Transcript Slide 1

Evaluating the Impact
of WRAP’s Campaign
Barbara Leach
Evaluation Manager
General approach
Our campaign aims to raise awareness and change
behaviour thereby reducing the amount of food
waste produced
Our targets are quantitative so evaluation has to
report tonnages reduced
Background assumptions
Our campaign will convert people who had no
interest in reducing food waste into ‘committed
food waste reducers’
If we know how much less food waste is thrown
away by ‘committed food waste reducers’ and
we can quantify the proportion of the
population that are committed food waste
reducers, we can estimate the quantity of waste
reduced.
Committed food waste reducers
Developing a metric
Work to develop metrics on ‘committed food waste
reducers’
Combination of three questions trialled
Amount
Thinking about the different
types of food [we have just
discussed] how much
uneaten food – overallwould you say you throw
away in general?
Quite a lot
A reasonable amount
Some
A small amount
Hardly any
None
Importance
Thinking about when you
have to throw uneaten food
items away, to what extent,
if at all, does it bother you?
A great deal
A fair amount
A little
Not very much
Not at all
Effort
How much effort do you and
your household go to in
order to minimise the
amount of uneaten food you
throw away?
A great deal
A fair amount
A little
Not very much
None at all
Final decision
Two question metric
1. How bothered = ‘great deal’ AND
2. Degree of effort = ‘great deal’
‘Amount’ thought to be unstable and unpredictable
once campaign starts
Awareness will also be monitored but not included in
the metric
Other questions (including ‘amount’) will be asked in
parallel and further analysis carried out
Gathering data for the metric
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Nationally representative survey of main food
shoppers
Face to face
Quotas based on key variables (to be determined)
Baseline data already gathered
Further survey in August 2007
‘After’ survey in March 2007 with more detailed
analysis of the metrics – final decision on metric
On-going tracking after that for as long as the
campaign runs
How much food waste is thrown away?
A national composition study
• More than 1,700 households
• Informed consent
• Linked to survey (including metric questions and
socio-demographics)
• 9 local authority areas in England
–
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North Shropshire, Reading, Ealing, Bradford,
Norwich, Mendip, Manchester, Northampton
• Representative sample
What it will tell us
• How much of what type of waste is thrown away
–
Meat, bread, fish, dairy, etc
• How much food of each type is thrown away by
stage in the ‘consumption chain’
–
Whole unopened, opened and partly consumed, post-preparation,
inedible by-products
• What types of household throw away the least and
most food, by type and stage
• Quantities by origin (e.g. take away, home cooked)
where possible to distinguish
And crucially …
Kg per household per week thrown away by:
1. Committed food waste reducers
2. Households that aren’t committed
Example
BEFORE CAMPAIGN
AFTER CAMPAIGN
• 13% committed
= 3.9 million hholds
• 260kg/yr NCFWR
• 150kg/yr CFWR
• 25% committed
= 7.5 million hholds
= 3.6 million additional
• 260kg/yr NCFWR 150kg/yr CFWR =
110kg/yr saved when
NCFWR becomes CFWR
• 3.6 million x 110kg =
396,000 tonnes saved
Issues with this approach
1. Assumes that all behaviour change will
be from non-committed to committed –
says nothing about those who become
more committed
2. Assumes that new CFWRs will behave
just like the pre-campaign ones – no
evidence for this
3. Any more?