Francesco Marangon

Food waste, consumer attitudes and behaviour. A study in the North-Eastern part of Italy

Reducing the amount of wasted food is a key element in developing a sustainable food system. Large quantities of produced food are discarded and, to a large extent, the waste is avoidable. The wastage of food occurs at all stages of the food life cycle, starting from harvesting, through manufacturing and distributing and finally consumption, but the largest contribution to food waste occur at home. In the past, several studies investigated the amount of food waste in Italy. Nevertheless there is a substantial lack in the knowledge of the reasons linked to waste food at households. The aim of this paper is to focus on the consumption food waste for exploring the reasons of food waste on family level, which is a significant fraction of total, in order to overcome food wasting behaviour and point out options to design prevention measures.

An Environmental Accounting Model for a Natural Reserve

The implementation of environmental accounting in a Natural Reserve produced some significant results in terms of restrictions. First, environmental accounting introduced a limitation in scale which was inapplicable on a microscale. A second restriction concerned the use of a physical unit of measure was instead of a monetary unit. A third limitation was because environmental accounting only takes costs into account, not environmental benefits. These three limitations led us to develop an environmental accounting model that considered resources in the Natural Reserve, both consumed and produced. The model aimed to supplement monetary accounting (based on cost and revenue) with environmental accounting which reflects not only environmental costs but also environmental revenues, i.e. environmental benefits. The difference between costs and benefits, both economic and environmental, represented the value produced or consumed by the Natural Reserve.

Rural landscape and economic results of the farm; a multi-objective approach

The protection and reorganisation of rural landscape constitutes one of the main objectives in European Union agro-environmental policy. Since 1985, numerous measures have been approved with the aim of financing landscape improvement and farm reorganisation. These measures were more clearly defined in 1992, when the timing and content of landscape measures were set in the wider context of agro-environmental policy. European Union intervention was motivated by the growing imbalance between the public demand for higher landscape quality and the land transformation carried out by agriculture. On one hand, the societal and cultural changes which have occurred in the last few decades have produced a rise in demand for green (rural) areas for recreation. On the other hand, the spread of labour-saving technology in agriculture has led to an increasing simplification of the landscape and to a considerable reduction in rural landscape quality. This phenomenon can be attributed to the singular economic characteristics of landscape. In many respects, landscape represents a positive externality of agro-forest activity, which assumes the role of a public good. This therefore necessitates corrective action by the public policy maker who will have to use various means to increase the remuneration of those products which generate positive externalities. Public intervention, however, runs the risk of being transformed into welfare aid. In order to guarantee that it is used to remunerate a real service undertaken by the farmer for the benefit of the whole community, the contribution must be commensurate with the benefits produced. The objectives of this study are, first, to analyse which elements of rural landscape contribute to the aesthetic value of landscape and, second, to estimate the trade-offs between economic results of the farm and landscape quality. An application in the Venice Lagoon Basin Region allowed for the identification and quantification of compromise solutions between the landscape objective and the farm profits. These results can be used to assess the economic consequences of improving landscape quality and the suitability for this purpose of European Union subsidies.

The Economic Value of Wildlife (Game and Non-Game): Two CVM Case Studies from North-Eastern Italy

The increasing exploitation of the environment for productive purposes, particularly agroforestry land, has involved a progressive degradation of the natural resources. At the same time there has been an increase in the sensitivity of public opinion towards environmental issues. The ways in which economists have considered this problem have gradually led to the identification of three main economic functions of the environment: production and supply of resources to the productive system; reception of wastes produced by production and consumption activities; direct supply of utility to the community.

I Payments for Ecosystem Services: opportunità di sviluppo nella tutela delle risorse paesaggistico-ambientali

La protezione del paesaggio e stata per lungo tempo affidata alla Pubblica Amministrazione, che per lo svolgimento di questo compito si e avvalsa degli strumenti vincolistici. Questi ultimi, pero, si sono dimostrati incapaci di far fronte alle conseguenze negative derivanti dall’abbandono dei terreni. Questa constatazione ed il declino delle risorse finanziarie stanziate a favore della protezione delle risorse paesaggistico-ambientali hanno favorito l’affermarsi di strumenti alternativi, quali gli strumenti economici per la tutela delle risorse paesaggistico-ambientali, che prevedono un ruolo preponderante degli attori privati. In base agli studi sulla valutazione monetaria e non monetaria dei beni paesaggistico- ambientali condotti negli ultimi anni, che hanno consentito, da un lato, di individuare le caratteristiche che rendono attraente un paesaggio, e, dall’altro lato, di identificare la disponibilita a pagare per fruire di un servizio paesaggistico-ambientale, l’articolo descrive le possibilita di creazione di un mercato per i servizi derivanti dalla protezione del paesaggio. Viene approfondito, in particolare, il caso dei Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), strumenti economici utilizzati a favore della conservazione/ valorizzazione dei servizi forniti dalle risorse paesaggistico-ambientali. Dopo una sintetica analisi di questa strumentazione, l’articolo si sofferma sulle prospettive di sviluppo in Italia di specifiche categorie di PES, che hanno per oggetto alcune risorse paesaggistico- ambientali preferite dagli utenti.

