Reducing meat consumption with consumer insights and the nudge by proxy: the anomaly of asking, the power of protein, and illusions of insufficiency and availability

High global meat consumption presents significant environmental challenges. Interventions to reduce meat consumption, such as carbon labelling, have shown modest and inconsistent results, a phenomenon potentially explained by an “environmentalist bias.” This paper introduces and tests a consumer-centric “nudge by proxy” approach, which indirectly encourages choices that mitigate or obviate external costs by addressing consumers’ internal motivations. First, a consumer survey of 1,500 UK students identified “protein” as the most significant perceived barrier to adopting a meat-free diet. Subsequently, two choice experiments ( N = 3,000) were conducted. Experiment 1 demonstrated that labelling the protein content significantly increased selection of the meat-free option over a meat-based counterpart when compared to both a control group ( p < 0.001) and a carbon label group ( p < 0.001). Experiment 2 confirmed the efficacy of the protein nudge, showing it had significantly increased the choice of a separate meat-free option by over 100% compared to a control group ( p < 0.001). The paper concludes by discussing the importance of consumer engagement and addressing two illusions with future research: the “insufficiency illusion” whereby consumers falsely believe meat-free options to be lacking in a key area, and the “availability illusion,” when meat-free options are available but are genuinely lacking. The author advocates for a practical dual-pronged approach that both reveals and creates better options for the consumer.