Institutional consumers' views of GHG emission reduction by optional milk systems within sustainability frame

摘要

An on-going study examines how Green House Gas (GHG) emission information could beudused to support consumption driven changes in production, leading to reduction of GHG emissions inudagriculture. This paper presents a pre-study, looking for discursive grounds by which institutionaludconsumers make choices when confronted with the knowledge of GHG emission characteristics of fiveudoptional milk systems. The milk systems to be compared in terms of agricultural GHG emissions wereud(Option I) conventional milk system based on imported soy protein feed, (Option II) conventional milkudsystem using domestic protein source and (Option III) organic milk system, as well as vegetable milkudsystems based on (Option IV) imported soy and (Option V) domestic oat. The discursive turn to theseudoptional milk systems was taken by five catering information professionals, who tried to respond to theudidea of catering for sustainability. The results revealed four different discourses, with variable ability toudmake use of emission information when systemic change is to be approached in everyday productiveudactivities. Regarding emission information, the least sensitive discourse was the one of modernization,udemphasising the use of conventional, cheap products. Sustainability and ecological modernizationuddiscourses exhibited most imaginative and novel solutions in productive activities. Bioregionalismuddiscourse joined other discourses connecting them with the idea of domestic production. Theuddiscourses identified in this pre-study were, however, very fine-grained and intermingled, offeringudrather lean support for novel choices. Additionally the market position of organic milk suffered due toudemission information, stressing heavily the reliability of environmental information as a ‘change agent’udon the market.ud