Preliminary results of a methodology for determining food waste in primary school canteens

Reducing food waste (FW) is seen as a way to improve sustainability of food systems, both in itself and as a way to improve the efficiency of resource use. A first step is to improve data collection of FW. The paper presents the results of a test conducted in a primary school located in the Bologna province. The aim of this study is to define a new methodology to assess FW in school canteens that can be applied in large-scale studies involving all stakeholders. The results show that a methodology for data gathering on FW in school canteens involving all the concerned actors can be implemented. However for the success of the monitoring it is necessary the involvement of teachers that remain the key to success, but also it is necessary to adapt the methodology to the capabilities of pupils.

Willingness to pay for organic cotton: Consumer responsiveness to a corporate social responsibility initiative

Purpose Consumers seem to be increasingly concerned about the environmental and social consequences of their purchases. For this reason, companies are involved in corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies for their supply chain to responsibly manage the consumption of the environmental resources and to support sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the Italian organic apparel consumer by investigating the importance of consumers’ attitudes towards CSR in agricultural products processing industries and their willingness to pay (WTP) for organic cotton clothing. Design/methodology/approach Questionnaire data were gathered in Italy on a Likert scale. Questions focussed on WTP for organic cotton, with the aim to test consumer responsiveness to a CSR initiative in Italy. A structural equation model is proposed to shed some light into this relatively unexplored area. Findings One of the direct implications of the authors’ study is that companies in apparel industry should try to improve their social and environmental performance to elicit the desired consumer responses. Originality/value This implies important managerial implications for new marketing strategies. If consumers’ perception of CSR practices drives their behavioural intention, firms will be motivated to be involved and to invest in socially responsible practices.

Assessing the value for money of protected areas

The increasing unavailability of public financing leads decision-makers to cut funds for protected areas without considering the ensuing environmental, economic and social impacts. The research investigated what and how much value the Miramare Natural Marine Reserve (Italy) was able to create from public funds. The environmental accounting approach was adopted, and environmental costs and benefits taken into account. Environmental benefits assessed ecosystem services such as gas regulation, nutrient cycling, biological control, food production, nursery, raw materials, recreation and science. The model demonstrated that the value produced by the Protected Area fully covered the money spent by public authorities by a rate of 2.5.

Choice experiments and environmental taxation: An application to the Italian hydropower sector

This paper represents the first attempt to simulate the introduction of an incentive-based environmental tax to the hydropower sector. As hydropower can negatively affect fluvial ecosystems, the paper shows how to design and determine per unit tax values for a taxation system that would then be able to provide producers with incentives to opt for more environmentally friendly solutions. The simulation is carried out in the Province of Sondrio (home to 20% of the Italian hydropower production). First, the paper determines the monetary value of the fluvial ecosystem by means of a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE); then, it compares the models estimated in WTP and preference spaces in order to opt for the most effective punctual values to be used as inputs in a newly designed incentive-based environmental tax; finally, it simulates the effects of the introduction of such a tax to a real case. According to our results, the magnitude of the environmental tax is such that it would certainly stimulate environmentally friendly production, without hindering operators’ profitability.

Ethical and sustainable consumption in the Italian coffee market: a choice experiment to analyse consumers’ willingness to pay

Consumers increasingly consider ethical and sustainable attributes of products in their purchasing decisions, in particular with reference to food consumption. Among agri-food products, coffee is a pioneering food for sustainability and ethical certification, such as organic and Fair Trade, whose success depends significantly on consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for these attributes. This study uses a choice experiment (CE) to investigate the attitudes towards organic and Fair Trade coffee among Italian consumers. The results show considerable heterogeneity among respondents, the majority of whom tend to be more interested in organic coffee than Fair Trade coffee, even if a large group of them are willing to pay a premium price to consume Fair Trade coffee.