Abroad and Gap Analysis for Thailand Final Report Submitted to Oxfam Great Britain

by Lead Researcher: Sarinee Achavanuntakul Researcher: Koranis Tanangsanakul

version for public dissemination: February 2018

Š Oxfam Great Britain. All rights reserved. The use of this report by any other parties beyond citation or quotation is prohibited without express permission by Oxfam in Thailand: https://www.oxfam.or.th/en/contact-us

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary 1. Introduction

2.

5 9

1.1

Ethical consumption: history and definition

10

1.2

Sustainable food consumption and aspects of sustainability

20

1.3 1.4

Challenges in changing consumer behavior Motivation of consumers and behavior change

23 25

Case studies of ethical/sustainable consumption movements

3. Sustainable consumption – UK

29 46

3.1 Overview

46

3.2 UK government activities & policies

48

3.3 UK sustainable consumption trend

56

3.3 Sustainable food and seafood consumption

57

3.3.1 Institutional context

57

3.3.2 Consumer demand

60

3.3.3 Civil society

63

3.3.4 Business sector

65

4. Sustainable consumption – Singapore

68

4.1 Overview

68

4.2 Singapore government activities & policies

69

4.3 Singapore sustainable consumption trend

70

4.4 Sustainable food and seafood consumption

72

4.4.1 Institutional context

72

4.4.2 Consumer demand

73

4.4.3 Civil society

74

4.4.4 Business sector

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5. Sustainable consumption – Thailand 5.1

Overview

80 80

5.2 Thailand policy initiatives 5.3 Thailand sustainable consumption trend

83 88

5.4 Sustainable food and seafood consumption

89

5.4.1 Institutional context

89

5.4.2 Consumer demand 5.4.3 Civil society

90 92

5.4.4 Business sector

94

6. Gap analysis

95

Bibliography Appendix A

98 108

Appendix B

109

List of Tables Table 1 Primary issues in ethical consumption ................................................................................................................... 12 Table 2 Fair trade market development in the Global South: summary of case studies ......................................... 35 Table 3 List of eco-labelling and certification programs ................................................................................................... 42 Table 4 Sustainable consumption policy instruments ...................................................................................................... 50 Table 5 A selection of UK policy initiatives for sustainable consumption program ................................................... 52 Table 6 Policy instruments adopeed in UK sustainable consumption strategies (as of 2008)................................. 57 Table 7 UK ethical food and drink spending ....................................................................................................................... 60 Table 8 Well-known Eco-labels in Thailand ........................................................................................................................ 86

List of Figures Figure 1 SCP cycle ...................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Figure 2 Goal 12 in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).............................................................................................. 18 3|Sal Forest Co. Ltd.

Figure 3 Akenji’s Key elements for mainstreaming sustainable consumption ............................................................. 26 Figure 4 Ethical spending in the UK, 1999-2014 .................................................................................................................. 56 Figure 5 Percentage of boycotts by topic (February 2015) ............................................................................................... 62 Figure 6 Participating Businesses in the first Sustainable Seafood Festival, Singapore .............................................. 75 Figure 7 Sustainable Seafood Guide by WWF-Singapore................................................................................................... 75 Figure 8 Sustainable Seafood at Hilton Singapore.............................................................................................................. 77 Figure 9 Conceptual framework of sustainable consumption in Thai context ............................................................ 83 Figure 10 SCP Thailand component....................................................................................................................................... 85 Definitions of categories in Figure 11: Ethical spending in the UK, 1999-2014 ......................................................... 108

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Executive Summary Consumption patterns in developed countries have long been considered unsustainable, over-consuming natural resources, creating too much waste, and even renewables are consumed at an unsustainable rate.

While the developing countries are following the same path of overconsumption and, besides, greater inequality (Lorek & Vergragt, 2015). These unsustainable patterns have resulted in social and environmental problems. Making consumption more ethical or sustainable remains a great challenge. The command and control measures that dominate in other policy areas have been considered practically inadequate to deal with food-related problems.

From the consumer’s perspective, strategies that promote sustainable food consumption can be separated into two broad categories, i.e. supply side and demand side. Supply-side strategies involve increasing sustainable product choices, concerning the way the product is produced (e.g. organic, free range or Fair Trade products). Demand-side strategies involve highlighting sustainable dietary patterns concerning dietary composition and consumption curtailment (reduced quantity) within product categories (e.g., little or no meat consumption). Motivating sustainable consumption patterns is a complex task as shown in the previous chapters; factors that contribute to and obstruct purchase decisions in favor of sustainable products are varied and cover a wide range of issues.

Akenji (2014) proposes that consumer decisions are not rational, but are usually subjected to other factors beyond their control, for example the social and physical infrastructure. Moreover, consumers are considered far from being influential and hold limited influence over major players in the value chain. Thus, expecting the consumers to overcome these difficulties and perform as the primary driver of a complex sustainable consumption may risk becoming “consumer scapegoatism”, i.e. targeting the most visible stakeholder rather than the most influential ones.

Therefore, it is necessary to consider sustainable consumption beyond individual choices. Government policies should address the system in which consumption takes place, and target other elements that enable consumption, including the attitude-behavior gap, lock-in aspects, and the macro factors The research team reviewed the history, current situation, as well as roles of the government, civil society, and business sector in promoting sustainable food, with an emphasis on “sustainable seafood” in Thailand compared with UK and Singapore. Although all three countries are, like the rest of the world, not far apart in terms of rising consumer interest in sustainable food, as seen in the increasing prevalence of organic foods in retail supermarkets, Thailand still lags behind Singapore and UK respectively in terms of concrete government support, business sector participation, and activities of civil society in spurring more consumer adoption. Key differences between the three countries can be summarized as follows: 5|Sal Forest Co. Ltd.

Issue

UK

Singapore

Thailand

Level of consumer demand for sustainable food and key consumer characteristics

Considerable and rising: historical roots in demand for “slave-free” products, familiarity and support of boycotts paving way for more interest in supporting fair trade products and demanding supply chain responsibility, especially labor fairness issues.

Low but rising: food security and safety concerns, as well as consciousness of being a small island that depends on foreign imports, as well as increasing awareness of unsustainability of food systems (e.g. overfishing), drive consumer interest in sustainable food.

Low but slowly rising: confusion between “safe” and “sustainable” food still hampers demand for sustainable food; consumers still more concerned of price and own health than other factors; Buddhist beliefs not yet integrated into buying decisions of most consumers.

The nature of government’s role in promoting sustainable food

Active: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) plays leading role in promoting sustainable consumption. For example, ran “Green Claims Code” campaign that helps business communicate to the customer of their environmental friendly products; “Love Food Hate Waste” campaign which aimed to tackle food waste; released the natural environment white paper “The natural choice” demonstrating the relationship between food production and environmental goals; the UK government has provided £2.9 billion to tackle land use and production issues abroad that relate to food consumption in

Semi-active: driven by a more “free market” ethos compared to UK, the Singapore government concentrates on strengthening food safety standards and diversifying food sources to guarantee food security for the small island of Singapore.

Sustainable food is increasing seen as of paramount importance in achieving food security.

Increasing role but still sending conflicting signals: the Thai government announced conceptual framework for sustainable consumption and production (SCP), but to date there has been no significant concrete support.

The government seems to support SCP through the promotion of “eco-labels” and let the market sort itself out; as yet no discernible support of community-level activities; some government policies such as rice pledge scheme directly hampers supply of organic products, as farmers who were formerly interested in switching to organic turned back to conventional

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the UK.

agriculture.

Prevalence of clear, targeted policy instruments in promoting sustainable food

Clear: For example, UK government will work with the EU through the WTO to reduce unsustainable and environmentally damaging agriculture and fishing subsidies in the Doha Round Through a refocused Environmental Action Fund, the Government is supporting voluntary organizations with community level projects which influence behavior and will deliver sustainable consumption outcomes.

Clear: Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore actively supports sustainable food and seafood through the lens of food security.

Economist Intelligence Unit recently ranked Singapore as the second-most food secure country in the world, behind only the United States; the “Food Security Roadmap” contains concrete plans to diversify food sources and optimize local food production.

Unclear: The first “National Organic Agriculture Development Strategic Plan” picks and chooses which organic program to support, citing special emphasis on small farmer support as well as research and development; however, as at the end of 2015 the results are nontransparent and achievements unclear.

Civil society activities that engage directly with consumers

Active. Dozens of NGOs led by Oxfam are instrumental in raising consumer awareness; focus shifted from boycotts in the past, to developing sustainability-related standards and increasing sustainable food alternatives for the consumers.

Active. WWF and a number of local NGOs are gaining ground in working with corporates and consumers to grow sustainable seafood market; first “Sustainable Seafood Festival” held successfully in 2014 which drew participation of over 30 businesses.

Semi-active. Leading NGOs such as BioThai and Foundation for Consumers are active in informing consumers of problems in existing food industry. Different NGOs support sustainable food producers and try to grow domestic market.

Given that the ultimate goal of sustainable consumption, i.e. changing consumption patterns in ways that respect planetary bounds, can only be achieved by changing consumer behavior to a significant extent, it is necessary for all actors in Thailand to overcome barriers to behavior change as identified by Tunçer (2013), especially the lack of awareness, cost sensitivity, poor accessibility and marketing, and the lack of capacity among public procurers.

To that end, the Thai government would do well to articulate a concrete “action plan” from SCP framework that goes beyond supporting various eco-labels, such as giving direct support to community-level initiatives and small producers of sustainable food, as well as integrating all food-related policy so as to stop giving 7|Sal Forest Co. Ltd.

mixed and confusing signals to the market. Meanwhile, civil society actors should increase the focus on the following three fronts simultaneously (which do not have to be done by one single organization): 1) increasing consumer awareness of the unsustainability of current food industry, 2) increasing competitiveness of sustainable food choices, and 3) improving sustainable food standards in ways that can strike a balance between consumer confidence and the practicability of having as many small food producers join as possible.

As for the business sector, hotel and retail operators as seafood procurers and sellers in all three countries reviewed more or less adopted the same stance of “following” consumer demand, with a few exceptions such as Hilton Singapore which prides itself for being at the forefront of “leading” consumers on the sustainable seafood journey.

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1. Introduction Consumption patterns in developed countries have long been considered unsustainable, over-consuming natural resources, creating too much waste, and even renewables are consumed at an unsustainable rate.

While the developing countries are following the same path of overconsumption and, besides, greater inequality (Lorek & Vergragt, 2015). These unsustainable patterns have resulted in social and environmental problems. Making consumption more ethical or sustainable remains a great challenge. The command and control measures that dominate in other policy areas have been considered practically inadequate to deal with consumer behavior. This calls for the development of new types of policy approaches that are capable of changing consumption patterns without intruding too much on consumer sovereignty (Scholl et al., 2010).

Consequently, debates have been increasing worldwide about the ethical, sustainable and green consumption in last decades, as well as so much effort spent on research and discussion which aim to transform the current consumption patterns. This report presents a summary of literature review of ethical consumption in global context.

In this report, the first chapter presents a short overview of ‘ethical consumption’ and related term ‘sustainable consumption’ development and its definition. Chapter 2 demonstrates the concept of sustainable food consumption and aspects of sustainability in consumption. Chapter 3 presents challenges in changing consumer behavior, followed by means to motivate behavior change and promote sustainable consumption patterns in chapter 4. Chapter 5 presents case studies of ethical/sustainable consumption in UK and Singapore, with special emphasis on sustainable seafood consumption. Lastly, Chapter 6 provides a summary of gap analysis, comparing Thailand with UK and Singapore.

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1.1 Ethical consumption: history and definition The history of ethical consumption can be traced back to early consumer movement of ‘boycotts,’ which began in the 18th century, especially the nationwide boycott of slave-grown sugar in Britain which gathered support from over 400,000 people (Low & Davenport, 2007). In 20th century Britain, there were notable evidence of boycotts including the boycott of Barclays’ Bank in the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of nationwide anti-apartheid movement (Low & Davenport, 2007).

The development of consumer movement in contemporary era started in 1960, the year in which the first international conference of consumer protection organizations was held (Akenji, 2014). That meeting led to the establishment of the International Organization of Consumer Unions (later changed to Consumers International). This is followed by the 1962 declaration of consumer’s four basic rights – the rights to safety, information, choice, and legal representation, which were later adopted as the set of fundamental operating principles for consumer organizations worldwide.

As environmental and social concerns expanded, many consumer organizations added the rights to satisfaction of basic needs, redress, consumer education and a healthy environment to their remit (Akenji, 2014). It is not until 1985 that the United Nations adopted these rights as “Guidelines for Consumer Protection,” an international framework which provides the underlying support for activities of consumer organizations (Akenji, 2014; UNEP, 2015). According to Low and Davenport (2007), the ethical consumption movement so far has been associated with the rights of consumers to affordable and safe basic neccessities, or the rights of workers to safe, non-involuntary employment and a living wage. The public discourse of ‘ethical consumption’ in recent years has expanded to cover other issues such as animal rights, poverty, and child labor (Akenji, 2014). This created a broader conciousness regarding ethical consumption.

Despite numerous studies on ethical consumption across various disciplines in the past 30 years, the term ‘ethical consumption’ has never been clearly defined, and what counts as ethical consumption is widely discussed and debated (Barnett, Cloke, Clarke, & Malpass, 2005; Subrahmanyan, Stinerock, & banbury, 2015).

Most research define ‘ethical consumption’ as the behavior of purchasing and using products/resources out of concerns that not only include personal pleasures, but also encompass moral imperatives (Cooper-Martin & Holbrook, 1993; Starr, 2009) – including animal welfare, labor standards and human rights, health and wellbeing, and environmental sustainability (see Barnett, Cloke, Clarke, & Malpass, 2005; Shaw et al., 2005; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006; Newholm & Shaw, 2007; Akenji, 2014; Ariztía et al., 2014; Subrahmanyan, Stinerock, & banbury, 2015). According to Shaw et al. (2005), the definition which is most widely used when referring to ‘ethical consumers’ is ‘those consumers who consider environmental issues, animal issues and ethical issues, including oppressive regimes and armaments, when shopping’ (Shaw et al. 2005, p.185).

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Starr (2009) summarized several primary areas of concern regarding ethical consumption. Such issues include buying fair-trade products, buying sustainably produced foods, boycotting companies that use sweatshop labor, and favoring products with low carbon emission. Practices which are considered ‘unethical’ or ‘wrong’ are those that impose harm on people, animals or nature, and also increase the risks of harmful circumstances – of which harm may relate to health, survival, basic requisites, and other elements of a satisfying and dignified life (Starr, 2009). Table 1 summarizes primary isuses in ethical consumption.

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Table 1 Primary issues in ethical consumption Issue Environmental sustainability

Specific concerns Global warming, depletion of natural resource stocks, declining air quality, deteriorating access to safe water, accumulation of solid waste, declining agricultural productivity

Biodiversity, nature, endangered species

Over-harvested fish, deforestation especially rainforests, pollution

Genetically modified (GM) crops and animals

Ethical objections Jeopardizes well-being of future generations of people and animals, undermines the beauty and integrity of the earth's scarce and irreplaceable natural resources

Destabilizes ecosystems, ignores intrinsic worth of animals and nature, grossly prioritizes short-term human material wants, irrevocably alters nature's course Disease-resistant crops that Imposes as-yet unknown risks to jeopardize local ecosystems, human health and the environment, animals bioengineered to raise oversteps bounds of human profits of meat production, intervention in nature (‘playing God’) low safety standards

Ethical consumption practices Buy organic and local produce; avoid meat; buy less; buy used goods; replace products less frequently; recycle diligently; avoid excess packaging; conserve energy; seek renewable/alternative energy; favor energyefficient appliances; monitor carbon footprint; avoid driving and flying; take public transportation, walk, or bike; pay carbon offset tax; build ‘green’; eco-tourism, etc. Boycott companies with irresponsible environmental records Boycotts companies with problematic practices, no consumption of species-at-risk, political action

Eat organic food, stop eating meat, boycott companies that sell GM food or seeds, campaign for restrictions on sales and/or honest labelling

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Issue Free trade in tropical commodities

Specific concerns Implies low, insecure living standards for third-world farmers Sweatshops, child labor, slave labor

Ethical objections Exploits poor producers’ inability to reject low prices, unjust division of fruits of exchange Exploits the economic desperation of the poor, treats them without dignity

Ethical consumption practices Buy certified fair-trade products, which pay decent, secure prices to poor farmers and artisans Boycotts, preferential purchasing from sweat-free companies

Inhumane husbandry, inhumane slaughter, animal testing Local economy Destruction of local businesses by inflow of massproduced goods and services Repressive regimes Burma, Sudan, formerly South Africa; Israel Consumerist lifestyles Unthinking adoption of highconsumption, long work-hour lifestyles

Inflicts pain and suffering on sentient creatures, imposes low quality of life

Vegetarian or vegan diet, preferential purchasing of personal-care products not tested on animals, protests against fur Use local currencies, favor local businesses over mega-corporation chains

Abusive labor practices Animal welfare

Destroys enriching social relationships and meaningful livelihoods Gross violations of human rights Runs counter to fundamental or traditional values such as family and community; accepts dominance of values propagated by corporations through advertising, leaves human potential unrealized

Boycott companies that operate in such places or do business with their governments Annual buy-nothing day, voluntary simplicity movement, take-back-your-time movement, modest holiday gift-giving, charitable donations in lieu of gifts, downshift, change jobs, start a social enterprise

Source: Starr (2009)

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Harrison et al. (2005) documented many external factors that influence the rise of ethical consumption movement. Such factors include: social and environmental effects of technological advance, the rise of campaigning pressure groups, increasing product choices and a shift in market power toward consumers, globalization of the markets and weakening of national governments; the rise of transnational corporations and brands, effectiveness of market campaigns, and the growth of a wider ‘corporate responsibility’ movement.

According to Subrahmanyan et al., (2015), ethical concerns account for growing consumer concerns about production practices and the damage imposed on the environment. The increasing popularity of organic food also stems from concerns regarding mainstream farming practices. Overall, ‘ethical consumption’ is a broad concept that carries wide-ranging definitions and connotations. It often relates to other terms that describe concerned consumer behavior, namely ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘green consumption.’ These concepts are overlapping phenomena. While there are more terms that have been used to describe consumer behavior (Connolly & Shaw, 2006), these two terms are commonly discussed interchangeably with ‘ethical consumption’. The explanation of these terminologies will be discussed in the next section.

Green consumption Connolly and Shaw (2006) reports that ‘green consumption’ emerged in the late 1980s and the early 1990s when a large number of consumers became aware and concerned of the intensifying global environmental crisis. The notion of green consumer had been increasingly accepted in society, becoming part of the phenomenon of the so-called ‘Green’90s’, the era of the wide publicity for green consumers and green products. Consumers can more easily access ‘green consumer guides’ which facilitate their decision-making on various topic ranging from clean beaches to food additives (Connolly, McDonagh, Polonsky, & Prothero, 2004; Connolly and Shaw, 2006). This has been followed by a number of research which attempt to identify and understand the green consumer (Peattie, 2001), focusing on green consumption values, attitudes and behavior, as well as ways to influence a person’s lifestyle (Connolly et al., 2004).

Green consumption, which is sometimes called ‘environmental consumption,’ has no universally accepted definition (Connolly & Shaw, 2006). However, its core concept is commonly recognized as “consumer behavior that considers and takes into account the importance of the environment when making a purchase.”

According to Carrigan et al., (2004), green consumption not only is viewd as a process of avoiding environmentally harmful products, such as those causing pollution, or cruelty to animals, but also represent positive product choices and behavior, such as recycling practice, or the purchase of environmentally friendly products. Akenji (2014) finds that etical consumers take into account environmental or ethical considerations 14 | S a l F o r e s t C o . L t d .

when choosing products and services. The awareness of environmental ethics has led to environmental consumerism, the term which is also referred to as ‘environmentally responsible consumption’ and ‘green consumption’.

The distinction between green consumption and ethical consumption is ambiguous. For example, on one hand Elkington and Hailes (1989) described green consumer as ‘one who avoids products which are likely to endanger the health of the consumer or other, cause significant damage to the environment during manufacturing, use or disposal, consume a disproportionate amount of energy, cause unnecessary waste, use materials derived from threatened species or environments, involve unnecessary use of or cruelty to animals and adversely affect other countries’ (Connolly & Shaw, 2006, p.356). Likewise, Shaw and Newholm (2002) noted the inextricable link between consumption and ethical problem, and that environmental deterioration lies inside the gambit of ‘ethical problems,’ and this led to the emergence of a group of consumers commonly referred to as ethical consumers. On the other hand, many studies distinguish between ‘ethical consumers’ and ‘green consumers’, arguing that ethical consumers hold concerns toward specific ethical issues, such as crisis in the Third World, in addition to environmental problems. Thus definitions developed around the theme of ethical and green consumption demonstrate the diversity of concerns and display the interconnectivity, and the ambiguity in the distinction, of such issues (Connolly & Shaw, 2006).

