Growing Plant-Rich Dining by Design: Co-Designing Behavior Change Strategies to Encourage Sustainable Food Choices

Abstract

Widespread adoption of plant-rich diets is a key climate change mitigation strategy. Restaurants are one of many environments where diets must shift toward more sustainable directions. Researchers have studied behavior change strategies in these contexts, including information provision and choice architecture. However, few have been tested in the field, and the literature has under-addressed the barriers restaurants face in implementation. Additionally, the designs of these interventions have rarely been informed by the restaurant stakeholders who will be enacting the intervention, nor by the customers affected by the intervention, which may lower the probability of its acceptance and success. Integrative designers are uniquely positioned to address these shortcomings. They examine broader systems at play, identify opportunities to change the system, skillfully create artifacts to support those opportunities, and deeply collaborate with stakeholders throughout research and implementation.

This work implemented a series of design interventions in collaboration with El Harissa, an independent restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to increase the selection of low-carbon, plant-rich dishes as a climate change mitigation measure. The design practitioner engaged with the restaurant’s owners, staff, and customers in a five-phase design process integrating Design for Sustainable Behavior and Co-Design. Three behavior change strategies were integrated into custom menu materials: descriptive environmental messaging, carbon labeling, and taste-forward menu descriptions.

Preliminary results from the two-week piloting of these materials indicate that the average emissions per sold dish declined by two percent compared to the control period. In-field observations by the design practitioner and restaurant manager found that the carbon labels prompted positive conversations between customers and staff, highlighting the synergies between quantitative and interpersonal approaches to shift customer behavior. Potential future applications of this design process include additional iterations of carbon labeling visual systems and exploring additional behavior change strategies to support sustainable food choices in restaurant contexts.