More than 2,000 people were questioned as part of a YouGov survey examining consumer attitudes to climate change.

Other points from the survey include:

• Only 26 per cent would reduce red meat comsumption if it meant cutting CO2 emissions.
• Climate change has not influenced the majority in the way they buy their food.
• More than 30 per cent of consumers are not concerned about CO2 emissions from animals.
• More than 50 per cent do not want to see more imports of red meat, even if that meant cutting carbon emissions.
• Fewer than half those questionned believed the farming industry should invest in cutting its emissions.

BPEX head of marketing, Chris Lamb said: "This gives us a valuable insight to gain better understanding of consumers.

"There are also some useful metrics which can help us to understand the complexity of the problem and to measure matters as they evolve.

"This has been a good benchmarking exercise which gives us a baseline against which to compare future surveys to track how consumer attitudes change.

"The work carried out by BPEX on the LCA of pork will also help assess the developments being made by the English pig industry in reducing GHG emissions in years to come."

EBLEX head of trade development Peter Hardwick said: "Climate change remains a very important issue for the red meat sector, even though it doesn't seem to be top of the agenda as far as consumers are concerned.

"As an industry we have government targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 11 per cent by 2020.

"Efforts to reach these targets go hand in hand with greater efficiencies and better returns for producers.

"We remain on the front foot and, with the launch of the EBLEX environmental roadmap Change in the Air, we have demonstrated that we are leading the way on this issue and will continue to push to minimise the impact red meat production has on the environment."

 

TheCattleSite News Desk

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