Sustainable consumption A recent history sustainable consumption on an international stage can be seen from the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. It was the same year that ‘The Limits to Growth,’ seminal publication by the Club of Rome, was released with a call to alter growth trends in order to avoid overshoot and collapse (Akenji, 2014; UNEP, 2015). Later in 1987, the Brundtland Report officially emphasized sustainability and made ‘sustainable development’ the overarching principle of transnational environmental policy (Chappells & Trentmann, 2015).

It was at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Rio Conference, that for the first time an international forum emphasized critical aspects of consumption on sustainable development (Jaeger-Erben er al., 2015; UNEP, 2015), and the world leaders acknowledged that “the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production” (UNEP, 2015). Since then, tremendous attempts have been made to influence awareness, knowledge and attitudes of consumers. Meanwhile, many initiatives and goals were set to change the governance system and consumer practices in order to achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability (Fuchs & Lorek, 2005; Chappells & Trentmann, 2015). However, these efforts overall have not transformed the current trends of resource-intensive consumption patterns (Fuchs & Lorek, 2005).

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The global, national and local sustainability action plan, or “Agenda 21”, which resulted from the Rio Conference, dedicated Chapter 4 to ‘changing consumer patterns’. It proposed two broad objectives for government action plan: a) To promote patterns of consumption and production that reduce environmental stress and will meet the basic needs of humanity; b) To develop a better understanding of the role of consumption and how to bring about more sustainable consumption patterns.

This underlined the need to manage excessive demands and unsustainable lifestyle among richer regions, and the need to redistribute excessive resources used in developed world to meet basic needs in poorer countries (Akenji, 2014) (Chappells & Trentmann, 2015). It can be considered that an aspect of global equality had been added to older concerns with regional sustainability (Chappells & Trentmann, 2015).

Sustainable consumption is later defined at the Oslo Roundtable (1994) as ‘the use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations’ (Lorek & Vergragt, 2015). Kerr and Foster (2011) referred to sustainable consumption as ‘consuming in a way that meets our present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs in terms of adequate food supply and the availability of natural resources, while safeguarding the natural environment’.

Later in 1999, the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection were expanded with section “Promotion of sustainable consumption”. This reflects a growing concern over unsustainable patterns of consumption and production (UNEP, 2015). Agenda 21 was considered a fundamental pillar for sustainable consumption and production (SCP) policy, which was reaffirmed at the World Summit of Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002 (Scholl et al., 2010) (see Figure 1). The main objective of SCP approach is to “decouple” economic growth from environmental degradation, while proposing that more products and services could be delivered with less impact in terms of resource use, waste and pollution, and environmental problems (Chappells & Trentmann, 2015).

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Figure 1 SCP cycle

Source: UNEP

To translate SCP objectives into action, all participating countries committed to develop a 10-year framework of programs on SCP (10YFP on SCP). International activities stated in 2003 through “Marrakech process�, which is a platform on which global efforts towards SCP were coordinated in order to develop a standardized framework for national and regional SCP programs (Scholl et al., 2010; UNEP, 2015). At the global level, the process was led by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), with participation by national governments, development agencies, businesses, and civil society stakeholders (UNEP, 2015).

The SCP approach proposes that demand be managed through improved end-user and supply chain efficiency, reducing waste, and restricting the use of finite resources in the consumption and production processes. Both market and voluntary instruments should be adopted, including eco-labelling, green tariffs, smart metering and environmental taxes, to influence consumption patterns. These instruments provide both producers and consumers appropriate signals about unsustainable environmental impacts that are caused by their behavior across the entire supply chain (Chappells & Trentmann, 2015).

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Figure 2 Goal 12 in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

Source: UN.

‘Weak’ sustainable consumption vs. ‘strong’ sustainable consumption Lorek & Fuchs (2011) observed that much of the literature on sustainable consumption was dominated by a ‘weak sustainable consumption’ approach, described as an approach based on improving the efficiency of consumption mainly through technological development. The limitations of this approach lies in its inability to address the issues of social or environmental justice, and its inability to deal with the ‘rebound effect’ – that when people consume more, the absolute amount of total consumption may outstrip all efficiency gains. In contrast, a ‘strong’ sustainable consumption approach defines sustainable consumption in congruence with the 1994 Oslo Symposium that incorporates the aspects of equality and sufficiency.

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Green consumption vs. sustainable consumption Akenji (2014) addressed the differences between ‘green consumerism’ and ‘sustainable consumption’ by considering the development each concept, its perspective on the consumer, and the approaches towards sustainability.

Green consumerism refers to the consumption of goods and services that takes into account environmental impacts when purchasing. Examples of green consumerism products include the Toyota Prius, a petrol-electric hybrid car, fair trade coffee, energy efficient appliance. Some of the most visible approaches of promoting green consumerism include eco-labelling scheme, public awareness campaigns, eco-efficient production standard and certification.

Despite their pro-environment claims, the promotion of green consumption can lead to a paradoxical consequence of ‘rebound effect’. In this sense ‘green consumerism’ can be considered a ‘weak’ sustainable consumption approach. On the other hand, ‘sustainable consumption’ if it corresponds to a ‘strong’ sustainable consumption approach, would require people to consume less to reduce natural resources used and to decrease waste from production and consumption (Akenji, 2014).

According to Akenji (2014), green consumption is seen as supporting modification of the production processes rather than changing the entire system of production and consumption. Accumulated evidence points to the growing popularity of energy-efficient household machines, fair trade chocolate, dolphin-free canned tuna, and organic cotton fashion. However, data also shows a worldwide decline in fisheries and fertile farmlands, continued depletion of natural resource stocks, growing inequality, and other problems that relate to unsustainable lifestyles. Thus, green consumerism alone is unlikely to bring the humanity to the ultimate objective of sustainability.

Overall, an ‘ethical consumer’ not only considers the price and quality of products and services, but also incorporates the consequences of consumption practices into his or her buying decisions. Researchers and practitioners alternately describe these consumers as ‘green,’ ‘sustainable,’ ‘responsible,’ ‘socially conscious,’ ‘conscientious,’ ‘critical,’ ‘active,’ ‘political,’ or ‘moral’. The term ‘ethical consumption’ is ambiguous; over decades it has come to denote a broad field of consumer concerns (Andorfer, 2015). Widely mentioned concepts such as sustainable consumption and green consumption, socially responsible consumption, and conscious consumption refer to more or less the same phenomenon (Pecoraro & Uusitalo, 2013).

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1.2 Sustainable food consumption and aspects of sustainability Section 1.1 summarizes the development of sustainable consumption concept at an international level.

Agenda 21 addresses the need to promote sustainable consumption patterns that reduce pressure on environment and natural resources. Alongside housing and transport, food is one of the core consumption areas which generate significant environmental impacts (Vittersø & Tangeland, 2015; UNEP, 2015). According to Reisch et al. (2013), the main environmental impacts from food production and consumption are greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Despite the essential need to change, the world has not yet witnessed a meaningful shift toward sustainability. Vittersø and Tangeland (2015) point out that the reluctance of policymakers heretofore partly stems from the lack of commonly agreed definition of ‘sustainable food consumption.’

According to Reisch et al. (2013), there is no consensus on the definition of sustainable food consumption.

However, the most encompassing definition was proposed by the UK Sustainable Development Commission, which defines “sustainable food and drink” as “that which is safe, healthy, and nutritious for consumers in shops, restaurants, schools, hospitals, and so forth; can meet the needs of the less well off at a global scale; provides a viable livelihood for farmers, processors, and retailers whose employees enjoy a safe and hygienic working environment; respects biophysical and environmental limits in its production and processing while reducing energy consumption and improving the wider environment; respects the highest standards of animal health and welfare compatible with the production of affordable food for all sectors of society; and supports rural economies and the diversity of rural culture, particular by emphasizing local products that minimize food miles”. (Reisch, Eberle & Lorek, 2013 p.8) At present, all sustainability aspects relating to food are widely accepted; however, development policy does not yet cover all actors in the food sectors. The complexity of the global food system and the complex relationship of stakeholders along the food chain are lightly governed. The lack of effort to directly tackle the issues has led to the prevailing unsustainable food consumption patterns (Reisch, Eberle & Lorek, 2013).

At an individual level, food habits and preference are shaped by many factors including culture, norms, fashion, and physiological needs. Personal experience, availability and accessibility also affect food preference. Such preference in combination with other constraints (e.g. finance, time, work patterns, household condition) influence food consumption. Therefore, food consumption style and practices may vary greatly across individuals, countries, and regions (Reisch, Eberle, & Lorek, 2013).

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Aspects of sustainability in food consumption According to Vermeir and Verbeke (2006), ‘sustainable food’ must by definition fulfill all three core aspects of sustainability, namely the economic aspect, the ecological aspect, and the social aspect. The economic aspect is associated with price: a fair price for the agricultural producers and an affordable price to the consumers. The ecological aspect refers to the concern of the natural environment and the desire to preserve the living environment through proper management of natural resources. The social aspect component involves a need for society and government to recognize that sustainable agro-food sector is the key to human wellbeing and cherishment of rural culture.

Implementing key concepts of sustainable food consumption covers a wide range of topics, including the environment, animal welfare and fair trade. In the last few decades, there have been an increasing number of studies on sustainable food consumption; most studies on environmentally friendly food choices were conducted with a focus on organic food products, studies on animal welfare are particularly related to the living conditions and health of the animals, while studies on fair trade focus on fair prices and working conditions of smallholder farmers (Verain, et al., 2012).

Unsustainable food consumption has been associated with excessive food miles, food scares (i.e. food safety concerns), food insecurity, an increasing popularity of fast food culture, and increasing food waste – all of which have contributed to environmental problems. In order to achieve the goal of sustainable food consumption, the problem of over- and under-consumption need to be addressed together with food safety and food security. In this regard, aspects of sustainability in food consumption more or less cover the following issues (Reisch, Eberle, & Lorek, 2013).

1. Environmental aspects Food consumption is one of a few necessary private consumption areas, and an area that currently contribute greatly to environmental problems. Unsustainable food and drink consumption relates to the problem of energy use, land use, water and soil pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental effects from food involve many actors across the food chain, from the production stage (e.g. agriculture, livestock, fishery), to the processing stage in the food industry (including manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and service providers), and finally to the end-consumers.

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2. Health aspects One of the main concerns regarding health aspects is over- and under-nutrition. Under-nutrition and malnutrition exist in a considerable degree across the world; vulnerable groups are the poor, the elderly, and the sick. Meanwhile, consumers now face an increase in food-related health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. This is because of modern diet, lack of exercise, and overeating. Another concern regarding health aspects is food safety. Contaminants, pathogenic organism, and toxic substances can cause serious illness.

3. Ethical aspects Ethically responsible food production and consumption lies at the core of sustainable food consumption. The main areas of ethical aspects of sustainable food include 1) the availability of supply of food and access to clean drinking water should be just and fair; 2) food should not harm the health of consumers due to pathogens or pollution; 3) ethical concerns need to be emphasized in nutrition research and technology; and 4) production practices in food chain affecting animal welfare, the environment, and unfair working conditions should be ethically traceable. Among these, the essential issues are fair trade, working condition, and animal welfare.

4. Economic aspects The economic aspects of sustainable food focus on price difference between normal products and sustainable products, for example organic food products vis-à-vis non-organic products. Food from organic production is usually more expensive than its conventional equivalents. It is crucial to minimize this gap in order to promote sustainable food consumption.

Aspects of sustainability in association with food emerge in every consumer’s everyday life in many ways.

Sustainability covers a wide range or topic and has come to represent various concerns such as animal welfare, social rights, and fair trade (Kjærnes, 2010; Reisch, Eberle, & Lorek, 2013). Another important element of food products is that, in the perspective of consumers, they affect not only the environment, but also the body (Kjærnes, 2010); this intimacy therefore prompts more concerns over the production process.

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1.3 Challenges in changing consumer behavior Past research shows that initiatives to promote sustainability such as sustainable organic food, products free from child labor, legally logged wood, and fair-trade products, have not gained much support from the consumers, despite the claimed increase in consumer awareness of sustainability concerns (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). This has led to a number of studies that attempt to understand consumer behavior and to explain the common incidence of purchasing unsustainable products over a more sustainable one, which reflects the difficulty of altering consumer behavior.

Studies of demographical factors came to a similar finding that, in general, an ‘ethical consumer’ is a middleaged person with higher income, above-average education level, well-informed, and have a prestigious occupation (Roberts, 1996; Carrigan and Attalla, 2001; Maignan and Ferrel, 2001 in Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006).

Gender has not proven to play an influential role in ethical purchases (Tsalikis and Ortis-Buonafina, 1990; Sikula and Costa, 1994; MORI, 2000 in Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). Demographics are not significant variables in defining the consumer’s responsible behavior, since ethical concern and awareness have become prevalent (Roberts, 1995; and Diamantopoulos et al., 2003 in Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). Psychological factors such as attitudes, beliefs, and subjective norms, and personality characteristics are better factors for the identification of ‘ethical consumer’ (Robert, 1996; Robinson and Smith, 2002 in Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006).

What might be another explanation of consumer behavior is the so-called attitude-behavior gap, which posits that attitudes are often a poor predictor of behavior intention, and attitudes alone cannot change consumer behavior. More influential factors are price, quality, convenience, and brand familiarity, while ethical concerns are only influential for a small group of consumers (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006).

Past research shows that the meanings and practices of ethical consumption are contextual and temporal, i.e. time and place are crucial and influential for consumer behavior. For example, routine shopping at groceries may not be considered a situation that warrants constant ethical considerations (Pecoraro & Uusitalo, 2013).

Tunçer (2013) identifies a series of barriers to behavior change, from analyzing results of a survey conducted under the SWITH-Asia project1. Such barriers to behavior change include 1) Lack of awareness. This can originate from a lack of knowledge and information about the sustainable products from the beginning; 2) Cost sensitivity. Price is another big barrier in the creation of markets for environment friendly products. Findings from the survey display the reluctance to pay a premium for eco-friendly products, despite an increasing awareness;

1

The program funded by the European Union in order to promote SCP in Asia.

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3) Lack of tools for transparency. This is in relation to the weak communication of product information to consumers. There is currently a lack of tools to create transparency of products details such as sustainability aspects; 4) Poor accessibility. This refers to the lack of availability of products in the markets, and lack of consumer accessibility to buy the products; 5) Poor marketing and branding. This is considered a barrier to market expansion; 6) Traditional image. Consumers’ conventional perceptions or stereotypes can hamper behavior change. For example, the Eco-Friendly Jute project did not receive positive response from the market due to consumer perception of the product as “low price and low quality”; 7) Interplay of factors that obstruct behavior change. There is often an interplay of factor, for example, on the demand side, households lack knowledge on basic consumer rights, while on the supply side, many companies lack the skills and capacity to implement innovative design approaches; and 8) Lack of capacity among public procurers. For example, public officials often lack technical support information and know-how regarding eco-friendly products; they also lack awareness and knowledge of the meaning of ‘green procurement’, ‘green product standards’ and ‘life-cycle assessment’. This lack of capacity impedes the role of government as effective change agent.

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1.4 Motivation of consumers and behavior change From the consumer’s perspective, strategies that promote sustainable food consumption can be separated into two broad categories, i.e. supply side and demand side. Supply-side strategies involve increasing sustainable product choices, concerning the way the product is produced (e.g. organic, free range or Fair Trade products). Demand-side strategies involve highlighting sustainable dietary patterns concerning dietary composition and consumption curtailment (reduced quantity) within product categories (e.g., little or no meat consumption) (Verain, Dagevos, & Antonides, Sustainable food consumption. Product choice or curtailment?, 2015). Motivating sustainable consumption patterns is a complex task as shown in the previous chapters; factors that contribute to and obstruct purchase decisions in favor of sustainable products are varied and cover a wide range of issues.

Akenji (2014) proposes that consumer decisions are not rational, but are usually subjected to other factors beyond their control, for example the social and physical infrastructure. Moreover, consumers are considered far from being influential and hold limited influence over major players in the value chain. Thus, expecting the consumers to overcome these difficulties and perform as the primary driver of a complex sustainable consumption may risk becoming “consumer scapegoatism�, i.e. targeting the most visible stakeholder rather than the most influential ones.

Therefore, it is necessary to consider sustainable consumption beyond individual choices. Government policies should address the system in which consumption takes place, and target other elements that enable consumption, including the attitude-behavior gap, lock-in aspects, and the macro factors (Akenji, 2014; UNEP, 2015). The Attitude/Facilitators/Infrastructure (AFI) framework was proposed by Akenji (2014) as the three precondition to facilitate behavior change and to achieve sustainable consumption. Three components are the right attitude from stakeholders; facilitators to enable actions reflect attitudes; and appropriate infrastructure.

They are essential and should operate in harmony with each other to make sustainable lifestyle a comfortable option (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3 Akenji’s Key elements for mainstreaming sustainable consumption

Source: Akenji (2014)

a) Right stakeholder attitude The right attitude refers to “having a (positive) predisposition to being a sustainable consumer and accepting potential solutions that would lead to a sustainable civilization� (Akenji, 201). Interdisciplinary research shows that attitudes are shaped by belief systems, personal values, social norms, knowledge, etc. There are many ways to create positive attitudes, including a formal school curriculum, public events, awareness-raising campaigns, and training programs. The consumer is not the only stakeholder in this case, but rather the stakeholders are all actors who influence consumption and production system (UNEP, 2015). A right attitude for sustainable consumption requires all stakeholders to understand the need for people to consume less (for over-consumers), or differently (for under-consumers) (Akenji, 2014).

b) Effective facilitators Facilitators enable a proper environment for a transition to sustainability by providing proper incentives to encourage a desirable behavior, and at the same time placing constraints to discourage unwanted behavior.

Facilitators can have many forms including legal, administrative, cultural and commercial.

Legal refers to laws and standards that provide a platform to change a certain behavior. For example, a law which prohibits the sale of bottled water in a town where the quality of tap water is safe for public consumption effectively discourages the commoditization of water and the use of scarce resources for bottling.

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Administrative process can encourage or discourage a certain action. For example, an office (administrative facilitator) set up to ensure that local farm products are stocked in grocery stores helps promote local production and closer community ties between farmers and buyers.

Culture defines day-to-day behavior by giving guidance on what is acceptable and what not in a society. For example, a culture that upholds financial wealth as success encourages competition and materialism which tends to lead to over-consumption.

Commercial facilitator refers to the market which facilitates transactions. Commercial facilitators create an environment where sustainability options can develop. For example, subsidies for production of more sustainable products, a banking service (commercial facilitator) that provides low-interest financing for development of passive (energy efficient) houses, and rejecting advertising that misleads children into consumerism.

c) Appropriate infrastructure Infrastructure refers to the hardware for sustainable lifestyles. It should remove lock-ins (a situation in which consumers have no sustainable choice), by making sustainable options both available and viable to the consumers. For example, if are no sustainable products, then consumer would not have any other option but to consume unsustainably regardless of behavior intention (UNEP, 2015). For example, providing a dense network of safe bicycle tracks and parking space in the city, and prioritizing bus lanes over private car use would make more sustainable mobility an easier option for commuters (Akenji, 2014).

When all three AFI (Attitude/Facilitators/Infrastructure) components are in place, sustainable lifestyle becomes the most comfortable choice for the consumer. Wherever effective facilitators and appropriate infrastructure are both present, individual consumer’s attitude becomes less relevant since sustainable behavior becomes an easier option for them. In contrast, where the facilitator is weak and existing infrastructure is unsustainable, attitude becomes a more important element in moving the system (Akenji, 2014).

In an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of policy to promote sustainable consumption, Scholl et al.

(2010) categorize policy instruments according to their intended contribution to changing consumer behavior and come up with the three-dimension framework of stimulating behavior change. • Raising consumer awareness - providing consumers with the necessary information to increase their knowledge and interest in making more sustainable consumption decisions; 27 | S a l F o r e s t C o . L t d .

• Making sustainable consumption easy - creating an environment in which the consumption activity becomes more sustainable without a considerable effort by, or considerable cost, to consumers, and where sustainability is thereby ‘mainstreamed’ into consumers’ lifestyles; and • Greening markets - influencing the availability of sustainable-yet-affordable products and services in the market.

