The VU living lab: a research-led and practice-oriented approach to promote healthy, vegan eating in VU, using a series of behavioural trials.
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam holds a special position in addressing climate change as an organisation and has recently recognised the need to adopt future-proof, planet-friendly diets as one of its four main operational priorities in its Roadmap to Sustainability by 2025 (Green Team, 2020). Nonetheless, despite these organised efforts, there is much more that needs to be done especially in developing a systematic and robust understanding of upscaling behaviour change strategies, amongst university students and staff members to achieve these targets within their desired schedule, that is by 2025.
This project uses a research-led and practice-oriented approach to promote healthy, vegan eating in VU, by combining economic and behavioural policy interventions to improve the uptake of sustainable diets. Specifically, we test whether nudges increase the effectiveness of a meat tax by increasing their public acceptability among VU students and staff. This project uses a series of behavioural trials, by introducing a baseline meat tax and a vegan subsidy, which is then aided by different nudges and prompts, at a large-scale, to promote sustainable diets in VU canteens.
Contact persons:
- Sanchayan Banerjee, Assistant Professor, Environmental Economics, IVM
- Meike Morren, Assistant Professor, Marketing, SBE
- Ingrid Steenhuis, Professor, Prevention and Public Health, Faculty of Science
- Pieter van Beukering, Professor, Environmental Economics, IVM
- Eva van Laus, Portfolio Manager Facility, VU Services
- Linda van Maaren, Marketing & Communication
- Aukje Timmer, Contract Manager, Eurest