Pester power sways parents towards planet-friendly purchases

TAKING children to the supermarket may make parents buy eco-friendly food, a study has suggested.

The findings could lead to labelling that encourages parents to buy items that are “good for the world, and your children’s future” researchers said.

Parents were 7 per cent more likely to make such choices when watched by their children, as opposed to when they made the decision without any observation, according to an experiment in Austria. Parents were given €69 (£58) and the option to buy trees in a climatefriendly planting project, at €1.50 each, or to keep the money for themselves.

They were divided into groups and observed either by their own children, unrelated children, or nobody.

Parents observed by their own children chose to plant on average 39.6 trees, compared with 37.1 in the group observed by no one, and 38.2 trees among those watched by unrelated children. Oliver Hauser from the University

of Exeter, co-author of the study, said that having their children present gave parents a direct connection to the future.

“When their own children are present during this decision, parents are reminded of their responsibility to their children and the benefits of investing in their future,” he said.

Researchers theorised that this could be extended to other decision-making, such as choosing whether to buy meat or vegetarian alternatives at the supermarket, or when choosing whether to drive or cycle to work or school. “Children may be a powerful, yet underappreciated way to shape their parent’s behaviour,” the study concludes.

The research could also have implications for how green campaigns encourage adults into making more environmentally friendly decisions, Mr Hauser said.

Packaging and labels in the supermarket could indicate that products are “good for the world and for your children in the future” in much the same way they currently show products are healthy, he said. “We could use campaigns that highlight that your children, and other children, will depend on the decisions we make now, no matter how small they may seem,” he said.

But the study also found that among parents who are more sceptical of action on climate change, being observed by their own children was less likely to convince them to make eco-friendly decisions, compared with being watched by other children or adults.

“It is possible that climate changes-ceptical parents think that their children agree with them, would judge them less harshly or believe that they could convince them of their merits of a non-environmental decision, which they may not be able to do to unrelated observers,” said Mr Hauser.

Messaging designed to convince the climate-sceptical to take action may therefore be better coming from people outside of their own family, Mr Hauser said. The study was published in the journal Environmental and Resource Economics in conjunction with the University of Regensburg in Germany.