Figure 4 Scholl et al.’s different dimensions of policy interventions to stimulate a change in consumer behavior

Source: Scholl et al. (2010)

Since consumer groups may vary considerably. These dimensions would be useful in tailoring policy measures to specific consumer groups. Instruments in raising awareness dimension may have little impacts on already sustainable consumers. Measures that make sustainable consumption easy may be suitable for consumer groups that are bound to routines activities or unconscious consumer groups (Scholl et al., 2010).

Results from Scholl et al. (2010) are consistent with Akenji (2014) in many ways. Raising consumer awareness is undoubtedly an important factor in changing behavior. Consumers need to be made aware of the impact of their consumption, which covers the purchasing, usage, and disposal phases. This is similar to Akenji’s right stakeholder attitude. In many cases, consumers are left without the necessary infrastructure to facilitate the sustainable lifestyle or to enable them to act in a sustainable manner. The availability of sustainable products in the market is the prerequisite. This calls for appropriate infrastructure. To effectively steer the consumers toward sustainability, sustainable choices need to be made easy and affordable, while unsustainable choices need to be made more cumbersome and costly for the consumers. This would require effective facilitators to enable a proper environment.

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2. Case studies of ethical/sustainable consumption movements

Biharie (2012) documented that consumer movement in the U.S. initially began in 1929 when Consumers’ Research, a non-profit organization, started testing products for consumers. This has led to the establishment of the U.S. Consumer Union in 1936 which later inspired other consumer movements globally. At present, consumer movements hold various reasons for existence and work on a wide range of agendas, and the number of NGOs driving consumer-related issues has also risen considerably since the 1990s. This chapter highlights several interesting cases of ethical/sustainable consumption, with a particular focus on developing countries and sustainable seafood.

Marine Stewardship Council “Sustainable seafood” branded products are increasingly recognized in several countries. For example, in 2014, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), one of the world’s largest seafood eco-labels, announced results of a research which is believed to be the world’s largest international survey of sustainable seafood consumption. It questioned more than 9,000 regular seafood buyers from 15 countries across Europe, Asia, Australasia and North America. Almost all (90%) respondents thought that ocean sustainability is important, with 55% saying that falling fish stocks have become a more important issue than it was a year ago. Among respondents, 60% agreed that buying sustainably caught seafood would help to ensure fish stocks for future generations.

The same research uncovered that consumers’ concern for ocean health is being translated into shoppers’ purchasing decisions, with two in five (41%) actively looking for fish products from a sustainable source, an increase of five percent since 2010 (36%). Supermarkets and restaurants are seen to have a key role in ensuring the sustainability of seafood. Almost two thirds (65%) of those surveyed agreed that it is important for supermarkets to make sure that they are selling sustainably caught fish. Those in France (78%) and Australia (74%) were the most likely to place responsibility with supermarkets. Almost the same number (61%) agreed that restaurants should show sustainable seafood options on their menus.

Recent increases in the number of MSC eco-labelled products suggest that retailers are responding to these demands. Globally, the number of seafood products carrying the MSC eco-label increased fivefold to more than 25,000 between 2010 and 2014. Almost half (46%) of respondents agreed that they trust brands that use eco-labels more than those that don’t.

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After recommendations from friends or family (59%), independent eco-labels were seen as the most trustworthy form of information for ensuring environmental and social responsibility (57%), ahead of specialist magazines (53%) and government advice (51%). Interestingly, a brand’s own promise on product came bottom of the trust rankings, with just 39%.

Price remains the one of the primary factors determining seafood purchasing decisions (79%), with traceability of the product (66%) and its sustainability (61%) also ranking highly. However, respondents did express an increased willingness to pay a little more for a product with an eco-label (39% compared with 32% in 2010).

Recommendations from wallet advice cards (22%) and mobile apps (13%) scored lowest.

Overall, the survey indicates that the market for MSC sustainable seafood will continue to grow, with two thirds (65%) of respondents saying that they intend to buy more MSC eco-labelled seafood in the future, and that they would encourage friends and family to do the same. The retail market value of consumer facing MSC eco-labelled sustainable seafood reached US$4.8 billion in 2013-14, an increase of 147 per cent since 2010.

Fair Trade Fair trade is the most visible example of an ‘ethical consumption’ movement. According to (Low & Davenport, 2007), fair trade is a global social movement that emerged in post-World War II relief efforts. It is historically related to the co-operative movement of producers and consumers, utopian industrialists, liberation theology and anti-capitalism. In contemporary history, fair trade developed around the relationship between Southern producers and Northern organizations that sold products from the Global South to consumers. In the early 21st century, the movement moved from the fringe into the mainstream in many countries in Europe, as seen by the fact that fair trade product range had grown from one brand of coffee in late 1980s to 130 food items in 2004, including fruits, juices, vegetables, snacks, wine, tea, sugar and nuts, with market value reaching £100 million in the UK alone (Low & Davenport, 2007).

Boulstridge and Carrigan (2000) observed that the customer’s traditional motivations of price, quality, brand and convenience override ethical concerns, regardless of their awareness of ethical issues in the production, use and disposal of products. Likewise, a market research conducted by Café direct shows that its customers are more concerned with taste than helping ‘Third World countries.’ In response, Café direct launched the slogan ‘fresh’ and renamed its instant coffee “5065,” signifying the high altitude where coffee beans were grown. Explaining why the company chose to market its coffee with quality as a core focus, the company spokesperson said that once the company successfully convinced consumers on the quality of coffee, then 30 | S a l F o r e s t C o . L t d .

they can focus on the fair trade aspect. But if the company presses ahead with fair-trade message front and center, there is lower likelihood of capturing consumer’s interest (Low & Davenport, 2007).

These aforementioned developments suggest that a crucial step is to restore the idea of selling the “message” alongside the “product,” an idea which had entered mainstream sales channels of the 1990s through the early 21st century. Oxfam GB played an important role in this reinvigoration by creating a new ethical and product space which offers an alternative to both the mainstream fair trade and the thoroughly commercial market.

After discontinuing fair-trade products in 2000, Oxfam GB re-entered the market 5 years later by establishing a new partnership venture with three coffee co-operatives in Hondurus, Ethiopia and Indonesia to launch “Progreso,” a coffee bar in London. The fair-trade message is made explicit at Progreso; consumers are made aware that all the coffee sold there is fair-trade certified. Another important aspect of Progreso is that, under the new business model, profits are distributed according to shareholding, of which Southern partner holds 25%, a community trust on behalf of the growers’ communities holds 25%, and Oxfam GB holds the remaining 50%. The profit made in the North is distributes directly to Southern producers (Low & Davenport, 2007).

While it cannot be asserted for certain that the fair trade movement is ‘driven’ by demand from endconsumers because corporate consumers also play a role, the switch to more fair-trade sourcing in many cases for large corporate buyers does reflect end-consumer desires, since corporations make decisions based on what they perceive to be end-consumers’ demands (Devinney, Auger, & Eckhardt, 2010).

According to Devinney, Auger, & Eckhardt (2010), the fair trade movement is relatively limited beyond the UK .

Moreover, much research on fair trade has focused on the relationship between ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’; accordingly, studies of market development have primarily been focused on consumers in the Global North. Still, the most recent study (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015) addresses the establishment of fair trade markets in Global South regions, namely in Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and Nepal. This study encapsulates the roles of institutions in applying the fair trade model from the Global North into ethical markets in their respective countries.

Kenya The development of Kenyan fair trade can be traced back to the early 1980s. The earliest sales took place through European embassies, particularly the Dutch embassy in Nairobi. Several fair trade shops were set up later in the 1980s. These shops together with other fair trade organizations established the Kenyan Federation of Alternative Trade (KEFAT), a regional group of World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), in 2003. The 31 | S a l F o r e s t C o . L t d .

expansion of WFTO African network in domestic and regional market was driven by the slowdown in demand for fair trade crafts from Europe due to 2008-2009 financial crisis. At the same time, crafts have become more appealing to the emerging African middle classes, and craft items have increasingly been framed as aspirational fashions accessories.

In 2011, Fairtrade Eastern Africa (FEA) was founded in Kenya as the marketing organization for fair-trade certified products in East Africa. The identification of target customers in Kenya derived from the Living Standard Measure (LSM). Kenyan population is divided into 17 LSMs and fair trade targets LSM levels 11-17, which consists of expatriate and local upper middle class, urban, supermarket shoppers with access to information. This segment accounts for approximately 6.25% of the population (Fairtrade Africa, 2010 in Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015).

The establishment of FEA allows certified products to be marketed to the wider market and launched by mainstream Kenyan retailers (Retailing Research Council, 2014 in Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015). It was an official entry of fair trade goods to regional supermarket networks, which later brought numerous manufacturers to join the partnership; for example, Dormans Safari Kenyan Coffee, Kericho Kenyan tea2 and Cadburys Dairy Milk3. Though none of these companies are 100% fair trade4, the fair trade label is an important indicator of quality and sustainability, providing credibility for market development (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015).

South Africa Fair trade in South Africa (SA) started in 2004 by the non-profit organization Fair Trade Tourism, which targets tourists from Europe. A 100% fair trade Bean There Coffee (BTC) was found in 2005. BTC’s main distribution channel is safari lodges, similar to Kenyan Dorman coffee. In 2008, Fairtrade Label South Africa (FTLSA) was established via funding from Solidaridad Dutch, an international NGO. There was a clear geographical jurisdiction, which supports the national development and black empowerment discourses that pervade certification for South African producer organizations (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015).

More recently, fair trade in SA has continued to mainstream, as seen from the fact that fair trade products become available at giant retailers. Subsequently, fair trade market grew further with the expansion of corporate retail networks throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Premier brands such as Mug and Bean coffee chain and Protea Hotel group have switched to fair trade coffee, SA Airways put fair trade wine on the menu, and 2

Both companies were also involved in exporting Fair Trade coffee and tea to Europe (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015) Cadburys Dairy Milk is an example of South-to-South trade, as the Fairtrade cocoa is grown in Ghana and chocolate manufactured at the Cadbury factory in South Africa, before being sold in Kenya (Fairtrade Foundation, 2013 in Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015) 4 For example, Dormans Safari coffee brand is only 5% of Dormans’ overall business in Kenya (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015) 3

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Woolworths started serving their own fair-trade-certified coffee in their network of 100 cafes across the country. The development of fair trade market resulted in an increase in certified fair trade sales from £1.026 m in 2010 to £16.36 m in 2013 (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015).

The FTLSA targets the LSM level 7-10, which consists of 12-15 million people (20% of the population), mainly those aged 18-45, highly educated and living in Capetown or Johannesburg. There have recently been new initiatives. For instance, ‘The Power of You’, a partnership between FTLSA, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and Fair Trade Tourism, aims to promote behavior change towards sustainability. The ‘Proudly South African’ campaign is a marketing initiative that certifies products made in SA (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015).

One participant in the FTLSA pointed out the difference between fair trade in SA and fair trade in Europe as follows: “Our marketing is different from Europe; we don’t do poor farmers here…as it does not work. Poor farmers are all around, its everyday business here. It does not touch hearts as it does in Europe”. The geographical association is beneficial to fair trade marketing as reflected from a BTC informant that “Bean There Coffee is a story of pioneering adventure to source coffee from the deepest, most beautiful parts of Africa. We get tired of people generalizing that Africa is full of famine, we simply love this continent, it’s wonderful, and has a natural beauty, wonderful people. Our coffee is the best coffee on the best continent!

Rather than ‘support us because it’s the right thing to do’ ” (Doherty, Smith, & Parker, 2015).

Brazil Unlike Kenya and SA, international fair trade organizations have not been influential in the development of fair trade market in Brazil. In 2011, Fairtrade Canada supported capacity building of a marketing organization called Associacao Brasiliera de Comercio Justo (AB-CJ – the Brazilian Fair Trade Association) in order to establish a fair trade label for retailers. However, the progress has been modest, partly due the insufficient financial support for the development of fair trade institutions. Consequently, only a handful of fair trade products are available in Brazil.

The Articulation of Ethical and Solidarity Commerce in Brazil – or Faces do Brasil (FACES) was formalized in 2004, after it began to form alliances since 2002. It comprises 13 constituent organizations: national and international NGOs, government agencies, rural trade unions, and farmers’ networks. The primary aim of FACES is to “foster the creation of an environment that favors the building of a Brazilian Fair Trade system to promote equity”. Strong emphasis is placed on adapting international fair trade principles for the national context. FACES subsequently developed Sistema Nacional de Comércio Justo e Solidário (SNCJS – National Fair Trade System).

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In Brazil, the state has played an important role in shaping institutional context of the market. It has strengthened fair trade market through, for instance, the establishment of SNCJS, plans to enhance the certification process through state credit provision, and the commitment of fair trade public procurement.

However, the efforts to raise awareness of fair trade have not been as strong; one participant stated that “there are campaigns from the solidarity economy movement….not targeted at consumers, but targeted to let people know the solidarity economy exists”. FACES has failed to promote geographic specificity, although local farmers have played a strong role in the fair trade system.

Nepal NGOs have played a crucial role in the development of fair trade in Nepal. Fair trade organizations here mostly concentrate on social welfare; for example, women’s economic empowerment and the needs of marginalized groups such as street children. In 1975, Women’s Skills Development Project (now Women’s Skills Development Organization) was founded, followed by the Association of Craft Producers (ACP) in 1984.

Both organizations initiated women’s empowerment project without support from government or donor, as they aimed to reduce the dependency on these actors for funding.

Another important component which has contributed to the development of fair trade in Nepal has been the relationship with volunteers from the Global North, which enable crucial knowledge transfer. The international network is another key element to promote fair trade in Nepal. One notable example was the visit of Mohamad Islam (Oxfam Bangladesh) in 1993. He shared his knowledge of ECOTA (Bangladesh Fair Trade Forum) with a number of fair trade organizations in Nepal. The event not only facilitated knowledge and experience sharing, but also inspired the formation of Fair Trade Group Nepal (FTGN).

FTGN is a partnership of fair trade organizations which aims to improve the socio-economic condition of marginalized producers across Nepal. The organization joined WFTO in 1997; the engagement within the network has not only brought provision of important networking and marketing opportunities to FTGN members, but also increased credibility of fair trade movement in the country.

An important step to creating awareness was the establishment of retail shops, including Dhukhuti in Kathmandu. This also helps boost domestic fair trade sales, which has recently seen a shift from tourists and expatriate consumers to the emerging middle classes of Nepal (approximately 21.89% of the population). As the middle class grows, Nepal sees the opportunity to promote the ethic of “care for the locals” among this customer group. Another key message ‘Made in Nepal’ is to emphasize the quality of products as opposed to products made in India and China. Nepal fair trade has expressed a strong Nepali national identity as reflected in FTGN brand image.

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Since the fair trade developed around the relationship between Southern producers, much of literature concentrate on consumers and the fair trade markets in the Global North. Doherty, Smith and Parker (2015) provides a study of the empirical developments of fair trade markets in South Africa, Kenya, Brazil and Nepal in order to address the lack of published knowledge of Southern Fair Trade consumer markets. A summary of findings is presented in Table 2.

Table 2 Fair trade market development in the Global South: summary of case studies Country Kenya

Fair trade certification Target consumer Fairtrade International Wealthy middle & WFTO classes, expats and tourists. Target LSM groups 10–17 Limited Government involvement

South Africa

Fairtrade International

Upper income groups higher young Limited Government urban involvement

Fair trade market structure Emerged with Fair Trade craft pioneers Undugu, Bombla in embassies then own Fair Trade shops

Key products Dormans Safari Kenyan Coffee and Kericho Kenyan tea

Now entered the mainstream with Cadburys Dairy Milk, manufacturers and supermarket Tate and Lyle sugar retailers e.g. Nakamutt Crafts and artisan products middle Commenced with Fair Trade pioneers Bean There Coffee and (Higher LSM such as Bean There Coffee Fairhills & Thandi wines 7–10), with education, 18–45 and Now entered the mainstream with Woolworths private Pick n Pay supermarkets and label coffee Woolworths Also business-to-business via companies such as Protea Hotels and SA Airways

Nepal

WFTO label

NGO led

Tourists, NGO Mainly in local Fair Trade retail stores Handicrafts, puppets, workers, expats. and exports to European WFTO bags, home furnishing, Plus local middle members etc. class and elites Handicraft Fairs in Kathmandu and Embassies

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Country

Fair trade certification Target consumer Some government involvement

Fair trade market structure Key products Led by WFTO pioneers Association of Craft Producers (ACP) to provide social welfare for disadvantaged women and children

Brazil

Publicly administered Upper middle Mainly via Fair Trade stores and Handicraft, clothes and state certification classes but also solidarity movement street markets food system solidarity street markets that target lower income Incipient Public bodies such development of as schools Fairtrade International certification for domestic markets

Source: Doherty, Smith, & Parker (2015)

Boycott and Carrotmob Boycott According to Hutter and Hoffmann (2011), ethical considerations have increasingly become an important aspect when consumers are making their choices. Consumer boycott is the most prominent and obvious act that is based on ethical concerns5. Past research suggests that negative information is more influential to consumer attitudes than the positive ones (Carrigan & Attalla, The myth of the ethical consumer - do ethics matter in purchase behavior ?, 2001).

According to Bilharie (2012), a boycott is considered an extreme act of consumer behavior to protest against undesirable business practices, in most cases ethically related. They are mostly organized by non-government organizations. Potential boycott has become an increasingly important ‘risk factor’ to the business sector, and has therefore been incorporated to companies’ decision making process, especially as ‘corporate social responsibility’ is increasingly discussed, and brand image and corporate reputation have become more vulnerable in the media-saturated, Internet-savvy world of the 21st century.

5

To see list of consumer boycott, visit http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/boycottslist.aspx

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Braunsberger and Buckler (2011) observed that a boycott occurs “when a number of people abstain from purchase of a product, at the same time, as a result of the same egregious act or behavior, but not necessarily for the same reasons” (p. 196). Ethical consumers join the boycott and refuse to buy form a firm to impact the firm’s unethical behavior. Meanwhile, consumers who do not hold such ethical concerns may also join the activity to (falsely) signal that they do care, which in turn helps increase the power of the boycott (Glazer, Kanniainen, & Poutvaara, 2010). The widespread use of Internet technology and modern means of communication have become an effective way of educating consumers about the boycott, influencing the participation and facilitating the movement (Glazer, Kanniainen, & Poutvaara, 2010; Braunsberger & Buckler, 2011). In the US alone, the number of boycott and the number of participants has increased from 18% in 1992 to 67% in 2005 (Braunsberger & Buckler, 2011).

Braunsberger and Buckler (2011) gave examples of boycotts that led to “spectacular successes for relatively powerless groups.” Such boycotts include the Montgomery bus boycotts, the 1965–70 California grape boycott, and the notable Shell boycott, which had a participation rate of only 6% of consumers, but stopped the company from sinking at sea its Brent Spar oil platform. Although a number of research reports present success stories of boycotts, reports that methodically evaluate the impacts of boycott are few and far between. This is partly because the boycott’s targets rarely admit to the effects of boycotts, if any, on their revenues and profits. The case of Arla Foods is one notable exception. This Danish dairy company admitted to a tremendous fall in sales after becoming a target of widespread boycotts in the Muslim world. The incidence originated from a series of caricatures that depicted the prophet Muhammad in a newspaper. To avoid effects on their business, roughly 33%-50% of companies targeted did adjust their practices to conform to the request (Braunsberger & Buckler, 2011).

Despite the claimed successes of the boycott movement, Hutter and Hoffmann (2011) argued that the action is questionable for two reasons. Firstly, since the boycott is based on a ‘punishing’ strategy, companies are penalized for their unethical behavior as post-process, i.e. after they already implemented the ‘unethical’ practice. Boycott is unlikely to cause significant impact on other companies that share the behavior, and the possibility to proactively educate companies is rather low. Secondly, consumers are not willing to participate in a boycott if they have to refrain from purchasing goods or services they actually like. Therefore, the authors called for the invention of new mechanisms to overcome these limitations.

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Anti-page on Facebook: boycott in the era of social media Technological development has led to the rise of social media era. Internet-based technology has been and is being used actively by numerous activist groups to organize the movements, as it helps to spread the information. Moreover, the digital network facilitates the mobilization of people when organize an event. This has led to an emergence of ‘anti-brand communities’ as a new form of boycott.

Many anti-brand communities are active on social media. In her study of consumer activism in the age of social media, Biharie (2012) gives examples of anti-brand page rising from environmental and ethical concerns.

Nestlé “Boycott Nestlé” Facebook page provides information of the baby formula scandal, in which the company used unethical practices to increase product sales. The use of palm oil in their products and its related negative environmental impacts is also discussed.

