UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Alex Neill, an associate lecturer and doctoral researcher in applied social sciences at Newcastle University in Tyne, England, will give the talk “Towards Zero Waste Dining: Evaluating the Impact of Interventions on Sustainable Consumer Behavior” from noon to 1:15 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, in 111 Borland Building on Penn State's University Park campus.
The event is part of a spring seminar series hosted by the Initiative for Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEPI). The talk is free and open to the public.
In the United Kingdom, the hospitality sector generates 8% of the country’s total food waste with significant social, economic and environmental costs, according to Neill. Neill said restaurants already take steps to reduce food waste, yet plate waste remains an issue. Neill’s research looks at how waste can be reduced through direct server interactions with customers, indirect informational nudges and a combination of both.
“The outcome variables of these interventions are impact on diners’ intentions to customize orders, adjust portion sizes and adopt to-go boxes,” Neill said. “Our findings show that indirect and combined interventions are highly effective at shifting intentions. This provides hospitality managers with practical proof of concept for embedding waste reduction into customer facing daily operations. Ultimately, small changes in service can ensure the water, energy and effort used to produce food are valued and used, rather than thrown away.”
Neill is an expert in marketing, sustainable food supply chains and food and agri-business. She brings a practical business perspective to her teaching, having previously managed marketing and operations at organizations including the Economist and Clarion Events. Her current research is focused on understanding and minimizing hospitality food waste.
About EEEPI
Established in 2011, EEEPI operates as a University-wide initiative at Penn State with support from the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and the Institute of Energy and the Environment. EEEPI seeks to catalyze research in energy and environmental systems economics across the University and to build a world-class group of economists with interests in interdisciplinary collaboration.