An Engagement related Behavioral Change Approach for SavingFood in Greece

Food waste is a global problem that has moved up on the political
agenda because of its negative social, environmental and economical impact.
To prevent food waste, food banks and food rescue charities are collecting edible
surplus food from food donors, and match it with welfare organisations to
feed people in need. However, these food redistribution organisations face a lot
of challenges in terms of efficiency, capacity and scale in order to leverage the
full potential. This paper presents SavingFood, a EU-funded project that involves
several grassroots organisations, of which one in Greece, as a solution to
tackle these challenges. SavingFood develops a collective awareness platform
for connecting food donors, charities and citizen volunteers in a more efficient
way, and creating an online community in which participants are motivated to
take direct action against food waste. To motivate and engage the communities
in the usage of the digital platform, an engagement-related behaviour change
approach was developed. The outlined approach involves a strategy for enhancing
engagement by fostering behavioural change, and applies seven different
behavioural change techniques. To inform the strategy, surveys and interviews
were conducted to investigate participation barriers and enablers of food redistribution
among donors, charities and citizens in Greece. The results show that
citizens and organisations should be engaged according to their level of volunteering
experience, attitudes and beliefs around food waste, and should lead up
to tailored communication messages, different participation roles and feedback
functions on the platform that re-enforce a pro-social behaviour towards food
waste.

ISBN:978-3-319-77546-3

Publication year:2017

Keywords:food surplus redistribution, behavioral change approach, collective awareness platforms, Greece, 7E approach