Kentucky Fried Chicken “Boycott KFC” Facebook page was founded to provide information of the inappropriate business practices of KFC as the page creator considers the treat of chickens as cruel and inhumane, stating “they are kicked, thrown against walls, stomped on, and beaten by the KFC plant workers. This happens daily and there is only one way to make it stop, spread the word and boycott any KFC.” However in both cases, there has not been any evidence or any claims whether the boycotts have influenced or brought about any changes in the two companies.

The grassroots anti-brand communities like “Boycott Nestlé” and “Boycott KFC” seem relatively less active than this kind of pages that are officially run by organizations.

Carrotmob “Carrotmob” has evolved as a new form of influence by means of consumer activism. This action leverage the consumer power to positively promote sustainable business practices (Sebastiani, Dalli, & Montagnini, 2011) by giving rewards. Consumers do not need to refrain from buying products, but instead increase purchases from companies that are supported by the carrotmob campaigner due to their desirable business 38 | S a l F o r e s t C o . L t d .

practices. The name emphasizes the “carrot”, the means of consumer buying power to incentivize ethical practices from business, rather than the “stick” or punishments that characterize all boycotts (Sebastiani, Dalli, & Montagnini, 2011). Unlike boycott, carrotmob encourages business to behave in a desirable manner, and in turn, the companies can benefit from improved brand image and sales increase. In this way, carrotmob hopes to help create a ‘win-win’ situation (Hutter & Hoffmann, 2011; Sebastiani, Dalli, & Montagnini, 2011).

Carrotmob emerged in 2008 in San Francisco. After two years, the founder, Brent Schulkin, established the non-profit organization under the same name as the hub of a global movement. The objective of the movement is “to empower people to use their influence in commerce to advance sustainability”. To date, there have been more than 250 carrotmob campaigns in over 20 countries across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia (Carrotmob, 2015).

The carrotmob mechanism begins when the organizer contacts and asks the companies to compete on “who can do the most good” in a campaign. These companies later place a bid on an auction. For instance, in the first carrotmob campaign, the companies were asked to submit their bids to make their business more energy efficient. K&D proposed a 22% share of profit to make energy improvements; later this company was declared winner. Then the organizer mobilized consumers through social networks, inviting them to the store on the same day, and then rewarded the business by buying its products. On that day, K&D sales rose three times higher than normal. The extra revenues allowed the store to install a new energy-efficient lighting system as they earlier proposed in the contest (Sebastiani, Dalli, & Montagnini, 2011).

What makes carrotmob a prominent movement is the positive and effective impacts it creates on businesses.

On one hand, it responds to the reluctance of businesses to change, due to cost and lack of concerns, by engaging directly with them. On the other hand, it fulfills those ethical consumers who are not willing to join the protests or boycott, by offering a new type of social movement (Hutter & Hoffmann, 2011).

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The first carrotmob in Thailand The first carrotmob in Thailand was the campaign targeting Villa Market to stop using plastic shopping bags in its Nichada Thani store, where one major international school is located. The store gives out about 500,000 plastic bags a year and was asked to ban plastic bags at their store for more sustainable practice.

The campaigner promised to gather at least 500 students to shop at the store on a certain date to show that people really do support the idea, and that this policy would not affect their sale.

On that day (20th February 2010) between 10 am to 3 pm, 1,397 shoppers came out to shop and showed support for ‘ban the plastic bag’ message (Carrotmob, 2010). The supermarket posted record sales, subsequently adopted the policy of banning plastic bags, and started selling reusable cloth bags.

Sustainable seafood movement The sustainable seafood movement is a type of environmental movement. It emerged in the 1990s to respond the global decline in fish stocks and the lack of government responses (Konefal, 2013). The movement comprises several actors, including environmental non-government organizations, philanthropic foundations, retailers, food service providers, restaurants, the fishing industry, and consumers (Gutiérrez & Morgan, 2015). Largely adopting the market-based approach, the movement tries to change the supply chain to a more sustainable path. By shifting demand in the market, it attempts to exert pressure to the upstream actors to act responsibly and sustainably (Konefal, 2013; Gutiérrez & Morgan, 2015).

One of the very first market driven tools is the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) eco-label. It was developed and engaged by non-state actors, including Unilever, a multi-national corporation, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental non-governmental organization. It has become a significant mechanism of captured fisheries management in the UK and the US (Gutiérrez & Morgan, 2015). For details of MSC growth and impact, see the preceding section on “Marine Stewardship Council.”

Strategic campaigns aimed at retailers and consumers are the most prominent in marine conservation. Two kinds of demand-oriented approaches have been used. On one hand, there have been many single-species campaigns. It targets either a fishery in danger of ecological collapse, or seafood products whose production creates negative environmental impacts. Another approach focuses more generally on the entire seafood 40 | S a l F o r e s t C o . L t d .

industry. These campaigns aim to shift the market toward sustainability, which take place in one of the following three forms (Konefal, 2013).

1) The general demand-oriented campaign The objective of the general demand-oriented campaign is to educate consumers by providing information in various forms, including a handbook, mobile application, awareness raising campaigns, as well as eco-label and certification. Examples are as follows (Konefal, 2013).

Seafood card Seafood card is a wallet-sized card that categorizes seafood according to its level of sustainability. This helps guide to the consumers to avoid purchasing and consuming unsustainable products. It was first launched by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and is today considered the first consumer awareness campaign regarding sustainable seafood (Cooke, Murchie, & Danylchuk, 2011). WWF Seafood guide is another pocket-size guide to promote sustainably-harvested seafood to the consumers. The card is also available in digital form which the consumers can download from WWF website. As of 2015, the seafood guide has been tailored to 18 countries (WWF, n.d.).

Picture 1 Initial Seafood card.

Source: http://stanford.edu/group/suss/cgi-bin/blog/wp-content/uploads/Seafood-Watch-Card.jpg

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Picture 2 Seafood Watch application Source: http://www.seafoodwatch.org/-/m/sfw/images/app/seafood-watch-app-table-setting-iphone-mahi-mahi.jpg?la=en

Certification and Eco-labelling Market-based approach is the operating principle behind the certification and eco-labelling mechanism (Cooke, Murchie, & Danylchuk, 2011). Information about environmental quality of a product is provided to the consumer. This way, it helps consumers distinguish between sustainable and unsustainable products. Ecolabelled or certified products will become more visible and attractive to those who want to consume more sustainably (GEN, 2004).

A list of eco-labelling and certification programs on seafood as summarized by Cooke et al. (2011) is presented in Table 3. Awareness campaigns are also surveyed in the same study. The authors counted 19 awareness campaigns in total, 15 of which originated in North America, while the rest are originated in Asia by WWF. The list of awareness campaigns in Asia is presented in Table 4.

Table 3 List of eco-labelling and certification programs Organization Marine Stewardship Council Friend of the Sea Global Aquaculture Alliance Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program

Country of origin Global Global United States

Extent of coverage Global Global Global

United States

Global 42 | S a l F o r e s t C o . L t d .

Organization Naturland Marine Eco Label Japan Southern Rocklobster Aquaculture Stewardship Council Seafood Trust Eco Certification KRAV

Country of origin Germany Japan Australia Netherlands Ireland Sweden

Extent of coverage Global National National Global Global National

Source: Cooke, Murchie, & Danylchuk (2011)

Table 4 List of awareness campaign originated in Asia Organization WWF WWF WWF WWF

Country of origin Indonesia Hong Kong Malaysia Singapore

Extent of coverage National Global National Global

Source: Cooke, Murchie, & Danylchuk (2011)

2) Initiatives targeting restaurants This kind of initiative aims at having restaurants offer more sustainable seafood option. In addition, celebrity chefs are asked to join the campaign as spokepersons for sustainable seafood (Konefal, 2013). Examples of successful campaigns are Fin Free Thailand and Hilton Singapore.

Fin Free Thailand Fin Free Thailand is part of the global “Fin Free” movement which aims to encourage businesses not to serve shark fin, in order to protect endangered sharks and consumers’ health. Information about health and environmental risk form eating shark fin is also given to the consumers. Celebrities, activists, divers, hotel and restaurant owners, chefs and students participated the campaign to promote a more sustainable business in the country. Blue List of “Fin Free” hotels is posted on the program’s official website 6 (Fin Free Thailand, n.d.).

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To see the list, visit http://www.finfreethai.org/#!blue-list/c1mhj

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Hilton Singapore offering certified seafood In March 2015, Hilton Singapore announced that it was the first hotel in Asia to achieve Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) Chain of Custody certifications. Seafood dishes served at the F&B outlet operated by Hilton Singapore are either MSC- or ASC-certified, assuring seafood sources that are sustainably caught and farmed. Before the shift towards sustainability, eco-labelled seafood products were only available at selected supermarkets and seafood purveyors. With Hilton Singapore leading the way to serve MSC-and ASC-certified seafood, consumers may soon expect more MSC- and ASC certified seafood choices when they dine out in Singapore (MSC, 2015).

3) Campaign promoting sustainable supply chain The last form of campaign aimed at retailers to shift their seafood offering in more sustainable directions. The campaign usually takes the form of private negotiations between retailers and the campaign organizer, and likely to be publicly announced after the agreement has been reached. Recently, this has become the central approach of the overall sustainable seafood movement (Konefal, 2013).

Stop selling parrot fish One of the most successful public campaigns on sustainable seafood in Thailand is the call for major retailers namely Tesco Lotus, Makro, Central supermarket, The Mall and Villa Market, to stop selling parrotfish (Change.org 2014). Although the species is not legally protected, numerous scientific research has confirmed their vital role in coral reef recovery and conservation.

The campaign started on Facebook, the most popular social media in Thailand, from communicating to the public about a critical role of parrotfish in marine ecosystem, and how commercial harvest of the species would have significant impact to coral reef conservation as a whole. The message in the form of one ‘Facebook post’ on the topic went viral, with more than ten thousand shares and reached more than one million people.

After two months of building public support, the campaigner decided to launch a public petition on Change.org, a prominent social media petition platform. Within two weeks, the campaign received more than 23,000 signatures (August 2014) and all five major retailers, one after another, announced the ban on parrotfish procurement and sale immediately.

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The campaign lead commented that the key factors of success in the parrotfish campaign are: concrete evidence from scientific research, effective communication that personalize parrotfish to public audience, and competitive pressure among retailers (Achavanuntakul, 2014).

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3. Sustainable consumption – UK 3.1 Overview History of ethical consumption in UK UK has the long history of slave trade which can date back to the 18th century, however, the important event contributing to the growing concern of ethical aspect in consumption among UK consumers is the emergence of labor movement in the last century. Ethical aspects has developed around labor issues that includes forced labor, child labor, abuses, unfair wage and poor working conditions (personal communication with Rachel Wilshaw March 18, 2016). The idea of Fairtrade was developed to address the unfair situations third world producers were facing, to which the core concept relies on the relationship between Southern producer and Northern consumers. The earliest Fairtrade in Europe took place in UK in late 1950s, when Oxfam UK started to merchandise crafts made by Chinese refugees in Oxfam shops. This followed by the establishment of the first Fair Trade Organization in 1964 (EFTA, 2006). By the mid-1980s, there were more than 1,000 Third World shops, shop that sell goods produced by cooperatives in developing countries, in UK and Switzerland together. At the same period, the first Fair Trade product, which is coffee, certification system and label was created by the Dutch organization “Max Havelaar”. Shortly thereafter, the initiative was replicated across Europe and North America in 1980s-1990s, including Fairtrade Mark in the UK and Ireland.

Fair trade labelling organizations have played a key role in the development of the fair trade market (Connolly & Shaw, 2006).

The Fairtrade era has continued to the 1990s when the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA) was founded

by Traidcraft in collaboration with other European fair trade organizations. The Fairtrade Foundation was found in 1992 by Traidcraft, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, the World Development Movement and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (Traidcraft, n.d.). In 1998, 4 local authorities which are Bristol, Nottingham, Bath and Norwich have converted to Fairtrade coffee and tea and become the first local cities to do so. In the year 2000 Garstang in Lancashire became the first Fairtrade town, where all parties in town sign a pledge to buy and use Fair Trade and local produce, in the world. At present, there are 612 Fairtrade town in the UK (Fair Trade Towns International, n.d.). Changes have also been brought to public procurement as more limited ethical purchasing policies have been adopted by the British Houses of Parliament, the EU Parliament, the UK Salvation Army and the UK Youth Hostel Association to serve only fair-trade tea, coffee and other foods at meetings as well as in all their food service outlets (Low & Davenport, 2007).

One of the most important event occurred in the UK is the introduction of Cafedirest, a fair trade coffee brand, to the mainstream retail shops. Cafedirect has received positive response as it presented not only the 46

ethical aspect of the product but also high quality and good taste. It expanded to other countries in Europe afterwards. The increase in product variety at the mainstream retailers has improved access to fair trade products in terms of range and availability. However, other markets such as clothing, homewares, and flowers have not experienced the same growth as in the food sector. The availability of products are limited to specialized shops (Connolly & Shaw, 2006). According to Traidcraft (n.d.), public support and worldwide awareness of fair trade has grown over the past decades. In 2009 the Fairtrade Foundation reported that 70% of adults in the UK recognized the Fairtrade Mark. (Traidcraft, n.d.). The success of fair trade is expected to continue and to its success Fairtrade has made mainstream business more aware of the ethical aspect of their operations and activities.

The UK government made international commitments to sustainable development since the late 1990s, followed the 1992 Earth summit that incorporates sustainable consumption and production into sustainable development agenda. Aspect of consumption has been increasingly recognized at an international debate, many countries have developed appropriate policy to tackle unsustainable consumption and production (Hobson, 2004; Jackson, 2007; Gale, 2014). In UK, numerous policy measures have been developed to address consumption and resource use issues over the last decades.

Back to 1999, the government launched a set of indicators to follow up the process of sustainable development with easily accessible and quantified information about the direction of the policy. Key indicators cover wide range of social change issues including economic output, poverty and social exclusion, and air quality. In addition, information-related campaigns have become an important policy tool focusing directly on consumption, such as a “Green Claims Code”, a campaign aimed to provide best practice advice for business and consumers on making environmental claims about products and services. “Are You Doing your Bit”, a nation-wide 10 million multimedia advertising campaign, aimed to promote a reduction of resource use in household suggesting easy actions one can change with little cost or effort (Hobson, 2004).

This demonstrates that the policy makers’ desire to address how consumption patterns can be possibly intervened and how people’s behaviors and lifestyles can be influenced and transformed towards sustainable development.

Followed Agenda 21 was the Oslo Symposium and the 2003 Marrakech Process, some countries were early adopters of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) program. The UK has been the leader in this area and was amongst the first nation to establish a national strategy on SCP. In 2003, UK’s “Changing Patterns: the UK Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production” was released. (Gale, 2014). It holds the core principles of 1) decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation; 2) targeting policy to the most important environmental impacts of resource use; 3) increasing the productivity of material and resource use (i.e. improve efficiency); and 4) encouraging active and engaged consumers to practice more SCP. Life-cycle 47

analysis, market-compatible action, integrating SCP into policy decisions, appropriate policy design were the main focus of the framework (Gale, 2014). It defines sustainable consumption and production as: “Continuous economic and social progress that respects the limits of the Earth’s ecosystems, and meets the needs and aspirations of everyone for a better quality of life, now and for future generations to come” (DEFRA, 2003:10 in Seyfang, 2004). Shortly after, the government has unveiled “Securing the Future”, a national sustainable development strategy which include chapter 3 a “One Planet Economy: Sustainable Production and Consumption” agenda, highlighting the key sectors of concerns –household energy, water, food, travel and tourism (Gale, 2014).

3.2 UK government activities & policies The UK Government’s works on sustainable food production and consumption were led by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). It is the government’s role to provide consumers consistent messages on the information they need, makes them well-informed about choices and to support other players both businesses and NGOs in their works towards promoting sustainable consumption. DEFRA has run UK Government campaign, including a “Green Claims Code” that helps business communicate to the customer of their environmental friendly products. By doing so the consumer can be assured they purchase sustainable products. DEFRA also led “Fishing for the Markets” the initiative to encourage consumption of underutilized fish species and steer consumption away from under-threated ones. There is “Love Food Hate Waste” campaign which aimed to tackle food waste. The Government has released the natural environment white paper “The natural choice” demonstrating the relationship between food production and environmental goals (Kerr & Foster, 2011).

In addition, the UK Government recognizes the international impacts contributed by food consumption in the UK and provided £2.9 billion to tackle land use and production issues abroad. Illegal logging, deforestation, climate change mitigation have been addressed under this amount of money, to which the major international mechanism is the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries or REDD Program (Kerr & Foster, 2011).

The Government has emphasized the importance of research and knowledge and invests around £400 million per year on agriculture and food research, of which DEFRA contributes about £30 million (excluding animal health and welfare). DEFRA’s research program covers the whole food supply chain, from the primary production, to manufacturing, to retail, to distribution and to the consumers. DEFRA highlights the importance 48

of cooperation, therefore, it works in partnership with government funders, industry and other organizations through the Government Chief Scientific Adviser’s “Food Research Partnership” and the “Global Food Security Program” to ensure that multidisciplinary research is robust, relevant and worthwhile. The Government consider strengthening food research is necessary, therefore, it develops link and initiatives, for example, through member ship of the EU Joint Programming Initiative, which aims to maximize benefit from research to its member states, and the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, which seek international cooperation to tackle greenhouse gas emission (Kerr & Foster, 2011).

After the occurrence of various scandals regarding international corporations involved in the use of forced labor in their supply chain, namely the involvement of Tesco and Walmart with slave labor in fishmeal fishing boats (The Guardian, 2015), the abuses of palm-oil migrant workers on Malaysian plantations (The Wall Street Journal, 2015), Costco being sued selling products involved human trafficking in Thailand (Bangkok Post, 2015), the UK Modern Slavery Act was passed last year to tackle problems relating to slavery and trafficking.

The Act includes the Transparency in Supply Chains. It was announced in July 2015 that companies with a turnover of more than £36 million and a presence in the UK are required to publish an annual slavery and human trafficking statement that disclose steps they have taken to ensure no slavery or human trafficking is taking place in their own organizations or supply chains (GOV.UK, 2015). To the requirements of the Act, the Home Office published “Transparency in supply chains: A practical guide” in November 2015 to assist firms conform to the requirements. It provides guidance on producing reports, publishing statements, and other relevant advice on supply chain transparency (GOV.UK, 2015; CORE, 2015).

Under the new legislation, UK corporations need to show evidence that no link to slavery. This forces companies to take responsibility for what happen in their supply chain and encourage them to establish antislavery measures to their compliance and monitoring programs. The government hopes consumers, as well as businesses and investors, will make more informed decision. The Act will have around 17,000 of UK companies publish a statement and hopefully civil society will help monitor and point out those who are not taking action. (The Guardian, 2015).

The UK Modern Slavery Act is the first national legislation addressing issues of slavery and require transparency in supply chain. As Karen Bradley, the Home Office minister for preventing abuse and exploitation, stated that “The act will mean that major businesses will, for the first time, be expected to be transparent about the action they are taking to address modern slavery in their global supply chains” (The Guardian, 2015).

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According to Hobson (2004), policy initiatives have been established to address unsustainable behavior and negative impacts from excessive resource consumption. Gale (2014) summarizes governmental policy instruments aimed to take action on sustainable consumption. The list presented in Table 1 has been developed from previous research (see, for example, (Howlett et al., 1995; Jordan et al., 2007; Lascoumbes and Le Gales, 2007; UNEP, 2013 in Gale, 2014). Four types for policy instruments have been identified, which are 1) regulatory policy instruments –the traditional command and control arrangements such as fines and penalties, 2) economic policy instruments –market incentive tool such as taxing, 3) informational policy instruments –measures taken to inform the public about environmental and social impact of their purchases such as certification and labelling schemes, and 4) infrastructural policy instruments –policy that tackle some constraints or obstacles to sustainable consumption practices such as a network of bike lanes (Gale, 2014). A selection of UK policy initiatives for sustainable consumption program is presented in Table 2.

Table 4 Sustainable consumption policy instruments Regulatory policy instruments Advertising regulation (e.g. junk food, tobacco, alcohol)

Economic policy instruments Taxation (e.g. increase cost of carbon intensive goods)

Licenses and prescriptions (e.g. pharmaceuticals, firearms, motor vehicles, aircraft) Age limits (e.g. bars, casinos, movie theatres)

Subsidies (e.g. offset costs of solar installation, home insulation, public transport); Market creation (e.g. emissions trading schemes);

Quotas (e.g. water use, fishing)

Deposit-refund schemes (e.g. beverage bottles)

Standards (e.g. building standards,

Mandatory green procurement (e.g. UK

Informational policy instruments Eco-labelling schemes (e.g. Germany’s Blue Angel scheme, EU Ecolabel); Certification and labelling schemes (e.g.

