“This is Part of Everything that is Wrong with the World” – A Comparative Analysis of Sustainability Framing in Social Media Discussions About Food in Five Countries

Abstract

ABSTRACT Current western food systems are attested to be clearly unsustainable – but are people aware of this in their everyday life as they deal with the food offerings of their preferred supermarkets? To discover which links people actually make between the ecological, economical, and social impacts of the food systems and their personal food choices, our comparative, qualitative content analysis looks at everyday discussions on Facebook pages of supermarket chains in Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, and South Africa (n = 1.775 comments). Our findings reveal that the term “sustainability” is never explicitly mentioned. Yet, people in UK and Germany, which rank high on the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), do link food closely to a number of very concrete sustainability issues (e.g. CO2-emissions, biodiversity, plastic waste) and intra-generational justice (e.g. fair wages). They discuss a broad variety of problems, even though these discussions do not get political (e.g. promoting political activism, petitions, or buycotts). In the samples from Canada and the US, countries which rate lower on the Environmental Performance Index, sustainability issues and food get rarely linked. The findings indicate that higher ambitions in sustainable development on a policy level go hand in hand with higher awareness in everyday life discussions.