The rationale is straightforward and applied, the authors want evidence on what changes behaviour in real life, and what people will accept as a fair way to reduce emissions. The central finding is that pricing is the most effective lever in this context. When the canteen introduced a “bonus malus” system that lowered prices for dishes with carbon footprints below the median and raised prices for those above it, the average carbon footprint of purchased meals fell substantially. The paper reports that, at a carbon price parameter of €0.25 per kg CO2e, the average footprint dropped by 26.8%, and larger price sensitivities produced even larger reductions. This pattern also looks behaviorally credible: very small price adjustments did not move choices much, but once price differences were meaningful, diners shifted toward lower-carbon options.
By comparison, information and bans were less consistently successful and came with trade-offs. Posting carbon footprint labels on dish posters did not lead to statistically significant reductions in the carbon intensity of purchases, even though the labels were designed to be visible and easy to interpret. Restricting supply, such as the meat-free Thursday policy, reduced the weekly carbon footprint by roughly 10 to 12%, but it also reduced canteen attendance on that day by around 15%, suggesting that some consumption may have shifted elsewhere rather than disappearing. Together, these results suggest that information alone can be insufficient at the point of choice, while restrictions can work but may create avoidance behaviours.
Within the category of Sustainable Business Models, the paper is useful because it shows how operational design can align environmental outcomes with everyday incentives. A pricing-based mechanism translates an externality, carbon emissions, into a decision-relevant signal, relative price, without removing consumer choice. That makes it compatible with business model thinking about value creation and value capture, since the organization can steer demand through its pricing and menu architecture while still maintaining a service that users find acceptable. The follow-up survey reinforces this fit with implementation: respondents overwhelmingly preferred acting over doing nothing, and a clear majority favoured the price adjustment policy over the alternatives. In short, the study supports the idea that sustainability can be embedded into routine commercial decisions, rather than treated as a separate add on.
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