Forest Stewardship Council, Marine Stewardship Council) Information schemes (e.g. ‘buy local’, ‘buy organic’, ‘live sustainably’) Voluntary green procurement (e.g.

Australian governments green procurement guidelines) Roundtables to promote stakeholder dialogue on

Infrastructure policy instruments Urban design (e.g. high density housing)

Public transport (e.g. cycle lanes, high-speed rail)

Telecommunications (e.g. NBN)

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Regulatory policy instruments fuel efficiency standards, etc);

Economic policy instruments Government’s timber procurement scheme) Credit controls (e.g. regulations on private lending; credit card limits; interest rates) ;

Informational policy instruments sustainable consumption and production;

Infrastructure policy instruments

Source: Gale (2014)

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Table 5 A selection of UK policy initiatives for sustainable consumption program Name (year initiated) Zero Carbon Hub (2008)

Efficient Boilers Program (2006)

Description

Policy instruments

Policy evaluation

Outcomes/Effectiveness

Promote zero-carbon building construction by 2016

Regulation via standards: modifications to UK building code requiring new homes to be more carbon efficient; Information via roundtable: Financial support for ‘hub’ to investigate on construction and marketing of zero/low carbon houses;

Mandatory, precise, narrowly production-focused, efficiency initiative: seeks to make new homes more energy efficient by tightening standards but does not limit size of new homes; Rating: Moderate Sustainability

Promote energy efficient boilers for water heating in homes

Regulation via standards: modification to UK building code to mandate use of energy efficient boilers by 2016; Industry incentives: government provided training to industry Consumer incentives: voluntary incentives for householders to replace old with new boilers;

Mandatory, precise, narrowly production-focused initiative coupled with voluntary component; seeks to promote construction and installation of more efficient boilers by tightening standards; Rating: Moderate Sustainability

The program brought together stakeholders and experts from government, industry and civil society to discuss on the framing of problem and the parameters informing the policy aims and objectives. The work of the program was documented in many progress and consultation reports. Between 2008 and 2012, the program successfully reframed the definition of zero carbon. However, very few zero carbon homes have been delivered as at the end of 2015.

In 2009, 42 percent of homes were fitted with condensing boilers, compared to 38.7 per cent with standard boilers (the remaining homes having either no, or a nongas boiler, fitted). In total 118,249 boilers were installed under the program (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

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Name (year initiated) Energy Saving Trust Recommended certification and labelling scheme (1995)

Description

Policy instruments

Encourage consumers to purchase energy saving household appliances

Informational instrument: indicates which appliances fall within the top 20% in terms of energy rating; funded by government until 2010 and transitioned to fee-paying system; Government-Industry Cooperation: encourages choice editing to remove least efficient TVs; Industry incentive: government supported industry (via Energy Saving Trust) in its voluntary actions via marketing and PR support; Informational instrument: government funding for Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP) to run publicity campaign on consumer waste in the food industry;

Television Voluntary Remove most energy Retail Initiative inefficient TVs from (2010) the market

Love Food Hate Waste (2007)

Reduce waste in the food industry

Policy evaluation

Outcomes/Effectiveness

Voluntary, precise, narrowlyfocused, informational instrument with consumption focus; seeks to inform consumers about the energy rating of appliances; Rating: Weak Sustainability

The program did not published a study of its impact, however, over 3,000 products have been certified and labelled. The research shows that 73 percent of UK customers understand the meaning of the label, that is which product use less energy (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

Voluntary, precise, narrowly production focused instrument: aimed to remove least energy efficient TVs from the market via choice editing; Rating: Weak Sustainability

Eight UK’s leading electric retailers, which account over half of the television market in the UK, agreed to remove the least energy efficient TV from the market (by 2011) (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013). That was a year before the implementation of EU minimum efficiency standard in July 2012 (DEFRA, 2010).

Voluntary, broad, consumption focused informational instrument: awareness campaign over food waste Rating: Weak Sustainability

WRAP reported that millions of people had responded to the campaign and saved approximately ÂŁ1.5 billion and 1.1 million tons worth of food. Moreover, the campaign was aligned with initiatives run by major retailers, e.g. Sainsbury and Morrison, which involved awareness raising and packaging

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Name (year initiated)

Description

Policy instruments

Policy evaluation

Every Action Counts (2006)

Encourage sustainable practices energy, travel, shopping, resources and localities

Informational instrument: government funding for voluntary groups to train community champions to promote sustainable consumption;

Voluntary, broad, consumption focused training and informational instrument: building community capacity on sustainable consumption practices Rating: Weak Sustainability

Pro-Environmental Behaviors (2007)

Support policy development in Defra and other agencies

Informational instrument: aims to improve knowledge base for government policy on sustainable consumption;

Broad, informational and research, efficiency and sufficiency oriented policy instrument; build government SCP capacity Rating: Weak Sustainability

Energy Saving Trust (1992)

Support for consumers to reduce household energy requirements

Informational instrument: Government funding for energy efficiency advice centers to advice households on ways to reduce energy

Voluntary, broad, consumption focused, informational policy instrument: provide consumer advice on ways to reduce household energy use

Outcomes/Effectiveness improvement (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

Around 800 to 1,000 community leaders were trained under the program. It helped and support communities to improve sustainability as it developed a range of resource needed, especially knowledge of good practice in sustainability and supportive environment for thinking and debate (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

Defra did not published quantified outcomes of the initiative. However, the program helped advance government understanding towards sustainable behavior, environmental attitudes, values, motivations, and barriers to change. This contributed to the prioritization of individual behavior on carbon reduction plan.

Furthermore, the program helped create collaborative environment for stakeholders (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

What program has achieved are (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013) - £1.5 billion savings on people’s fuel bills since 1994 (in partnership with energy suppliers)

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Name (year initiated)

Description

Policy instruments use;

Policy evaluation Rating: Weak Sustainability

Outcomes/Effectiveness - 20 million tons cut from the UK’s carbon footprint in 2008/09 - 3.5 million consumers given advice in 2009/10 - 395,000 lofts and cavity walls insulated in 2009/10 - 142 local authorities benefiting from indepth consultancy - 4,500 community groups supported.

Source: modified from Gale (2014)

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3.3 UK sustainable consumption trend According to Hobson (2004), at the individual level, research suggests that the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable consumption have not created significant impacts to promote changes to individual consumption practices. Although when asked, individuals may inform they desire sustainable outcomes, they are likely to fail to act on it. In early 2000s, the UK experienced the situation called 30:3 syndromes, the term generated from the fact that 30% of individuals say they care about the environmental and ethical impacts of their purchases; yet the market share of green products rarely surpasses 3% (Hobson, 2004). The Co-Operative Bank research in 2002 find that around 5% UK are committed ethical consumers, while the rest either care but do not act, or care more about value for money (Hobson, 2004). However, during the past decade ethical consumption has become more dominant in developed countries. The UK household expenditure on ethical products and services slightly less than doubled from 2002 to 2007.

Likewise, sales of Fairtrade goods increased around 25% between 2007 and 2008 (Neilson, 2010).

The Ethical Consumer Markets Report 2015 indicates a positive sign for ethical consumption. Ethical purchase is increasingly growing despite a continuing economic downturn, of which ethical sales grew by 8% and the overall value of ethical market increased from ÂŁ35bn to ÂŁ38bn. This reflects a growing commitment from consumers to support ethical products and services. Figure 1 shows ethical spending in the UK from 1999 to 2014.

Figure 4 Ethical spending in the UK, 1999-20147

Source: Ethical Consumer (2016)

7

See Appendix for definitions

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3.3 Sustainable food and seafood consumption 3.3.1 Institutional context Institutional context contributes positive or negative influences to sustainable consumption. Consumers are sometimes prevented from sustainable act due to structural obstacles, for example the presence of inappropriate policy, insufficient necessary infrastructure, lack of ethical options, and insufficient information.

Adell et al., (2009) summarizes policy instruments in sustainable consumption strategies adopted by the UK Government which are more or less shapes the institutional context of sustainable consumption (Table x).

Table 6 Policy instruments adopeed in UK sustainable consumption strategies (as of 2008) Policy Instruments

UK sustainable consumption strategies

Regulatory instruments oblige citizens and organizations to comply with government rules, under the threat of sanctions. Examples include bans, mandatory standards and permit requirements.

The amendment to the Pensions Act 1995 requiring pension schemes to state the extent to which they consider social, environmental or ethical issues in their investment strategy will continue to raise the profile of socially responsible investment.

And within the Charity Sector the new Statement of Recommended Practice highlights the need for charities to communicate with their stakeholders and the public how ethical considerations, which include sustainability considerations, influence their investment decisions.

- The Government will work with the EU through the WTO to reduce unsustainable and environmentally damaging agriculture and fishing subsidies in the Doha Round - Through a refocused Environmental Action Fund, the Government is supporting voluntary organizations with community level projects which influence behavior and will deliver sustainable consumption outcomes. We will look to use lessons from these projects to further improve and expand partnership activities of this kind, which prove successful in changing consumption patterns. This includes making information available through Community Action 2020 – Together We Can help change consumption patterns on food, transport and other

Economic instruments involve the distribution or levying of resources, thus making certain behaviors more or less financially attractive. Examples include taxes or tax exemptions, subsidies or loans, levies or charges, tradeable permits and public procurement.

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issues Communicative instruments aim to - The Government has put in place strong measures to drive influence the addressees via more sustainable production in the UK by providing help and information and persuasion. support for business from the Carbon Trust, the Envirowise Examples include labelling, disclosure program and the Environment Agency. of information about product or - Develop the ĘťOGCbuying.solutionsĘź pilot website on producer performance, and sustainable procurement by 2006 into a comprehensive central communication campaigns. resource for public sector buyers and suppliers Procedural instruments and The Government will also continue to promote the development instruments of societal self-regulation of Freight Quality Partnerships (FQPs) by local authorities. FQPs include negotiated agreements, are a template for industry and local government working voluntary programs, corporate social together to develop more efficient, safer and cleaner means of responsibility (including environmental local goods distribution. Over 40 FQPs have been established in management systems) and selfEngland so far. regulation by groups of addressees.

Source: Adell et. al. (2009)

The UK sustainable consumption strategies have adopted policy instruments to promote sustainable consuption patterns. The regulatory policy instruments were used to improve the environmental performance of products and production processes (mainly energy related), and to support the operation of public authorities. Economic instruments were developed to balance the costs of green products versus non-green products by eliminating hidden subsidies to non-environmentally friendly products or by incorporating externalities, to improve production with tax discounts, grants and subsidies as well as to promote demand of sustainable products and services, and to penalize unsustainable consumption patterns. Communication instruments in forms of awareness raising and training programs were found important. Consumers are not likely to change their purchasing patterns unless they are well-informed and aware of the consequences of their actions. Procedural instruments were mainly to support the private sector to improve products and services as well as production processes to become more sustainable (Adell, Alcantud, & Schaefer, 2009).

Reviews on the UK program on SCP show that the UK programs were established on the strategy of efficiency and deliberation. According to Berg (2011), efficiency supports principles related to technical and economic objectives. The fundamental idea of efficiency principle is to obtain more from less and with less environmental cost. This includes economies of scale, intensification, and conservation. The obvious 58

applications of efficiency principles such as using less oil to move a car a given distance. Whereas deliberation, or co-operation, are principles related to the process, participation and learning aspects of sustainability. The UK program shows the clearest focus on efficiency emphasizing a win-win situation between economic and environmental outcomes. It states that government and business sector can work together on sustainable consumption issues. Much of the program also reflects the principles of deliberation since it proposes the collaboration of stakeholders both at international level and national level. The examples include the roundtable and forums such as the Sustainable Consumption and Production Business Task Force and a new Sustainable Design Forum (Berg, 2011).

Flanagan & Weatherall (2013) analyzes a case study of Pro-Environmental Behaviors Framework, an overarching system of analysis created by government to promote sustainable consumption by developing a common framework based on rigorous research and collaboration. DEFRA aimed to gather evidence on public understanding, attitudes and behaviors around sustainability; identify behavior change goals; and draw conclusions on the potential for change across different sectors of the population. The Framework demonstrates deliberation principle and shows the value of multiple stakeholders working together to address sustainable consumption across a broad area.

While deliberation and efficiency principles were embodied in the UK SCP program, another principle of sufficiency was not the main fundamental. Sufficiency principle addresses the impacts of overconsumption, such as resource degradation and collapse of fisheries. Thus, sufficiency promotes strategy such as restraint and reduction, which directly deal with demand side of SCP (Berg, 2011). Without sufficiency approach, the UK program was considered as a weak sustainability approach, of which failed to encourage consumers to reduce their consumption (Berg, 2011; Gale, 2014) as Berg (2011) points out from expert interviews that politicians in the UK found it difficult to interfere with the consumer sovereignty, therefore, the essence of SCP program appeared to represent only the idea of consuming “more efficiently and differently�.

Institutional context also comprises social and cultural factors. The type of society and culture people live in influences the way they think and value things, and contributes to making consumption choices (Pezzini, 2013). Since people’s behaviors are considerably shaped by social factors, especially cultural norms, the more environmentally concerned the society that people live in, the more they will feel obliged to act the same way (Pezzini, 2013). A study by Starr (2009) confirmed that people are more likely to buy and consume ethical products if people around them do too. The fact that the UK has come a long way of building and mainstreaming ethical consumption is likely to generate appropriate social context which in turn positively influenced ethical consumption.

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3.3.2 Consumer demand According to Pezzini (2013), people’s ability to act is much influenced by internal factors such as motivation, value, and attitude. Knowledge and awareness also play important roles together with other factors including emotional involvement and distancing, desire for comfort and convenience and value of money. The study of consumption driving forces continues in academic and business arena. Consumer demand in UK has shown the situation of 30:3 syndromes in early years of sustainable consumption promotion. However, ethical consumption has shown an upward trend and continues to grow in the past decade.

Ethical Consumer Markets Report 2015 reveals a growing in sales of ethical food and drink from last year.

Sales of sustainable fish, represented by MSC, rose considerably while free range poultry increased as well.

What seems to decline was Fairtrade sales, the first time in its 20 years history. This may be accounted by falling sales at the Co-op and Sainsbury’s (Fairtrade’s biggest supporters in the retail sector), rising sales at Aldi and Lidl which have smaller fair trade ranges, greater competition from other schemes like Rainforest Alliance, or declining sales in core Fairtrade product markets such as tea, sugar and chocolate. It is worth noting that higher price of Fairtrade products is unlikely to the factor since sales of Organic food, with more higher prices, have displayed growth in the same period (Ethical Consumer, 2016). Table 4 present UK food and drink spending in 2000, 2013 and 2014.

Table 7 UK ethical food and drink spending Ethical Food and Drink Organic Fairtrade Rainforest Alliance Free range eggs Free range poultry Vegetarian products Freedom Food8 Sustainable fish Total

2000 (£m)

2013 (£m)

2014 (£m)

605 33 n/a 182 44 479 n/a n/a 1,343

1,660 1,710 1,976 622 268 668 1,209 412 8,525

1,669 1,649 2,048 632 290 672 1,221 462 8,643

% Growth 2013-2014 1% -4% 4% 2% 8% 1% 1% 12% 1%

Source: Ethical Consumer Markets Report 2015 (Ethical Consumer, 2016)

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Freedom Food label certified by RSPCA. The RSPCA’s welfare standards cover the whole of an animal’s life, from their health and diet to environment and care. (see https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/)

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Ethical Consumer (2015) summarizes the trend of consumer boycott which acquired from consumer surveys.

The report reveals that in recent years the use of boycotts as a campaign tool has become less popular among many large campaign groups while accreditation schemes, like Fairtrade and MSC, have gained supports. The surveys also reveal interesting facts in the following (Ethical Consumer, 2015:7); -

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Much of the UK population performs personal boycotts over ethical issues, with 19% of the UK population have banned a particular product or have decided not to shop at a particular outlet because of concerns about its ethical reputation Personal boycotts are slightly more prevalent (22%) amongst younger people (18-34) Boycott is most prevalent in Wales (24%) followed by London (22%) 33% of students said they have operated or participated in some kind of boycott in the past 3 months Boycott participants are more likely to be social-media savvy: 33% of those who use Google+ on a monthly basis, 32% of those who use LinkedIn and 26% of those who use Twitter have boycotted due to ethics.

One of the most popular types of personal boycott operated by shoppers in the UK, when the survey was conducted9, was around tax avoidance. Many mentioned Starbucks in the survey. Another analysis by Ethical Consumer indicates that around 2.97 million people in the UK actively boycott companies over their tax avoidance (Ethical Consumer, 2015).

9

February 2015

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Figure 5 Percentage of boycotts by topic (February 2015)

Source: Ethical Consumer (2015)

Interesting responses from shoppers survey include, during the last 12 months prior to the survey (Ethical Consumer, 2015:9): - 70% of people have bought to support local shops or services - 56% have talked to friends or family about a company's behavior - 50% have chosen a product or service because of a company's reputation for responsibility - 48% have avoided a product or service because of a company's poor reputation for responsibility - 42% have recommended a company because of its reputation for responsibility In addition: - 81% of people recycle weekly 25% of people who have decreased their travel in private motor vehicles and increased walking, cycling or using public transport in the last few years, have done so for environmental reasons.

Consumer demand has been identified a powerful mechanism forcing changes to business practices not only to the UK industry, but also to other parts of the world. Cases of consumer demand-led changes are presented here. The first case is “Behind the Brands� campaign run by Oxfam. The campaign aimed urge Mondelez (which owns Cadbury’s) and its competitors to tackle the hunger, poverty and unequal pay facing 62

many women cocoa farmers and workers. More than 100,000 people around the world joined the program by signing petitions as well as sending messages to the companies on Facebook and Twitter. As a result, the biggest chocolate maker, Mondelez International, has agreed to take action to address those issues occurred in their cocoa supply chains (Oxfam, 2013).

Another case is the investigation of the Guardian on slavery in the prawn supply chain. Environmental campaigners and human rights groups urged consumer to boycott Thai prawns and other imported seafood that their sourcing could not be ethically ensured. Furthermore, the investigation had led to the establishment of a trial between prawn products sold by US, British and European retailers and violent slave labor (The Guardian, 2014). This later brought changes to the key player, namely Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods the world's largest prawn farmer.

3.3.3 Civil society When it comes to civil society role in promoting sustainable consumption in the UK, Ethical Consumer magazine is among the most notable party. Ethical Consumer Research Association (ECRA) was founded in 1988 as a not-for-profit workers' co-operative to provide information on the companies behind the brand names and to promote the ethical use of consumer power. It has published the first issue of Ethical Consumer magazine in 1989. Since then, the magazine publishes details on hundreds of companies yearly and brought number of changes to the business. Ethical Consumer magazine reputation has increased while ethical consumerism has grown to become a mainstream concern in the UK (Ethical consumer, n.d.).

Important steps of Ethical Consumer magazines are -

1993 Ethical Consumer Guide to Everyday Shopping – we publish a paperback book combining some of our buyers' guides

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1995 Version 1 of Corporate Critic Research Database launched 1998 Green Building Handbook published. Specialist buyers' guide researched by Ethical Consumer Research Association (ECRA)

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1999 First ECRA website launched. Forums soon stopped after

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potentially libelous statements about NestlĂŠ 2001 Boycott Bush website launched. Attracts 100,000 visitors per month in the USA 63

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2005 Ethiscore website launched

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2007 ECRA research on Clothes Shops published across Europe

The end of discarding fish at sea is an example case of which changes were driven by civil society. Prior to the campaign in 2011, around two-third of fish caught in some areas was thrown back to the sea dead. This is a result of the EU system of fishing quotas. Vessels that excessively harvested or unintentionally caught species for which they did not hold quotas must discard the surplus into the water. It was estimated that 1 million tons of fish were discarded each year into the North Sea alone (The Guardian, 2011).

The campaign known as Hugh’s Fish Fight was initiated from the broadcast of the issue on an influential TV series operated by the food writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (The Guardian, 2011; Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013). Hugh’s Fish Fight aimed to improve sustainable consumption by urging to change fisheries policy, more specific to introduce a discard ban on fishing, influence supply chain practices and raise consumer awareness of sustainable fish consumption. It achieved through the power of social media. The campaign has mainly relied on Facebook and Twitter, as well as smartphone applications (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

The campaign gather almost 850,000 signatures for the petition to support the end of the practice (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013). The fishing and food processing industries as well as retailers, including Sainsbury’s, Mark and Spencer, also showed the support (The Guardian, 2011). The campaign has become widely promoted and received the support of the UK government to funding research on long-term management plans. Finally, a discard ban has been included in new draft EU Common Fisheries Policy.

