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Environmentally Sustainable Meat Consumption: An Analysis of the Norwegian Public Debate

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Abstract

Private consumption is increasingly being blamed for resource depletion and environmental degradation, and the discourse of ascribing environmental responsibility to the individual consumer has become a part of mainstream policy-making. Measures aimed at promoting consumers' voluntary engagement through sustainable consumption now constitute an important part of public sustainability strategies. Nevertheless, the actual progress made in changing people's consumptions patterns in a more sustainable direction has been modest. Based on a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis of articles on environmentally sustainable consumption of meat published in five national and regional newspapers in Norway between 2000 and 2010, it is argued in this article that an important reason for the lack of both political and consumer engagement in the issue can be attributed to a discursive confusion that arises from a simultaneous existence of mainly two clashing discourses on what is actually environmentally sustainable consumption of meat. One that is focussing on the environmentally malign aspects of consumption and production of (especially) red meat, and another that is focussing on the environmentally benign aspects of production and consumption of red meat. The findings imply that the lack of consensus on the character of the problem constitutes a major barrier for the opportunity to change people's consumption patterns in a more environmentally sustainable direction through the use of voluntary measures.

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Notes

  1. The changes in the structure of meat supply in Norway can be found in the Appendix.

  2. The search string is translated from Norwegian. In Norwegian, the search string looks like this: (forbruk* OR handel* OR kjøp*) AND (storfekjøtt OR biff OR *kjøtt) AND (miljø* OR bærekraft* OR klima*).

  3. IPCC released its fourth assessment report, the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” with Al Gore was launched, and former Vice President Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize. In December 2007, the 13th UN Climate Change Conference was held at Bali, and the Bali roadmap was adopted.

  4. Aftenposten, Nordlys, VG, and NTB.

  5. In September 2013, they lost the parliamentary election to a coalition of centre and right wing parties. The Centre Party controlled the Ministry for Agriculture and Food, and the Socialist Left Party controlled the Ministry of Environment. Both the Centre Party and the Socialist Left Party have relatively low support among the citizens with respectively 6.5 and 8.8% of the votes in 2005 and 6.2 and 6.2% of the votes in 2009. At the election in 2013, the Centre Party received 5.5% of the votes, while the Socialist Left Party received 4.1% of the votes.

  6. All citations from the media analysis are my translation from Norwegian.

  7. Norwegian right wing party.

  8. The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Conference of the Parties (COP).

  9. The Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA).

  10. These organizations are the Farmers Union (NFU) and Norwegian Farmers and Smallholder Union (NBS).

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Acknowledgements

This article greatly benefitted from comments from colleague Siv Elin Ånestad on earlier versions. Ånestad also did the initial data searches for this article. Moreover, I would like to thank the editors of JCP and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Finally, I would like to thank the participants in the project on sustainable regulation, of which this article is a result of, for their valuable comments. The project is financed by the Norwegian Research Council (NRC).

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  1. National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO), Oslo, Norway

    Marthe Hårvik Austgulen

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 2 Food supply quantity in Norway (kg/capita/year)
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Austgulen, M.H. Environmentally Sustainable Meat Consumption: An Analysis of the Norwegian Public Debate. J Consum Policy 37, 45–66 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-013-9246-9

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