Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The current food system is dysfunctional, unsustainable, not resilient and fails to provide everyone with a healthy diet. True Cost Accounting (TCA) is suggested as a holistic approach to move toward a healthier and more sustainable food system. The aim of this thesis is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of nine consumption-targeted measures based on TCA, through Swiss food system stakeholders’ assessment of them, via an online survey. The quantitative data, from the closed questions, was analyzed with linear regressions and pairwise comparison tests. A thematic analysis was used for the qualitative data, from the open-ended questions. The results show an overall positive assessment of the measures in terms of acceptability, perceived effectiveness, perceived fairness and perceived feasibility. Some measures are significantly more acceptable, perceived as effective, fair and feasible than others. From the analysis of the written comments, the responses are probably influenced by the impact of the measures on low-income populations, the lack of support and opposition from relevant stakeholders, the need of a policy mix, the interference in freedom and free market and the difficulty with the data collection and/or calculation. The stakeholders whose activities would be the most impacted by the measures are usually the less positive, but without significant difference. The years of experience working in the food sector do not influence the responses. The more the respondents are familiar with TCA and the more they assess the measures positively, but most of the time without significant differences. The effectiveness and fairness have a significant influence on the acceptability. The influence of the feasibility on the acceptability is less clear. When classified into four policy categories (information-based, nudge, market-based and regulatory), the results show that market-based measures come last in terms of acceptability, fairness and feasibility. Information-based comes last for the effectiveness. Nudge and regulatory are in general having good results. Key takeaways from this thesis are the positivity of the assessments, the need of a policy mix including different types of measures, especially socially supportive and educational ones, the relevance of state intervention in the food system and the importance of multi-stakeholders’ collaboration.