The Hugh’s Fish Fight provides an example of a campaign led by a high-profile individual, utilizing the full power of celebrity culture and new media to extensively communicate. This later gather, and create the collaboration of, many stakeholders together as influential civil society. The use of digital media has undoubtedly proved to be successful and contributed to public support for the campaign (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

Providing information to consumers to make them well-informed of available alternative choices, as part of a campaign or as a separated program, is one of the most important role of the NGOs. There have been numerous research reports on factors affecting consumption choice and it is accepted that knowledge and information are fundamental to awareness. Insufficient knowledge can obstruct sustainable purchase, therefore, many NGOs launched the seafood guide programs aimed to give consumer information of what sustainable food/seafood is, how unsustainable fishing practices affect the environment, how consumers are 64

linked to the problem, and give advice about what species should be avoided etc. (see for examples, WWF10, Greenpeace11, and Marine Conservation Society12). Again, the digital media has contributed considerably to the program, especially the seafood guide application which consumers can download to their smart devices (see Good Fish Guide13).

3.3.4 Business sector Business sector, retailer in particular, play an important role in promoting more sustainable patterns of consumption. Retailers are the active intermediaries between producers and consumers, therefore, they are considered in a powerful position to drive sustainable consumption. Three ways they can promote more sustainable practices are through their own actions, through partnerships with suppliers and through their daily interactions with consumers (Jones, Hillier, & Comfort, 2014).

Jones, Hillier, & Comfort (2014) studied how the UK’s leading retailers help promote sustainable consumption. Retailers were selected based on 2013 annual sales ranking, the top ten retailers include Tesco, J. Sainsbury, Asda (Walmart), Wm. Morrison Group, Marks & Spencer, Co-operative Group, John Lewis, Partnership, Boots, Home Retail Group, and Kingfisher. An investigation on internet search revealed that the UK top ten retailers stress their commitment to sustainability across various economic, environmental, and social issues. They stated their commitment on sustainability report or website in variety of way, for examples, J. Sainsbury claimed “We want customers at the heart of everything we do and see a huge opportunity in helping them make better, more sustainable choices”, Marks & Spencer announced “by 2020, every Marks & Spencer product has Plan A built into it, making sustainability new norm”, while Kingfisher claimed to be committed to “embedding a new approach to sustainability within the workings of our business”. However, their commitments on sustainable consumption were less obvious.

The observation survey within stores revealed contrasting findings. First, the evidence that the top ten retailers tried to communicate to customers about sustainable consumption was limited. It appeared that many stores failed to send message of sustainable consumption, to which the messages only pointed out the sustainability of specific products. Second, the more powerful messages confronting customers within the stores were the ones concerned with price enticements, which covered wide range of products. Examples of 10

http://wwf.panda.org/how_you_can_help/live_green/out_shopping/seafood_guides/ http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/oceans/what-we-are-doing/sustainable-seafood/sustainable-seafood-frequently-asked-questions 12 http://www.goodfishguide.org/ 13 http://www.goodfishguide.org/information/Mobile+App 11

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advertisement observed were “multiple purchases at reduced price offers” such as “Buy Any 2 for £5” and “Buy 4 for 3”. The posters were visually dominant, the impact of which seemed to offset the promotion of sustainable consumption. In sum, these leading retailers did make commitments to sustainable development, they offered no further clarification on any commitment to sustainable consumption. While they provided very limited information within store to encourage sustainable purchase, such information was undermined by the predominant marketing messages designed to encourage, rather than to restrict, consumption (Jones, Hillier, & Comfort, 2014).

Marks and Spencer’s Plan A is an example of campaign aimed promote more sustainable practices through their own actions, through partnerships with suppliers and through their interactions with consumers. The objectives were set out to improve sustainable consumption by raising awareness, improve practices and products sustainability. The company made it a corporate priority throughout the organization and engaged all stakeholders along the supply chain.

In 2006, Marks and Spencer launched a campaign ‘Look Behind the Label’ to raise customer awareness towards the sourcing of their products. Consequently, brand trust noticeably improved. Plan A was launched in January 2007 with a list of 100 commitments, which later extended in 2010 and now pledges 180 commitments to be achieved by the year 2015. The Plan A commitments are categorized under five topics, namely, climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, health and ‘being a fair partner’. The ultimate goal is to make Marks and Spencer the world’s most sustainable major retailer (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

In 2013, 95 had been achieved out of 180 commitments, 77 were on target, one was on hold, and seven were behind schedule. The company has claimed Plan A their most successful transformation project. The case of Plan A shows how a large private company has engaged and taken a leading role in promoting sustainable consumption. It can be seen as a model for private sector, especially to retailers who, like Marks and Spencer, promote itself on quality rather than price. However, it is interesting of how Plan A could be adapted to a retailer with a lower-cost approach (Flanagan & Weatherall, 2013).

Another case of sustainable consumption movement led by private sector is “Swith the Fish Day”. The campaign run by Sainsbury’s, one of the leading retailer in the UK. The aim of the program is to alter fish purchasing away from the Big Five species (cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns) to more abundant, but less known, species (lemon sole, mussels, Cornish sardines, coley fillets and loch trout). To introduce customers to the alternatives, on the “Switch the Fish Day” the store offers a lesser known species for free when customers ask for one of the Big Five. What launched alongside the campaign was the finding of Sainsbury’s research showing that 78% of all recipes in top 25 children’s and family cookbooks require one of

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the Big Five species. The company hope the campaign help educate and provide information to consumers about alternative choices which subsequently support the change of consumption behavior (Batchelar, 2013).

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4. Sustainable consumption – Singapore 4.1 Overview History of sustainable consumption in Singapore From the early days of independence from Malaysia, the island state of Singapore has been heavily reliant on other countries for its survival. At present, Singapore imports over 90 percent of its food, and less than 1 percent of its land area is used for agriculture (Kumar, 2015). This heavy reliance on imports, coupled with being on a small island, makes Singaporeans historically well aware of natural resource constraints.

This so-called innate sense of awareness of sustainability issues in Singapore are augmented in recent years by several “food scares,” which are addressed swiftly by competent authorities. For example, in September 2008, the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) pulled some 327 made-in-China products off the shelves in all local supermarkets. These included China-made biscuits, crackers, liquid milk, ice cream, chocolate and other dairy-based products (Wong, 2008). This drastic move by the authorities garnered mixed reactions from the community. Some were nonchalant or unfazed, while others felt moderately unsettled.

The “precautionary measure” imposed by the AVA came in the wake of the melamine-tainted food scare, when a food industrial scandal in China was exposed in the media. The scandal “was triggered by dairy suppliers who added melamine, an [industrial] chemical used to make plastics and fertilizers, to watereddown milk in order to pass quality control tests and make the product appear rich in protein” (The Straits Times, Oct 31, 2008). As a result of this unethical food production scam, 6 babies died in China and at least 294,000 children fell ill (The Straits Times, Jan 2 2009).

Although health authorities indicate that ingesting a small amount of melamine poses no danger to the adult body, they also indicated that if consumed in larger doses, it can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure (The Straits Times, Oct 31, 2008). Plenty of similar incidents surrounding food fears have tainted the social history of food, both locally and worldwide.

For example, in August 2007, traces of “nitrofurans, a banned antibiotic fed to pigs to treat illnesses” were found in China-made canned luncheon meat and the authorities had to pull one of the most recognizable canned food items off the shelves (Tan, Dec 7, 2008). In the same vein, the Ebola-Reston virus was found on hog farms in the Philippines and as a result, pork scheduled for import to Singapore was halted (The Straits Times, Dec 16, 2008). The avian flu also caused many Singaporeans to become wary of eating chicken and poultry for a significant period of time. The AVA even suspended poultry imports from the state of Kentucky in the United States early this year (The Straits Times, April 16, 2009). There have also been raised alerts on Salmonella poisoning in poultry, the Mad Cow Disease (BSE) and incidents of deaths and sickness from E.Coli linked with beef production in the US. 68

Singapore enjoys an abundance of food because it imports from diverse sources. The AVA believes that diversification of import sources is the most effective strategy to ensure a dependable food supply for the city (AVA, 2009); however, this also means that consumers in the city are exposed to health risks from unsustainable food production on all fronts. The crux of the matter is that reliance on imported food leads to dependence and increased vulnerability.

As of 2015, Singapore has approved dozens of countries for import of meat and meat products alone (AVA, 2009); and because Singapore’s food sources are so extensively connected around the globe, the issue of food scare is exceptionally pertinent to the city-state.

In summary, Singapore consumer’s rising awareness and gradual demand of sustainable products can be said to result from a combination of “innate islander’s awareness” of the resources constraints, as well as health concerns rising from increasing incidents of “food scares” over the years.

4.2 Singapore government activities & policies The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) plays a leading role in regulating and encouraging sustainable consumption in Singapore. AVA’s vision is to have “safe food, healthy animals and plants for Singapore; trusted and respected globally.” With AVA’s superb performance, Singapore has one of the lowest incidences of food-borne disease outbreaks in the world, despite importing over 90% of its food.

The AVA has a systematic way of safeguarding Singapore’s food imports. The source country needs to first receive accreditation. If the AVA-equivalent in the source country does not meet AVA’s standards, AVA would audit on its own, and factor in such expenses in their annual budget. Licensing is also required before anyone can begin to import food. Importers have to comply with relevant AVA legislations, which for meat and fish would be the “Wholesome Meat and Fish Act” and “Sale of Food Act” and various food regulations. Even after the imported goods leave the port, the AVA has the authority to issue food alerts and recall items that are subsequently found to be unsafe.

One of Singapore’s key strategies in ensuring food security has been to diversify its food sources. AVA has been promoting local production of eggs, leafy vegetables, and fish to higher levels of self-sufficiency. In attempting to diversify external food sources, AVA aims to have no more than 25% of the supply of any item coming from a single source. Other than diversification, Singapore has two other main strategies to ensure 69

food security: 1) promoting substitute products, e.g. frozen pork cuts instead of chilled pork meat; and 2) securing food at source by investing in foreign enterprises, e.g. via contract farming or creating a designated “food reduction and processing zone” situated in another country. Overall, although AVA does not specifically look into environmental performances of farms in its source countries, its demand on high quality and safe food at an affordable price could essentially only be provided by an environmentally-sound farm.

An unclean farm with uncontrolled costs is unlikely to meet AVA’s criteria (Lin-Heng Lye, 2015).

Because it understands the inextricable link between food sustainability and safety, the Singaporean government is also pushing several initiatives to increase sustainable food production for Singapore consumers. For example, in 2014, in a bid to boost Singapore's sustainable food fish production, the AVA is coming up with good-aquaculture-practice guidelines for fish farms. It is also offering $1.25 million for companies to work with the agency on developing closed containment aquaculture systems, meaning those that shield the fish from the external environment - using canvas bags and filtering and recirculating seawater, for example (Chua, 2014).

The AVA has also installed continuous online water quality monitoring systems at some fish farms, and calls and text-messages fish farmers in case of poor water conditions. The initiatives come after a spate of fish dieoffs in January and February this year, in which 39 coastal farms lost 160 tonnes of fish stocks due to plankton blooms brought on by high temperatures and low tides. The government sees the new Lorong Halus jetty as another step to help local fish farmers, whose 4,200 tonnes of fish produced each year make up about 8 per cent of fish consumed in Singapore.

4.3 Singapore sustainable consumption trend In addition to rising consumer awareness and demand for sustainable food, which the Singaporean government supports by way of strict food safety requirements, Singapore also sees a gradual rise of the “eco products” movement, i.e. products that are pitched as environmentally friendly. In Singapore, green products are assessed under the Singapore Green Labelling Scheme (SGLS), which is administered by the Singapore Environment Council. The SGLS was launched in 1992 and is administered by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC). The SGLS is the region’s most established ecolabelling scheme, with over 3,000 unique products certified across 28 countries.

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The scheme applies to most products, except food, drinks and pharmaceuticals. It does not apply to services and processes as yet, but plans are underway to incorporate these into the scheme. The SGLS is also recognized to be a part of the reputable international Eco-Labelling Network (GEN), thus lending the Label added credibility both locally and internationally through its linkages with over 30 other international ecolabelling schemes.

Products with better environmental attributes were first launched in Singapore almost two decades ago, when there was a significant difference between environmentally friendly products and most other products available on the generic market. Over the past five years, the extent of labelling both consumer and commercial products has drastically risen in Singapore as a result of overall environmental awareness increasing. This increase in demand for greener ‘ecofriendly’ products in Singapore has prompted the continual and sustained development and growth of the Scheme to encompass new types of products under its product listings. To date, the scheme has 44 different categories, with the potential to endorse many more product categories. This trend is an extremely positive one, as it is indicative of a changing societal consciousness and rising incidence of large-scale greening of the business and industrial sectors.

In the fledgling stages of the green movement in Singapore, the price of eco-friendly products was high due their limited supply and variety. This is sometimes still observed in the food industry between organic products and industrial processed food, but is no longer so for a majority of products in the domestic and commercial sectors. There is also some evidence that environmentally friendly products tend to be more reliable and durable than conventional unsustainable products, because of the greater amount of research and development that has gone into improving products to be more eco-friendly whilst maintaining rigid quality standards.

Today, Green-Labelled products are widely and easily available at supermarkets and retailers such as Cold Storage, NTUC Fairprice and Carrefour. All certified products are required to display the Green Label logo with a registered user identification number, as well as a description of the product’s environmental attributes. If consumers suspect misuse of the Green Label on products, they can verify the product’s certification online.

Instances of suspected product misuse should be reported to the Council immediately. To prevent the misuse of the Green Label, the SEC is also working with the Consumers’ Association of Singapore to conduct spot-checks on products displayed on supermarket shelves (Green Label Singapore, 2016).

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4.4 Sustainable food and seafood consumption 4.4.1 Institutional context Institutional context contributes positive or negative influences to sustainable consumption. Consumers are sometimes prevented from sustainable act due to structural obstacles, for example the presence of inappropriate policy, insufficient necessary infrastructure, lack of ethical options, and insufficient information.

As described in the earlier section, Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore actively supports sustainable food and seafood through the lens of food security. Economist Intelligence Unit recently ranked Singapore as the second-most food secure country in the world, behind only the United States. The Unit’s Global Food Security Index is based on three factors, affordability, availability, and quality and safety.

Singapore ranks 1st, 11th and 13th on these three criteria, respectively. That puts it ahead of major foodproducing countries like Malaysia (34), Brazil (36) and Australia (9). This achievement is largely attributable to the AVA, and comes despite a heavy dependency on food imports. Through its Food Security Roadmap, AVA has diversified sources of food and optimization of local production. These policies, especially those that seek to diversify the source of food imports, are important as they help to spread the risks associated with Singapore’s high levels of food imports (Kumar, 2015).

The Sino-Singapore food zone established in Jilin Province, China, in 2010, is just one example of food diversification efforts. The Jilin food zone has been designed as a foot-and-mouth disease-free-zone, so that it can be an important source of pork. Not without its challenges, it is meant to enhance the city-state’s food security. This will provide further resilience against food supply disruptions.

AVA has also ensured increased local food production over time through the provision of the Food Fund.

Investments in new farming techniques such as hydroponics have contributed to a 30 percent increase in local vegetable production over the past 10 years. By the end of 2014, some 40 percent of local farms had benefited from this Fund.

From a policy perspective, Singapore has managed to accomplish the difficult task of becoming a food secure country by boosting the resilience of its food supply. Policy alternatives such as diversification of sources, the Food Fund, and facilitating food imports are all important components of a well-planned and coordinated strategy. Nonetheless, the next 50 years are likely to be more complex as alternative possibilities depend on external forces and are subject to global change over which the city-state will have no control.

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Globally, increasing resilience has been acknowledged as an effective strategy against fluctuations in supplies.

This encompasses partnerships, financing, trade, technology, and research and development, all of which are already part of Singapore’s strategy.

Singapore continues to develop its food security strategies, seeking opportunities and addressing risks in an increasingly complex environment. One relevant lesson that other Asian countries could learn from the citystate is the understanding that food security does not mean food self-sufficiency, since no country can be self-sufficient in all food products. National food security depends on both domestic production and imports, and requires effective distribution, in addition to diversification, partnerships, and good long-term planning.

Singapore’s major trading partners see the city-state as diverse, dynamic, highly developed, extremely competitive, and very strict with its sanitary requirements. Customers in Singapore are considered to be open to a wide range of foreign concept foods, conscious of food safety and health, and aware of sustainable products. However, they are not necessarily willing to pay more for them.

4.4.2 Consumer demand In a city-state that has long been known for non-confrontational ethos of its residents, most Singaporeans trust the government to safeguard the citizens’ wellbeing and to pave the way toward a sustainable future has been. Ethical consumers in Singapore prefer to vote with their purse, choosing to support ethical producers, rather than stage boycotts. However, in the age of prevalent social media, there have been some interesting new developments.

For example, in 2012, NTUC one of Singapore’s largest retail stores, announced that they would stop selling shark fin products at all their FairPrice retail stores. This announcement came shortly after the manager of Thern Da Seafood, one of NTUC FairPrice's shark fin suppliers, posted a comment on Facebook that drew much criticism from Singaporean netizens. Some of his remarks included “screw the divers” among other comments, which was posted when announcing the launch of a shark fin product from Thern Da at the NTUC FairPrice. Many consumers called for a boycott of both the supplier and FairPrice. Some called for FairPrice to be socially responsible and stop selling shark fin. After this incident, NTUC said that they are “committed to be socially responsible retailers” and have decided to stop selling shark's fin after much consideration (AsiaOne, 2012).

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In addition to recent food scares described in section 1.1, attempts by various civil society groups, including international NGOs such as World Wildlife Fund, have contributed to rising consumer awareness. The “no shark fin” has evolved to a significant movement with many restaurants and hotels taking. A consumer survey released in February 2016 by WWF-Singapore shows that over three-quarters of people surveyed in Singapore want government policy to decrease consumption of shark fin. Other key findings in the report show that over half those asked ate less shark fin in the past 12 months and that 82% think that a shark fin soup alternative would be acceptable at banquets, with the majority opting for a double-boiled soup as a substitute. It also shows that the vast majority of people are concerned about sharks, and over three-quarters would pay more for responsibly fished seafood (World Wildlife Fund Singapore, 2016).

4.4.3 Civil society Singapore is one of the biggest seafood consumers in Asia-Pacific, consuming over 140 million kilograms of seafood per year. Since more than 87% of the world’s oceans are fully exploited or overfished, it is estimated that stocks of all species currently fished for food will collapse by 2048, so there is a real possibility that future generations of Singaporeans may not be able to enjoy the same seafood. The variety of plant and animal life in the ocean has also dropped by 39 per cent since the 1970s, and globally fishermen have also reached the point of fishing from juvenile fish stocks. Singaporean consumers are increasingly aware of these facts, thanks to the efforts of various civil society organizations including World Wild Life Fund (WWF) Singapore and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), two global non-governmental organizations that are at the forefront of the attempt to increase consumer awareness and demand for sustainable seafood, as well as buy-ins from businesses.

One sign of the growing movement is the success of the inaugural “Sustainable Seafood Festival”, which WWF-Singapore and MSC jointly launched in tandem with World Oceans Day in June 2014. During this weeklong campaign, WWF-Singapore and MSC “hope to create a new movement for responsible consumption of seafood by empowering suppliers, retailers, restaurants and consumers to ‘pick the right catch’. This in turn will drive sustainability throughout the seafood supply chain.” (World Wildlife Fund Singapore, 2014) This festival put the spotlight on seafood products vetted through stringent standards by three key bodies: WWFSingapore, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). The festival drew participation of over 30 businesses, comprising hotels, restaurants, and food retail stores (see Figure 6 on next page).

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Figure 6 Participating Businesses in the first Sustainable Seafood Festival, Singapore

Source: WWF-Singapore, 2014.

In addition to tasting sustainable seafood and learning more about MSC certification, shoppers can also go to the WWF Singapore website to make use of the simple-to-use interactive WWF Singapore Seafood Guide, which includes common Mandarin names and images of seafood varieties, to identify which seafood items to avoid and which are sustainable (see Figure 7). With a variety of sustainable seafood recipes such as Oyster Omelette, Calamari Salad and Goan Fish Curry available on the festival website, WWF-Singapore also targets middle-income families that like to prepare food at home for their children.

Figure 7 Sustainable Seafood Guide by WWF-Singapore

Source: WWF-Singapore, 2014.

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In February 2016, WWF-Singapore told the research team that it is in the middle of turning the “Sustainable Seafood Guide” into a smartphone application, similar to what WWF in Germany has done, and that it expects the partnership with MSC and businesses to continue to the future. WWF-Singapore is also rethinking the format of the Sustainable Seafood Festival – the next ‘festival’ will likely not be a physical festival that is done outdoors, but will likely be an ongoing online promotion held jointly with participating businesses in cooperation with Groupon, the premier e-commerce marketplace that specializes in coupons. WWF-Singapore believes that this online initiative will offer exposure to wider audience and make the movement more ‘permanent.’14 4.4.4 Business sector In Singapore as elsewhere, business sector has a major role to play in supporting sustainable seafood, since buying decisions of one single business are much more impactful than buying decisions of one individual consumer. Thanks partly to the success of WWF-Singapore and MSC campaigns, sustainable seafood in Singapore is enjoying a wider exposure and buy-ins from a variety of businesses across the supply chain. For example, Cold Storage, one of the city-state’s leading retail stores, expands its existing range of certified sustainable seafood products as well as periodically offers attractive promotions at selected stores. Cold Storage was the first supermarket chain in Singapore to initiate a “No Shark Fin” policy, and started offering a dedicated section for sustainable seafood (MSC-certified) at its stores in 2011.

Two hotels in Singapore - the Hilton and Grand Hyatt - also recently received certification from the MSC for serving sustainable seafood at several of their restaurants. Before being MSC certified, Hilton Worldwide has recently ceased serving shark fin across all its owned and managed Asia Pacific properties. The ban on shark fin previews the company’s on-going efforts to develop a Sustainable Sourcing Policy, including sustainable seafood.

In 2015, Hilton Singapore also received certification from Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), and as a result was able to increase the number of sustainable seafood items on its restaurant menu from 6 to 8 items out of 10 items. Hilton Singapore said they experienced no drop in business after switching to sustainable species, but that is partly because every food item has to already pass the hotel’s taste and quality test before adding to the menu. The main difficulty lies in limited or no supply – the hotel prefers to switch all of its seafood served to MSC- or ASC-certified, but cannot find a suitable substitute for certain items.

In terms of chain of custody management, both the MSC and ASC have strict procedures that the hotel must follow, most of which have to do with making sure MSC- and ASC-certified items are stored and prepared separately from non-certified items. Between the two, the MSC-certified items are easier to manage because 14

Interview with Louise Wood, Communications Manager, WWF-Singapore, 19 February 2016.

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the hotel decides to switch entire species. For example, non-certified snow fish was removed from the menu, replaced by MSC-certified toothfish which passed the quality and taste test. There could therefore be no confusion in the kitchen. Managing the ASC items would be more challenging, since for example ASC-certified tiger prawns would look no different from non-certified tiger prawns from a different farm.15 Figure 8 Sustainable Seafood at Hilton Singapore

Source: Sarinee Achavanuntakul, photos taken in February 2016.

15

Interview with Samuel Peter, Director of Operations, Hilton Hotel Singapore, 19 February 2016.

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Millennia Hotel Pte Ltd., a large privately-owned property developer, part of the Pontiac Group, one of Singapore’s largest real estate developers, owns a number of five-star hotel and shopping properties including Conrad Centennial Singapore, Esplanade, Marina Mandarin Singapore, Marina Square, Millenia Walk, The RitzCarlton Millenia Singapore, and Suntec City. CEO of the company told research team that while it supports the notion of sustainable seafood, its relatively large size is an obstacle to actual implementation. For a large property developer, cost concerns are a major driving force of doing business. The company as a whole coordinates buying and procurement decisions for most properties it owns to take advantage of economies of scale. Therefore, when it buys seafood it must buys in much larger quantities than Hilton or Grand Hyatt, which is just one hotel. Finding a sufficient supply of sustainable seafood has been problematic; relatively high price of MSC-certified seafood compared to non-certified seafood is also one concern.

However, the CEO is of the opinion that the company would sooner or later be able to find sustainable seafood, because due to severe resource constraints and rapidly vanishing seafood supply, “eventually everything will have to be sustainable, and prices will then come down.”16 As of February 2016, over 250 fisheries have pledged their support to the MSC to target well-managed, sustainable species which are not considered to be overfished, and to put in place safeguards to curb bycatch and other destructive fishing practices. In Singapore, there is an increasing number of suppliers of MSC-certified seafood, as shown in the following table: Suppliers of MSC-certified seafood to Singapore • Angliss Singapore • Binca Seafoods • Far Ocean Sea Products • Fassler Gourmet • FoodPride • Golden Fresh • Global Oceanlink • Indoguna Singapore

16

Interview with Wei-Lin Kwee, CEO and Director of Millenia Hotel Pte Ltd., 19 February 2016.

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• Lee Fish Asia • Trapia

Global Oceanlink is another interesting example of a seafood supplier that has joined the sustainable seafood movement. The company started by converting 1 per cent of its seafood to sustainably caught ones in 2010 and this included snow crabs. Not only were the crabs up to 15 per cent more expensive than those from non-certified sources, but they were also harder to sell. That cut the company's margins for snow crabs to the bare minimum. "But sometimes it is not just about dollars and cents; this is part of our corporate social responsibility to save the oceans," said Dennis Ng, the company’s operations director (Boh, 2015).

Over the past five years, Global Oceanlink, has increased the amount of sustainable snow crabs it supplies to 10,000kg a month, despite taking three years to reap profits from selling sustainable snow crabs. In total, the company supplies around 15,000kg of sustainable seafood per month to some 60 businesses.

Some others have taken similar steps. Lee Fish Asia's sales manager Sam Buck, 38, noted that there could be a price difference of up to 50 per cent for certain fish such as cod. Despite this, the company has doubled its sustainable seafood range to 80 per cent since it opened here in 2008. Now it supplies about 32,000kg of sustainable seafood to about 60 hotels and restaurants each month.

Seafood supplier companies generally agree that cost is still a stumbling block, as many food and beverage businesses are not willing to make the switch if it means paying more. The problem now is that while consumers here are aware, they are not actively asking and the retailers are under no pressure to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Not all companies in Singapore view certifications such as MSC as the way to go. Sakae Sushi, the largest kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi chain restaurant in Singapore targeting low-to-middle-income consumers, has announced its commitment to “build a sustainable eco-friendly environment for the future generations.” The company currently has over 100 outlets across Singapore, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, U.S.A. and Japan. The company’s founder told the research team that he prefers to “get to know each supplier personally” in order to verify both the quality of catch and assess sustainability of fishing practices, and sees the MSC as placing too onerous financial and operational burden on small artisanal fishermen who could never hope to get certified.17

17

Interview with Douglas Foo, founder of Sakae Sushi, 20 February 2016.

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5. Sustainable consumption – Thailand

5.1 Overview Similar to other countries in Asia-Pacific region, Thailand has witnessed environmental degradation which is increasingly affecting economic growth and worsening inequality, since the poor relies on natural resources for their livelihoods much more than the rich. Sustainable consumption is recently considered one of the innovative approaches to handle such problems (Hobson, 2004). The fact that food has become a global commodity has drastically changed the pattern of its production and consumption in Thailand (Kantamaturapoj, Oosterveer, & Spaargaren, 2012). Food scandals that have occurred throughout the globe, especially relating to bird flu, mad cow and health and ecological risks of GMOs, are among the key driving factors of consumer demand for safer and more environmentally friendly food products. Thailand, like its counterpart in Southeast Asia region, is experiencing an increase in domestic demand for sustainable food, particularly in urban areas (Kantamaturapoj, Oosterveer, & Spaargaren, 2012). Modern retailers respond to this concern by increasing the provision of sustainable food, while improving their sustainable development policy (Zhao & Schroeder, 2010).

In Thailand, the differences in level and pattern of consumption between those living in urban and rural areas are enormous. According to Zhao and Schroeder (2010), in 2005 Bangkok had annual per capita carbon emission of 7.1 tCO2e, which roughly equals to that of New York City. This reflects that Bangkokians’ consumption pattern, in terms of energy consumption and carbon emission, is comparable to major cities in developed countries. Like most other Asian countries, urban per capita carbon emission is much higher than rural emissions. Puntarigvivat (1998) found that the social and economic development of Thailand in the 1990s had widened the gap between urban and rural society. Services and economic growth have been emphasized and concentrated in Bangkok and other urban cities, while much of the rural areas were left poor, undereducated, and inaccessible to public services.

The characteristics of urban lifestyle in Thailand are generally comparable to western consumers, yet there are still millions who do not yet meet self-sufficient level of consumption (Hobson, 2004). This inequality prompted the Asian Development Bank to state that “the masses of Asia and the Pacific must increase their consumption of goods and services” (Asian Development Bank 2000, p. 19 in Hobson, 2004).

It was questionable whether economic and social policies which aimed at promoting sustainable consumption and were directly transferred from the U.S. and European Union (EU) were suitable for AsiaPacific context. Growth in the absolute size of the middle class is likely to exceed impacts from altering

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consumption pattern and those of environmental improvements. For this reason, Hobson (2004) suggests that sustainable consumption in Asia-Pacific context could be a middle-class focused agenda.

History of ethical consumption in Thailand “Ethical consumption” is a new concept that has just recently gained attention in Thailand. What have been widely discussed recently are the issues related to modern slavery in fishery industry revealed by the Guardian (The Guardian, 2014) and the problems resulted from deforestation which increasingly cause damages to health and well-being. This led to the question from the consumer side about the linkage of consumer demand and the problems occurred in the product supply chain. This reflects labor aspect and environmental aspect of ethical consumption. However, one form of the ethical consumption that has experienced market growth in the past 40 years is of organic product.

Growth in organic market was driven by three trends in society, which are 1) a shift in consumer behavior, 2) organic farming seen as solution to losses from conventional farming, and 3) an increase in awareness of environmental problems. The first trend is a shift in consumer behavior, namely those in middle class and upper-middle class have become more concern of their health and food safety. Organic food has been increasingly perceived as “safe food” as they “come from nature” without, or have low, chemical use in the production process. However, consumers’ confusion between “organic food” and “safe food” puts organic products at a disadvantage because they are produced under stricter sustainability criteria than “safe food.”

Only roughly half of consumers know that there is a difference between these two categories (Green Net Cooperative, 2014).

The second trend is a result of NGOS and grassroots farmers’ efforts to find alternative practices in response to the problem of declining prices and yields of conventional crops. For this reason, organic farming is considered one of the viable solutions. The third trend comes from an increasing awareness of farmers of the impact of conventional farming on the environment. The experience of environmental degradation from intensive use of chemicals, e.g. soil pollution, decline in biodiversity, and impaired ecosystems led many farmers to realize the importance of conservation (Supachai Lorlowhakarn, 2006).

These three aforementioned trends enabled a rapid rise of “healthy food business”. Thailand has experienced the “golden age” of health stores in 1992 – 1997, as recalled by many organic practitioners.

However, domestic market of organic food had been growing slowly due to lower price and higher accessibility of “safe food,” the program promoted by government which became a direct competitor due to consumer confusion between “safe food” and “organic food,” as mentioned earlier. This was exacerbated by the financial crisis in 1997 that resulted in several years of stagnation of overall business in Thailand. The organic market later started to recover in 2003 after an international conference on organic farming was held 81

in Bangkok. This was followed by the establishment of state-sponsored “Organic Thailand” standard that helps consumers distinguish between “safe food” and “organic food” products (FAOSTAT, 2011).

Buddhism ethical values and ethical consumption in Thailand Many research reports found that an individual’s perception and ethical actions are associated with that individual’s ethical ideology (Arli, Tjiptono, & Winit, 2015). The study of Buddhist ethics in a suburban community in the Northeastern of Thailand found that Buddhist notions had influenced the world view, ideals and behavior norms of individuals. The villagers stated that Buddhist morals was a guide to a happy and peaceful life, and that following Buddhist ethics would help them become a “good person” who is respected and admired by others. The most crucial ethics the informants stated that they held on to was the five Buddhist morals, the commandments of which include not killing, not stealing, not drinking, not lying, and not committing adultery. Another concept identified from interviews was karma and rebirth. Buddhists believe that good and the bad deeds in past lives have predetermined one’s present circumstances. For this reason, making merit “doing good” and avoid “doing bad” is believed to help improve their future destiny as well as assure a better afterlife (Zipprich, 2009).

Linkage between Buddhist values and ethical consumption can be observed through vegetarianism. The study of how Thai vegetarians integrate vegetarianism into their lives indicates a strong connection of vegetarianism and religious belief element, particularly the first Buddhist precept of not killing any living beings. Therefore, being vegetarian can be conceptualized as a means of merit-making (Makboon, 2015). There are many ways of making merit, such as paying respect and bringing offerings to Buddha, praying and meditation, donating food to the monks, freeing animals, and helping others (Zipprich, 2009).

However, it is not common for those who adhere to Buddhist values to some extent – for example, by observing vegetarian festival – to translate those values into ethical consumption choices in areas that are rife with business practices that directly violate Buddhist morality. For example, there is ample evidence of violation of human rights, including child abuse and torture of migrant workers in several food-related industries. The slaughter of wild animals, especially endangered species, and destruction of the environment due to human activities still continue unabated (Puntarigvivat, 1998).

Because Buddhist monks still get their daily food from poor people, and many food products given to them involve forced labor, unfair wages, and exploitation of natural resources, it is questionable whether Buddhists pay sufficient attention to the unethical production of goods and services in order to incorporate these issues into the practice of Buddhist ethical values (Puntarigvivat, 1998).

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5.2 Thailand policy initiatives Thailand’s first national sustainable consumption and production strategy was developed and positioned as one of the four national strategies in the 10th National Economic and Social Development Plan, 2006-2011.

The plan’s purpose is to respond to people’s basic needs and provide a decent quality of life, as well as to achieve sustainable development while maintaining balanced state of happiness, self-sufficiency and social security. Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) and environmental NGOs led

by Thailand Environmental Institute (TEI), led the drafting process of the relevant strategies (Zhao & Schroeder, 2010).

TEI conducted research on "Formulation of Sustainable Consumption Strategies" and proposed the conceptual framework and strategies and approaches to implement sustainable consumption under the selfsufficiency economy philosophy framework (TEI, 2008). The conceptual framework of sustainable consumption comprises 3 principles including 1) change of consumption patterns toward moderation and sufficiency, 2) promotion of socially responsible marketing, and 3) promotion of effective production and recycling of resources. The framework takes into account three major factors, namely, basic needs consumption, consumption beyond basic needs, and consumer awareness. Individual’s values, beliefs, interests, and financial capacity are factors that influence needs. The provision of knowledge, learning, experiences, and compelling attitude changes can alter the level of awareness which in turn influences consumption pattern. The SCP strategy is supposedly a comprehensive systematic approach (TEI, 2008) (see Figure 1), yet there has been no clear strategic direction that followed this conceptual framework.

Figure 9 Conceptual framework of sustainable consumption in Thai context

Source: Formulation of sustainable consumption framework (TEI, 2008)

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In 2009, the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) published Thailand’s first National Sustainable Consumption Strategy and National Sustainable Production Strategy. The main concept is to maintain economic growth while respecting environmental limits. This is followed by the 11th National Economic and Social Development Plan (2012-2016) prepared by the NESDB. This plan puts low-carbon society as one of the central themes, supposedly via government’s encouragement of eco-friendly production and consumption. On the production side, one of the main goals is to improve efficiency and sustainability in the economy by upgrading production and services. On the consumption side, the main goal is to promote environmentally friendly economy and consumption (Switchasia, 2011).

Thailand sought international co-operation with EU-supported 3-year (October 2011- October 2014) project “Sustainable Consumption and Production – SCP” plan. This project is part of EU-funded “Switch Asia Program” which assists 19 countries in Asia and South East Asia to strengthen the institutional policy framework that would enable effective SCP in both public and private sectors, as well as to share experiences among countries in the region (SCP-Thailand, 2011; ThaiPR.NET, 2014). The main objective of the program is “to support the Thai government in selecting, adapting and implementing suitable economic and regulatory policy instruments to promote SCP, thereby enhancing the long-term sustainability of Thai consumption and production patterns". (CSCP, 2011; SCP-Thailand, 2011).

SCP is a crosscutting issue that involves a multitude of Thai government ministries, local authorities, enterprises, private sector organizations and NGOs (Switchasia, 2011). The SCP – Thailand project has been led

by Department of Industrial Works within the Ministry of Industry and the Pollution Control Department together with the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion, the Office of Natural Resources and Environment Policy and Planning within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as well as by Office of National Economic and Social Development Board. German International Cooperation (GIZ), the Thailand Environment Institute and the Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production in Wuppertal, Germany, help provide technical supports (SCP-Thailand, 2011; ThaiPR.NET, 2014).

The project comprises 4 components, covering both policies and implementation of the sustainable consumption and production in Thailand as well as raising awareness and knowledge on SCP throughout the country. The four-components are 1) institutional frameworks for SCP, 2) green procurement, 3) support programs for sustainable production and 4) SCP awareness (SCP-Thailand, 2011) (see Figure 2).

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Figure 10 SCP Thailand component

Source: SwitchAsia (2011)

The fourth component of this plan, i.e. “increase awareness and knowledge of SCP” is perhaps most relevant to consumers. This component aims to promote awareness of sustainable consumption among local communities. The implementing agency is the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion (DEQP), within the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment (MNRE) (SCP-Thailand5, n.d.). Expected results of this component include the implementation of awareness-raising program and the development of awareness policy and strategy. Sustainable consumption had been addressed in the National Plan, the Environmental Quality Management Plan (EQM Plan), and the Green Public Procurement Plan (GPP Plan) (Nuntapotidech, 2013). The implementation of sustainable consumption programs was initially targeted at governmental units as stated in the National Plan and the EQM Plan that “the government sector should be the leader in green procurement in order to create proper market of environmental friendly products and services” (Tippamongkol, 2014). As for the wider society, the program proposes to measure the progress of sustainable consumption in Thailand by the number of eco-label products placed in market (Switch-Asia Thailand program, 2013). Nuntapotidech (2013) summarizes eco-labels in Thailand as indicator of sustainable consumption implementation as follows: 85

Table 8 Major eco-labels in Thailand Eco-label Green Label

Responsible agencies Thailand Environment

Duration

Coverage

of validity 3 years

Number of product certified

Standard covers 72 product groups, e.g.

557 products were certified (as

Institute (TEI) and Thailand

refrigerator, paper, printer, washing

of June, 2013).

Industrial Standards Institute (TISI), Ministry of Industry

machine, dry laundry, washing detergents, shampoo, microwave, mirror (as of June, 2013).

Carbon Reduction Label Thailand Greenhouse Gas

3 years

Standard covers 9 product groups e.g.

127 products from 35 companies

Management Organization, (TGO), Thailand Business

food and beverage, packaging, were certified (as of December, construction materials, rubber, ceramics 2015)18.

Council for Sustainable

and pottery, petrochemical, sanitary,

Development (TBCSD) and

electrical appliances and electronics,

Thailand Environment

iron and steel (as of June, 2013).

Institute (TEI) Carbon Footprint Label

18

Thailand Greenhouse Gas

2 years

Standard covers more than 16

1,790 products from 416

Management Organization

industries, e.g. food, textile, packaging,

companies were certified (as of

(TGO) and National Metal and

building materials, automobile,

April, 201620).

For further information see http://www.tei.or.th/carbonreductionlabel/namelist/1512-carbon-namelist.pdf

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Eco-label

Energy Label No.5

Responsible agencies

Duration

Coverage

of validity

Materials Technology Centre

pharmaceutical, and handcrafts and

(MTEC)

jewelry (as of April, 201619)

Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT)

2 years

Number of product certified

Standard covers 22 appliance groups,

2,652 products were certified. (as

e.g. television, refrigerator, fan, water heater, computer monitor, LED lamp,

of October, 2012)

electrical rice cooker, air conditioner (as of April, 201621) Source: updated from Nuntapotidech (2013)

20

For further information see http://thaicarbonlabel.tgo.or.th/products_approval/products_approval.pnc For further information see http://thaicarbonlabel.tgo.or.th/products_approval/products_approval.pnc 21 For further information see http://labelno5.egat.co.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=104&lang=th 19

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It is worth noting that the number of certified eco-products is perhaps a suitable measure of producers’ interest in sustainable production and consumption, but is hardly a suitable measure of the level of consumer’s awareness or demand of sustainable consumption; the market share of certified eco-products (as percentage of total sales) is more appropriate. Unfortunately, we could not find market share information of the above-mentioned eco-products in Thailand.

At present, the study on the direction of the 12th National Economic and Social Development Plan (20172021) proposes to further promote sustainable development strategy. Sustainable consumption and production concept is expected to be integrated into the plan (NESDB, 2015), yet a concrete implementation plan remains to be seen.

5.3 Thailand sustainable consumption trend Sustainable consumption in Thailand is currently in a very early stage of development. That the concept has been integrated into the National Plan reflects an increase in government interest in sustainable development. What is crucial for sustainable development in Thailand is a “paradigm shift” to enhance level of awareness across all relevant actors including public sector, private sector, civil society, and consumers. On the consumption side, consumer behavior needs to be changed. The first step, according to some think tanks, would require an investment in time and effort in education system to develop the understanding of how consumption behavior creates social and environmental impacts (TDRI, 2013).

Rising awareness of sustainable consumption may be gauged from the growing demand for organic products, both food and non-food, which show a rapid rise in recent years. The supply of organic raw materials still falls short of demand (Organic Agriculture Development Center, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, Earth Net Foundation, 2015). This is partly due to the fact that such products require significant investments and know-how in branding, technology, and innovations in processing, which small organic farmers cannot access (Lorlowhakarn, et al., 2008). In addition, small farm producers often lack the necessary resources and infrastructure for effective product distribution. This is an obstacle to market penetration in both the domestic and export markets (Lorlowhakarn, et al., 2008).

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5.4 Sustainable food and seafood consumption 5.4.1 Institutional context The most developed form of sustainable food consumption in Thailand is organic food, which has been promoted by the government, international organizations, and NGOs for the past decades. In 1989, the Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN) was established to coordinate between NGOs and community leaders to impart organic farming knowledge and experience to various communities in Thailand. AAN organized its first national conference in 1992, requesting the government to promote sustainable agriculture and organic farming and add it to Thailand’s national sustainable development strategy.

The Thai government has been promoting and supporting organic markets in the past 20 years, with intermittent successes. The National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (ACFS) was established under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives specifically to promote the use of various agricultural standards. This is mainly to address the problem of uneven product quality and consumer confusion. Another effort by the Thai government to support organic farming is the first “National Organic Agriculture Development Strategic Plan,” to serve as a planform for government actors’ contribution.

In 2005, the Thai government announced that organic agriculture was now a “national agenda,” to be propelled and implemented by National Organic Agriculture Development Board (NOADB). The first National Organic Agriculture Development Strategic Plan (2008-2011) proposed key strategies including: promoting knowledge management and innovation, developing organic agriculture in accordance with local cultures, building commercial capacity of organic practitioners, and improving management for the development of organic products. NOADB has been drafting the 2013-2016 Strategic Plan, with the key goal of raising Thailand to be “the center of organic production, trade, and consumption in ASEAN.” However, there has been no progress as of February 2016 (Office of Agricultural Economics, 2015).

Efforts by the government have done very little to promote organic farming. The most important problems are that most policies lack clarity, continuity, and effective mechanisms that are necessary to actualize policies. For example, the government’s “rice pledge scheme” which buys agricultural products at prices higher than market has become a key disincentive for conventional farmers to switch to organic farming. This is borne out by the fact that Thailand’s total organic farmland has not grown since 2011, and the use of chemicals has continued to increase (Office of Agricultural Economics, 2015).

Furthermore, many government policies have proved to be unfavorable. Thailand has a long history of government interventions to shore up fallen crop prices and satisfy the demands of farmers, who constitute an important voting bloc. For example, in 2008 the government guaranteed jasmine rice at the high price of 15,000-16,000 Baht per ton. As a result, many organic farmers decided to sell their crops to conventional rice mills instead of organic sellers. Later in 2012, the government issued another round of price guarantee that 89

distorted market prices yet again. The result is that many farmers who were previously interested changed their minds, decided not to switch to organic farming, since they saw that conventional farming still yield a high price, even though those crop prices in global community markets have continually been declining (Green Net Cooperative, 2013). The government also has not put much effective effort in developing farmers’ and consumers’ knowledge about organic farming (Kasikorn Research Center, 2008).

Given the above-mentioned obstacles, sustainable food as represented by organic product continues to displays a mismatch between demand and supply in Thailand 5.4.2 Consumer demand In recent years, Thai consumers have become more informed about impacts form chemical residues in food products. This is exacerbated by other food-related scandals, especially diseases like bird flu. As a consequence, the demand for “safe food” increases, and organic products are perceived as the safer alternative to conventional food (Roitner-Schobesberger et al., 2008).

A study of consumers’ motivation to purchase organic food in Bangkok reveals three major driving factors, namely 1) the expected health benefits, 2) the attractiveness of new and fashionable products, and 3) the search for tastier products. The result confirms what other studies have found that the perceived health benefit is the main motive for purchasing organic food. For “organic non-buyers”, the top three reasons they do not purchase organic products are that they “do not know what organic means”, “hygienic/safe is enough for me”, and “they are too difficult to get”, pointing out the main barrier to consuming sustainable products.

Lack of knowledge or information can be explained by the prevalent consumers’ confusion between the claims made by similar labels, especially ‘safe food’ labels that seem to promise the same health benefits as organic labels. Educating consumers about safe product has been made more difficult by the wide variety of competing ‘safe food’ labels. The terms used on these labels include ‘hygienic food’, ‘safety food’, ‘quality food’, ‘nontoxic food’, ‘health food’, ‘chemical-free’, ‘pesticide-free’ and ‘hydroponic’, all of which seem similar to the consumers in terms of health benefits (see Appendix1) (Roitner-Schobesberger, Darnhofer, Somsook, & Vogl, 2008).

Another factor often mentioned as barrier to purchasing organic products is price. In April 2005 the price difference between organic and conventional vegetables in Bangkok varied between 50% (for white cabbage) and 400% (for small hot chilies), with most organic vegetables (e.g. broccoli, eggplant, beans, kale, cucumber) having a price premium of 100–170% above conventional products. Organic vegetables are approximately 50% more expensive than hygienic vegetables. However, Roitner-Schobesberger et al. (2008) found that nearly 60% of the ‘organic buyers’ did not perceive higher price as a problem. The study on willingness-topay for organic food have found an acceptable premium price of 10-20% above conventional products, 90

however, it is still unclear whether price is a crucial factor in decision making to buy organic products (RoitnerSchobesberger, Darnhofer, Somsook, & Vogl, 2008).

In spite of being in the very first stage of sustainable consumption, there have been several consumer actions to alter consumer behavior including the campaign to reduce use of plastic bag, the campaign targeted at restaurants and hotel to stop serving shark fin, and the campaign requesting retailers to stop selling parrot fish.

22

-

The first carrotmob in Thailand. The first carrotmob in Thailand was the campaign targeting Villa Market to stop using plastic shopping bags in its Nichada Thani store, where one major international school is located. The store gives out about 500,000 plastic bags a year and was asked to ban plastic bags at their store for more sustainable practice. The campaigner promised to gather at least 500 students to shop at the store on a certain date to show that people really do support the idea, and that this policy would not affect their sale. On that day (20th February 2010) between 10 am to 3 pm, 1,397 shoppers came out to shop and showed support for ‘ban the plastic bag’ message (Carrotmob, 2010). The supermarket posted record sales, subsequently adopted the policy of banning plastic bags, and started selling reusable cloth bags.

-

Fin Free Thailand. Fin Free Thailand is part of the global “Fin Free” movement which aims to encourage businesses not to serve shark fin, in order to protect endangered sharks and consumers’ health. Information about health and environmental risk form eating shark fin is also given to the consumers. Celebrities, activists, divers, hotel and restaurant owners, chefs and students participated in the campaign to promote a more sustainable business in the country. Blue List of “Fin Free” hotels is posted on the program’s official website22 (Fin Free Thailand, n.d.).

-

Stop selling parrot fish. Although the species is not legally protected, numerous scientific research reports have confirmed their vital role in coral reef recovery and conservation. The campaign started on Facebook from communicating to the public about a critical role of parrotfish in marine ecosystem, and how commercial harvest of the species would have significant impact to coral reef conservation as a whole. The topic went viral with more than ten thousand shares and reached more than one million people. After two months of building public support, the campaign was launched for public petition on Change.org. The campaign received more than 23,000 signatures in two weeks (August 2014) and all five major retailers (Tesco Lotus, Makro, Central supermarket, The Mall and Villa Market) announced the ban on parrotfish procurement and sale immediately. The campaign lead commented that the key factors of success in the parrotfish campaign are: concrete

To see the list, visit http://www.finfreethai.org/#!blue-list/c1mhj

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evidence from scientific research, effective communication that personalize parrotfish to public audience, and competitive pressure among retailers (Achavanuntakul, 2014).

Consumer demand: appliance vs dairy A recent comparative study (Thongplew, van Koppen, & Spaargaren, 2014) suggested that strategies to promote sustainable consumption in appliance industry (air conditioner and refrigerator) have been more successful than in food industry (dairy product: pasteurized and UHT milk).

There are three key factors that explain the different outcomes of organic label and the carbon footprint in Thailand.

1) Different environmental characteristics of products - appliance is directly connected to energy and electricity costs, which give direct incentive to consumers that “save energy = save cost.� On the contrary, organic label is currently connected to higher cost, from which direct benefits other than health are not yet easily perceived, 2) Regulation – stricter energy and environmental regulations are enforced for appliances, whereas most regulations of dairy products revolve around quality and safety issues, including guidelines on a much more voluntary basis, and 3) Different configurations of companies affect greening strategies and green provisions - the appliance chain consists of larger but fewer companies than those of the dairy chain, which consists of many small under-equipped farmers.

5.4.3 Civil society Consumer-directed campaigns from the civil society that target food products are typically led by Foundation for Consumers and BioThai in Thailand. The most focused issues are those related to food security and food safety23. Roles of these organizations are mainly to educate and provide information to Thai consumers.

23

For further information see http://www.consumerthai.org/2015/index.php and http://www.biothai.net/

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Several campaigns run by the Foundation for Consumers are associated with health and safety of food, the results of which do influence consumers’ behavior to a certain extent. For BioThai, its objective is to promote sustainable agriculture that conserve natural resources and biodiversity as well as enhance food sovereignty in Thailand. BioThai provides insightful information relating to food production across a wide range of topic, including chemical residues in vegetable, unfair benefit allocation in agricultural industry, and effects from seeds monopoly. This helps broaden consumer knowledge, which in turn motivates some consumers to change behavior as they become more aware of societal aspects of their consumption. However, there is as yet unclear evidence how much the dissemination of such information helped change actual behavior.

On the market level, efforts from civil society to promote sustainable market existed for the past three decades. During 1980s to 1990s, civil groups to promote fair trade in Thailand gradually evolved. They helped facilitate market access for small fair trade and organic producers. Green Net Cooperative (“Green Net”) and ThaiCraft are among the most prominent organizations. In mid-2000, Green Net and ThaiCraft jointly organized informal conference of Thai fair trade practitioners. This event was followed by the establishment of “Thai Fair Trade Forum - TFTF” in 2007, however, the forum has not been successful due to lack of resources, external support (Greennet, n.d.), and relative lack of consumer interest.

Thai fair trade producers can be divided into 3 groups: those associated with World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), those with fair trade certification mostly with FLO Cert, and a few “independents” who do not associate with any networks. The TFTF attempted to unify the WFTO and FLO Cert groups together, but unfortunately it has not been successful (Greennet, n.d.). For civil society, building a robust and consistent network of producers remains one of the biggest challenges. For example, there is still no functioning Fair Trade network organization in Thailand. In 2010, there was a networking event that gathered key fair trade organizations together, however the event was never repeated. One research study suggests that producers have little interest to form a network, since some of them only focus on export market, not still-tiny domestic market. Some organizations faced structural issues that impeded their participation, while some organizations feel isolated (Le Minoux, 2012).

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5.4.4 Business sector Overall, the business sector in Thailand has not yet taken the lead in promoting sustainable consumption.

Sustainable food is still difficult to access for most consumers, and the majority of consumers are much more concerned with their own safety than other factors. The breadth and proportion of sustainable food available in supermarkets are limited and invisible to the consumers (Kantamaturapoj, Oosterveer, & Spaargaren, 2012).

Kantamaturapoj et al. (2012) attempts to investigate the reasons why supermarkets in Thailand are still modest in offering sustainable food, and concluded with 4 main reasons that contribute to the failure of providing sustainable food.

Firstly, products labelled ‘sustainable food’ available in the supermarkets do not match the eating lifestyles of most consumers since many of them are not Thai food. Secondly, the supermarkets in Bangkok, particularly the national ones, are likely to act passively, preferring to wait for government regulations on sustainable food than to actively take the lead. Multinational supermarkets are considered more active, as they follow the instructions of their mother company, while national supermarkets are viewed as less active.

Thirdly, supermarkets tend to follow rather than lead expectations of consumer demand for sustainable food.

Therefore, they would rather respond to the demand; if consumers request more sustainable food, they will act accordingly. Lastly, the “green” concerns of consumers in Bangkok are not prominent. Demand for sustainable food, in most cases, is derived from health reasons. Other aspects of sustainability such as environment, fairness, and social development, are not yet incorporated into the consumer’s purchase decision (Kantamaturapoj, Oosterveer, & Spaargaren, 2012).

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6. Gap analysis The preceding chapters summarized the history, current situation, as well as roles of the government, civil society, and business sector in promoting sustainable food, with an emphasis on “sustainable seafood” in Thailand compared with UK and Singapore. Although all three countries are, like the rest of the world, not far apart in terms of rising consumer interest in sustainable food, as seen in the increasing prevalence of organic foods in retail supermarkets, Thailand still lags behind Singapore and UK respectively in terms of concrete government support, business sector participation, and activities of civil society in spurring more consumer adoption. Key differences between the three countries can be summarized as follows: Issue

UK

Singapore

Thailand

Level of consumer demand for sustainable food and key consumer characteristics

Considerable and rising: historical roots in demand for “slave-free” products, familiarity and support of boycotts paving way for more interest in supporting fair trade products and demanding supply chain responsibility, especially labor fairness issues.

Low but rising: food security and safety concerns, as well as consciousness of being a small island that depends on foreign imports, as well as increasing awareness of unsustainability of food systems (e.g. overfishing), drive consumer interest in sustainable food.

Low but slowly rising: confusion between “safe” and “sustainable” food still hampers demand for sustainable food; consumers still more concerned of price and own health than other factors; Buddhist beliefs not yet integrated into buying decisions of most consumers.

The nature of government’s role in promoting sustainable food

Active: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) plays leading role in promoting sustainable consumption. For example, ran “Green Claims Code” campaign that helps business communicate to the customer of their environmental friendly products; “Love Food Hate Waste” campaign which aimed to tackle food waste; released

Semi-active: driven by a more “free market” ethos compared to UK, the Singapore government concentrates on strengthening food safety standards and diversifying food sources to guarantee food security for the small island of Singapore.

Sustainable food is increasing seen as of paramount importance in achieving food

Increasing role but still sending conflicting signals: the Thai government announced conceptual framework for sustainable consumption and production (SCP), but to date there has been no significant concrete support.

The government seems to support SCP through the promotion of “eco-labels” and let the market sort itself out; as yet 95

the natural environment white security. paper “The natural choice” demonstrating the relationship between food production and environmental goals; the UK government has provided £2.9 billion to tackle land use and production issues abroad that relate to food consumption in the UK.

no discernible support of community-level activities; some government policies such as rice pledge scheme directly hampers supply of organic products, as farmers who were formerly interested in switching to organic turned back to conventional agriculture.

Prevalence of clear, targeted policy instruments in promoting sustainable food

Clear: For example, UK government will work with the EU through the WTO to reduce unsustainable and environmentally damaging agriculture and fishing subsidies in the Doha Round Through a refocused Environmental Action Fund, the Government is supporting voluntary organizations with community level projects which influence behavior and will deliver sustainable consumption outcomes.

Clear: Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore actively supports sustainable food and seafood through the lens of food security.

Economist Intelligence Unit recently ranked Singapore as the second-most food secure country in the world, behind only the United States; the “Food Security Roadmap” contains concrete plans to diversify food sources and optimize local food production.

Unclear: The first “National Organic Agriculture Development Strategic Plan” picks and chooses which organic program to support, citing special emphasis on small farmer support as well as research and development; however, as at the end of 2015 the results are nontransparent and achievements unclear.

Civil society activities that engage directly with consumers

Active. Dozens of NGOs led by Oxfam are instrumental in raising consumer awareness; focus shifted from boycotts in the past, to developing sustainability-related standards and increasing sustainable food alternatives for the consumers.

Active. WWF and a number of local NGOs are gaining ground in working with corporates and consumers to grow sustainable seafood market; first “Sustainable Seafood Festival” held successfully in 2014 which drew participation of over 30 businesses.

Semi-active. Leading NGOs such as BioThai and Foundation for Consumers are active in informing consumers of problems in existing food industry. Different NGOs support sustainable food producers and try to grow domestic market.

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Given that the ultimate goal of sustainable consumption, i.e. changing consumption patterns in ways that respect planetary bounds, can only be achieved by changing consumer behavior to a significant extent, it is necessary for all actors in Thailand to overcome barriers to behavior change as identified by Tunçer (2013), especially the lack of awareness, cost sensitivity, poor accessibility and marketing, and the lack of capacity among public procurers.

To that end, the Thai government would do well to articulate a concrete “action plan” from SCP framework that goes beyond supporting various eco-labels, such as giving direct support to community-level initiatives and small producers of sustainable food, as well as integrating all food-related policy so as to stop giving mixed and confusing signals to the market.

Meanwhile, civil society actors should increase the focus on the following three fronts simultaneously (which do not have to be done by one single organization): 1) increasing consumer awareness of the unsustainability of current food industry, 2) increasing competitiveness of sustainable food choices, and 3) improving sustainable food standards in ways that can strike a balance between consumer confidence and the practicability of having as many small food producers join as possible.

As for the business sector, hotel and retail operators as seafood procurers and sellers in all three countries reviewed more or less adopted the same stance of “following” consumer demand, with a few exceptions such as Hilton Singapore which prides itself for being at the forefront of “leading” consumers on the sustainable seafood journey.

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Appendix A Definitions of categories in Figure 11: Ethical spending in the UK, 1999-2014 • Ethical food and drink includes organic products, Fairtrade products, Rainforest Alliance labelled products, free range eggs, free range poultry, vegetarian products, Freedom Food labelled products, and sustainable fish.

• Green home includes energy efficient appliances, energy efficient boilers, micro generation, energy efficient light bulbs, ethical cleaning products, sustainable timber and paper, buying for re-use, and green electricity tariffs • Eco-travel and transport includes cars and bicycles • Ethical personal products includes ethical clothing, buying for re-use (clothing), and ethical cosmetics • Community includes local shopping, charity shops, voluntary income of top 500 charities • Ethical money includes ethical banking, ethical banking, credit unions, and ethical share issues

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Appendix B Major safe food labels in Thailand Label

Title of the label (including the translation of

Origin and description

the Thai text on the label) Hygienic food (Pilot project for hygienic fresh vegetables and fruits – Hygienic fresh vegetables and fruits – Department of Agriculture)

The label was originally used on produce originating from the ‘‘Hygienic fresh fruit and vegetable production pilot project” that was initiated in 1991 by the Dept. of Agriculture (Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives). In the project, the use of synthetic chemicals is regulated and controlled. The label is meant to be replaced by the new ‘Food quality and safety’ label (below) Food quality and safety This quality and safety certification label is given to agricultural commodities and food products that (Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives – “Safe Food”) conform to the standards established by the National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives) Pesticide-safe vegetables The Ministry of Public Health assigns the label to Quality certification for toxic retailers who conduct tests for toxic substances before selling the products. The label is used on fresh substances control food products that meet the safety requirements of (Department of Medical the Ministry of Public Health Science – Ministry of Public Health) Organic Thailand (Organic Products)

Organic Agriculture Certification Thailand (ACT)

The official organic label by the Department of Agriculture. It indicates that the product has been produced according to the organic farming standards set by the Department of Agriculture These products are certified organic by Organic Agriculture Certification Thailand (ACT), a private certification body accredited with IFOAM since 2001 109

IFOAM

Label of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). Although IFOAM does not certify organic farms itself, the label can be used by certifying bodies accredited by IFOAM Source: Roitner-Schobesberger, Darnhofer, Somsook, & Vogl (2008)

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